Have you been awakened this March by a loud con-ka-ree? The song of the male red-winged blackbirds is ringing through the air again. Male redwings have been arriving back in Maine since the first of March. Females will not appear for a month or more. The reason for this striking difference in arrival between males and females can be understood as the result of an unequal partnership.

Professional team sports often generate intense opinions about player skills, and myriad statistic tables about pro ballplayers can support a claim one way or the other.

Back in the day, there were two types of skiing — on-piste and backcountry. You were either skiing on lift-serviced trails at a resort, or you were hiking for your own turns on unpatrolled, often unmaintained slopes. In recent years a third option — sidecountry, or “slackcountry” — has been growing in popularity.

The fishermen who gather at the Western Maine Fly Fishing Expo in Bethel next week will come together for more than a fishing festival.

Each year the Alaska State Fair holds a moose calling contest, dubbed the “Moose Calling & Tall Tail Contest.” But across the Lower 48 states, nowhere but Maine appears to hold an annual moose calling contest.

Let’s go fly-fishing in March before the spring run-off starts in earnest. The best early-spring action occurs before spring melt raises rivers and streams over the banks, which slows angling action until flows subside.

Last January, Peter Kallin of Rome stopped at my home, and in the middle of our conversation, he said something that perked my ears up straighter than a Boston terrier’s.

Most residents of this state have at least an inkling that snowmobiling spurs the winter economy, particularly folks in rural hamlets in northern and eastern Maine. They really get a firsthand view of this sport’s importance, as sledding crowds flock to local businesses.

Stripers Forever (SF), a conservation organization that monitors our striped-bass resources, recently pointed out that the recreational catch of wild stripers along the Eastern Seaboard has dropped from nearly 29 million in 2006 to 8 million in 2011, thanks to poor spawning success in Chesapeake Bay and also to over-harvesting by recreational and commercial anglers.