What Brings Upper Marlboro's Winter Geese Back Is a Cornfield

Every winter, Merkle Natural Resources Management Area on Fenno Road hosts the largest concentration of Canada geese on the Chesapeake Bay's western shore. The flock comes because of the land itself, which has to be farmed for them. Three years ago the planting had drifted away from what geese eat. Since then, Maryland has used a deer hunt, a rewritten farm lease and a block of standing corn to bring the fields back.

That history explains a few things a Sunday visitor will see this season. Some fields are left unharvested on purpose. The hedgerows have been cut back hard. One day of the week works very differently from the other six.

Six pairs of geese and a farm built around them

The flock began as a deliberate experiment. In a Bay Journal feature on the sanctuary, magazine printer Edgar Merkle is described noticing that the Patuxent had no geese while he was duck hunting there in the 1920s. He bought 400 acres along the river in 1932 and released six breeding pairs. The first generation migrated in 1934 and came back the following year with their young. According to the same article, he eventually stopped raising cattle because the herd competed with the geese for grass. An exhibit at the sanctuary credits him with "inspiring geese to break their habit of wintering on only the Eastern Shore of Maryland."

From the start, the arrangement depended on food. The Bay Journal piece reported an estimated 4,000 to 5,000 geese spending each winter there. It described the birds drifting inland to feed by day, "poking the ground for corn," and going back to the river at night. When the fields stop offering what the geese want, the reason to stop at Merkle gets weaker.

How deer changed what got planted

The problem reached Annapolis through the state budget. In the 2025 Joint Chairmen's Report, dated April 22, 2025, the General Assembly's budget committees asked the Department of Natural Resources to grow food plots meant to attract and keep migratory geese on the upper Patuxent. They also asked DNR to limit visitor disturbance between October and March and to report back by October 1, 2025. The legislature's FY 2027 analysis of the DNR budget puts the concern bluntly. The committees worried that "Maryland's only wildlife management sanctuary is not being sufficiently managed for migratory Canada geese."

DNR's response, as summarized in that analysis, traced the issue to deer. The steps went like this:

• Growing deer numbers pushed tenant farmers toward deer-resistant crops like hay and soybeans, which pay better but draw fewer geese.
• DNR started a managed deer hunt in calendar 2023 to cut crop damage.
• With less deer damage, the tenant farmer went back to planting corn on the row-crop parts of the Merkle lease and the neighboring Truman property lease.
• DNR amended the lease so 15 acres of standing corn would stay in the field through the 2025-2026 hunting season.
• Staff thinned hedgerows that had been blocking waterfowl from reaching the fields, and planned a sunflower plot.

DNR's own habitat page describes the current plan in slightly different numbers. It sets a goal of 10 acres of standing corn kept through the winter "in a fruitful partnership" with the local farmer. It plans to turn part of the farm fields into a sunflower plot that serves as pollinator habitat and as a field for regulated dove hunting. So the corn target has gone from 15 acres in the 2025-2026 lease terms to 10 acres in the plan DNR now posts. The tool hasn't changed, though. Corn is left standing in the field so geese can feed on it.

Why the hedgerows look rough right now

If you last drove through Merkle a few years ago, the field edges may look harsh. DNR explains that wildlife staff planted those hedgerows in the 1980s, that "management delays" let them grow overmature, and that the work now includes removing invasive species, planting native species, and using techniques that mimic the disturbance of a storm or fire. The agency says plainly that "the early stages of these activities may look alarming." Opening up the edges serves two purposes. It brings back the shrubby habitat other wildlife needs, and it removes the barriers that were keeping geese out of the fields where the corn is.

Sunday works on a different schedule

Managing for geese and deer at once divides the week cleanly, and that matters most to anyone planning a visit.

The deer hunt that made the corn possible is still running. Merkle allows archery-only deer hunting Monday through Saturday, from the Friday after Labor Day through February 3. Hunters need daily reservations, and no more than 20 are allowed each day. DNR's page states, "No Sunday hunting is allowed." Applied to this year's calendar, that rule puts the hunting window at September 11, 2026, through February 3, 2027. Those dates overlap almost exactly with the months the geese are on the fields.

Sunday is also the one day the full Chesapeake Bay Critical Area Driving Tour opens to cars.

DNR's visitor pages don't say that trails or the tour close on hunt days. The calendar still puts the full drive on the one day of the week with no hunting.

The drive itself

The tour is free, one-way and 4.3 miles long. It begins at the entrance to the Jug Bay Natural Area of Patuxent River Park at 16000 Croom Airport Road, which you reach from Croom Road. It crosses Mattaponi Creek into Merkle. Along the way it winds through woods, tidal and non-tidal marsh, and open farm fields, which are the same fields the corn plan covers. Drivers can leave their cars only at designated stops. The best of those is the 40-foot observation tower on the Merkle side, overlooking the Patuxent. DNR lists the Board Walk and Lookout Creek Trail as other points of interest, and notes that both ends of the drive have visitor centers with water and restrooms.

Time matters as much as the day. Ranger Karen Jarboe of the Maryland Park Service described the birds' daily routine to the Bay Journal:

"The geese arrive around 10 a.m., and leave around dusk for the water. The water is their security. Most of their predators are on land."

That puts the Sunday car window of 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. right over the hours the geese are inland on the fields. In the same article, Jarboe named December as the best month, "when their journey ends, and the population peaks." DNR gives the wintering window as November through March. A drive on the last Sunday of October may be early. The Sundays of December fall in the peak.

The visitor center now runs by appointment

The Bay Journal feature describes a two-story glass wall at the Frank Oslislo Visitor Center, with binoculars and a spotting scope set up along its base. Today DNR lists the building as "open for viewing by reservation only," with visits arranged by emailing [email protected]. If seeing the fields through that glass is the reason for your trip, book ahead. The grounds stay open sunrise to sunset without a reservation.

Putting a Patuxent weekend together

The Jug Bay end of the drive has its own schedule, and one date lines up with the start of the goose season.

1. Saturday, November 14. PG Parks holds its free Bird Watching at Jug Bay walk from 8 to 11 a.m. for ages 14 and up, meeting at the Visitors Center. These guided walks normally run on the second Saturday of each month.
2. Sunday, November 15. Drive the Critical Area Driving Tour between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m., starting at Jug Bay and ending at Merkle's fields and tower.
3. Any week, by phone. Guided tours of the Patuxent Rural Life Museums at Patuxent River Park run year-round by reservation. They cost $4 for residents and $6 for nonresidents.

The Patuxent River Park page lists its Visitors Center as open daily from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Park pages list different morning opening times for the Jug Bay area, so check the Jug Bay Natural Area page before planning an early start.

At The DAPO Group, we keep track of the parts of Upper Marlboro that run on their own calendars, from the horse shows in the fall to the corn left standing at Merkle in December. If you'd like to talk through how the Patuxent side of town fits your weekends and your plans, Book A Discovery Call with us.