Otters & Eagles

This January, a rare cold seized Virginia Beach. It was the last few weeks of duck season, but the ice on Back Bay was so thick in many places that even the power of the heavier juniper boats had problems breaking through the ice  - winter's grip was tight. Some of the duck hunters ended up on the North Landing River. The creeks off of the North Landing were locked up in ice as well, but since the main channel of the river is part of the intracoastal waterway, the few yachts who dared the ice etched a ribbon of open water for the duck hunters. A barge plowed its way upriver Saturday morning and put a real hurting on the ice and loosened winter's hold.

You know that quiet, serene boat ride you look forward to on a sluggish blackwater river? Yeah, that’s not what it was like boating that Saturday. My boat was a noisy intruder of the stillness of a winter river. As part of the Winter Wildlife Festival, I took nature lovers out on the North Landing to look for wildlife - eagles, mostly. The boat ride that morning was thunderous as the boat cut through the ice choked water.  We did find eagles. Lots of eagles. We even had the rare spectacle of experiencing a cormorant escape the talons of a swooping eagle by a feathers edge. We also saw more ducks than I have ever encountered on the river. Ducks need open, ice free water and the creeks and pools were frozen.

On one tour we came across a lone juvenile bald eagle perched atop a dead pine tree. I cut the engine and the boat stopped, the ice our anchor. As we watched the eagle and the noise from the ice dissipated, we heard a faint crunching sound. Resting in the gnarled roots of a cypress tree, two river otters were enjoying the fish they had just caught, so I used my shove pole to slowly push the boat forward while the otters were otherwise engaged. We were lucky enough to spend fifteen minutes in their company, watching and watched.

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Owls in the Swamp

I had been walking in Gum Swamp for nearly six hours. ‘Walking’ is not the appropriate word. It was more of a hellish slog through ankle to knee deep muck. The temperature was in the thirties, but I was drenched in sweat in my neoprene boot sock waders. The hat, gloves and wool sweater my mother made were already in my backpack. The water was low in the swamp due to the lack of rain the past few months, so it was easier - or, rather, less hard - than it could have been. I had trudged to a hummock in the swamp and was making my way back to the road where I left the truck. It’s a two hour haul just to cover a mile. I only know of one other person who has been there, and he named it the Devil’s Bedroom. I have been to that swamp island twice before, but that is a story for another time. 

I made my way through the pathless swamp after departing the island and could see the main creek channel through the cypresses and gums - walking would be easier along the creek edge. In a flash, a small hawk flew and landed a few yards in front of me with a small rodent held tightly in its talons. In the same instant, an enormous barred owl flew towards the hawk and the hawk disappeared as fast as he had shown himself. The owl, sensing me, flew a few yards into the swamp and landed on the trunk of a tree, its wing wrapped around the trunk for balance. He stared intently towards where the hawk disappeared for a moment, then vanished into the swamp - as did I.

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A hummock in the swamp

There is no scarcity of palustrine wetlands in southern Virginia Beach - they are a defining feature of the landscape in this part of our state. There are marshes, pocosins and swamps. Although I explore the marshes at any time of the year, I do not venture into the swamps in the warmer months. The vegetation is so thick that it is difficult to see well and, of course, the snakes and angry, biting hordes of insects are distracting. And it’s hot. Ninety degree days trudging through deep mud in waist deep water wearing chest waders is a miserable way to spend a morning. In the winter months, however, I’m all in! The only thing that bites in winter are the greenbriars - my tenacious tape patched up neoprene boot-sock waders are evidence of my battles with nature's version of barbed wire. I might go with canvas waders next time. 

It was a cold day in January and the water level in the swamp was lower than normal due to the near drought conditions that hve persisted for several months. It was cold, but wading through shin-deep mud for two hours is exhausting and it did not take long before my sweater, gloves and hat ended up stuffed into my backpack. I was on a mission. Deep in this swamp there is a hummock - an island that rises out of the morass. I have been there twice before. Once with one of my sons. Once with a friend that will not go back. He swears I was trying to kill him. I have asked others to accompany me, but  once I explain that to reach the island you must wade a mile through a swamp with no trail in up to waist deep water and knee deep mud, well, all but two have declined. So, I went alone.

The hummock rises six feet out of the swamp, like an oasis and a refuge from the mire. The island is approximately one hundred yards wide and four hundred yards long and there are no signs that anyone has ever been there. Ever. A friend of mine that believes he ended up there once while hunting called it the Devil’s Bedroom because you have to go through hell to get there. The island may be the most tranquil and concealed place that I have ever chanced upon,  but I must remember that the way back is the same as the way in. 

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Ecotourism

Virginia Beach is often recognized as one of the best cities on the east coast in which to live. Different organizations use varying criteria to determine the ‘desirability’ of a place, but overall, Virginia Beach often ranks high among the larger east coast cities no matter what the standards are. Our city has decent schools, beaches, a mild climate, lowish crime rates, seafood, things to do. I have seen some of the Virginia Beach commercials that run up north. They promote the beach, the bay and ocean, restaurants, swimming, the boardwalk, shopping, museums…you know, stuff they think tourists are seeking, whomever ‘they’ are. I have seen some quick video clips of charter fishing included in those commercials. And dolphins. Always dolphins.

Ecotourism is one of the fastest growing sectors of the tourism industry but is not addressed in most ads encouraging people to visit the city. Bird watching and nature-based activities are popular and demand is rising. Approximately one-third of all bird species globally rely on wetlands for breeding, feeding, and shelter and, boy, does Virginia Beach have birds and wetlands! The southern half of Virginia Beach - actually 67% - drains south to the Albemarle. The North Landing River, Back Bay and the Northwest River are part of the Chowan drainage basin and ⅓ of Virginia’s rare plants occur in the Chowan River Basin, but this area only covers ca. 8% of Virginia’s landmass. Generically, the southern ⅔ of Virginia Beach is called the Southern Rivers Watershed (SWA) and the VA Dept. of Conservation and Recreation has documented the presence of 19 rare natural communities, 67 rare plants, and 22 rare animals within the SWA.

Why the city does not promote environmental tourism, I do not know. On the other hand, I enjoy having the whole place basically to myself. Oh, and if you’re looking for a private boat ecotour, I know a guy…

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An Albemarle Experience

Borders are lines drawn on a map by people. They are political boundaries, primarily for defense and taxes. When I tell people that the North Landing River and Back Bay in southern Virginia Beach are the northernmost extent of the Albemarle-Pamlico Estuary, they often reply that the Albemarle is in North Carolina. Well, it is. And it is in Virginia. Water, plants and animals don’t seem to acknowledge our borders as they move freely within the region of the Albemarle. The North Landing is especially unique. It rises from groundwater in the swamps and flows as a sluggish, blackwater coastal river south to join the Currituck Sound just over the border in North Carolina. But the water does not just flow south - it flows both ways depending on the wind. Wind tides determine whether the river is high or low.

This region - southern Virginia Beach - is located at the northern range for many southern species and the southern range for many northern species. It is also bordered by the two largest estuaries in the United States - the Chesapeake Bay and the Albemarle-Pamlico. Due to the blending of so many northern and southern species, the biodiversity in the region is exceptional. The region “supports 19 rare natural communities plus 67 plant and 22 animal species rare to Virginia.”

And it’s just so quiet. On an early, cold bluebird day in January in a shallow creek, you are in  another world. A world of dark water, marsh, and bald cypress. A secret place of wood ducks and otters where the only sounds come from the rustling of the marsh grasses in the early morning breeze. Perhaps it’s more of an experience than a place. An Albemarle Experience. 

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A Gateway

The North Landing River is a gateway. If you are traveling north on the river through the heart of Virginia Beach, you are surrounded by wide marshland and tangled pathless swamps. Bald Cypress and Bald Eagles, residents of these wetlands for eons, watch indifferently. Passing the North Landing Bridge, you will enter the Chesapeake and Albemarle Canal and reach the port city of Norfolk and the Chesapeake Bay beyond. 

Traveling south on this Virginia Scenic River, the river widens - as does the marsh - and you enter a quieter world. The North Landing merges with Currituck Sound, both part of the Albemarle-Pamlico Estuarine System, the second largest estuary in the US. From the mouth of the North Landing you have access to the Outer Banks of North Carolina, secluded beaches, blackwater rivers, and the abundant calmness that hangs over the Albemarle region. The North Landing connects our unrestrained, delirious urban world with the tranquil Land of the Wild Goose. The North Landing River itself is an escape - a wild, undeveloped, massive system of marsh and swamp and pocosin, home to what is still wild in Virginia Beach. And home to amazing sunrises.

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West Neck Creek

Today, West Neck Creek connects the Chesapeake Bay and the Albemarle - the two largest estuaries in the United States. It was not always so, channelization made the connection. I am told that the city of Virginia Beach once promoted a Chesapeake to the Albemarle canoe race in the 80’s. The natural portion of the creek, from the Speed Fentress bridge south, is included in the North Landing River designation as a Virginia Scenic River. It is a very wild place. The creek courses through a most impenetrable landscape of wetlands, switch cane, shrubs and unforgiving mud - a haven and a corridor for wildlife. Spanish moss and enormous bald cypress trees grow along the banks. There are at least two bald eagle nests along the creek and mink, bobcats, and river otters are seen regularly and the occasional bear. Evidence of beaver activity can be found as well, a sign that they are thriving in the wetlands that surround the North Landing River and its tributaries. 

On a recent January day on West Neck, I sat watching a Great Blue Heron. She was disinterested in me, unmoved by my proximity, staring intently at the opposite bank. I followed her gaze and spotted two river otters swimming towards us, stopping regularly to eat the fish they were catching in the roots and limbs of fallen trees along the bank. At one particularly productive tangle of roots, the otters stayed. It was then that the great bird lifted and flew towards the otters and landed within feet of them. As the otters hunted for fish hiding in the tree roots, the heron picked off the smaller fish that escaped the otters. When the otters stopped to eat the fish they were catching or to rest, the heron waited patiently for them to resume hunting and deliver fish to her. The old bird is quite the opportunist.

(Can you spot the second otter?)

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Sittin’ in a Swamp

Nowadays, there are photographers most everywhere. We all have a camera in our phones available any time we deem something picture-worthy and what would probably amount to hundreds of albums of pictures in our pockets. This is a great thing, mostly. Every magnificent sunset is captured and every birthday is documented to the n’th degree. But there is something about flipping through the pages of a three ring photo album versus hunching over a phone screen and pinching in and out as we zoom. When you had to pay to see your pictures only the best ones made the album. Now, we can take as many pictures as we want to, but the delete button is not used as often as it should, including mine. 

My Nikon does not fit in my pocket, however, so I have to make a conscious decision to take it with me and devise a plan for where I am going, what time I am going and what I hope to see - hope being the driving force. Often, in the colder months, I go into a swamp.

Photographers are everywhere in today's world, but not here. I sit in solitude, a silent observer of the natural world. The swamp, a place often overlooked, reveals its profound beauty if you have a pair of chest waders and enter this darker, wetter world. Some days beavers or otters make an appearance. On other days, the wood ducks glide silently by. Other days it’s just a retreat into a different world and a respite from looking at pictures on other peoples phones.

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A Magical Place

The North Landing River is truly a magical place. The river emerges from the dark, shadowy swamps in southern Virginia Beach. The water percolates up through the thick layers of mud and peat, turning dark as coffee as it slowly trickles past giant cypress, tupelo and gum trees. The waters gather, forming creeks which eventually, slowly, join and form the North Landing. Although the main channel of the river itself is only 23 miles long from the headwaters in Gum Swamp to where the river empties into the Currituck Sound, there are over 77 river miles to explore, almost all of it isolated and unrevealed to all but duck hunters and fishermen.

The North Landing River, as part of the Pasquotank River Basin, is geographically part of the Albemarle-Pamlico Estuarine System. 67% of the water in Virginia Beach flows to the Albemarle, the second largest estuary in the United States, not to the Chesapeake. The North Landing is the northernmost extent of the Albemarle, and when you are deep in a creek, at sunrise, watching the first light of day illuminate the marsh and filter through the cypress, it feels like the Albemarle, like magic.

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Otters Under the Moss

There is a ribbon of wilderness that weaves its way through Virginia Beach - a splendid corridor of water and wetlands. The North Landing is a beautiful blackwater river that flows slowly from the heart of the city and joins the Currituck Sound just over the border with North Carolina, draining the swamps and marshes in the southern portion of the city. It is here, not so far from the beaches that draw millions of tourists, that you can escape the throngs of beachgoers. There are no souvenir stores, no strip malls, no police on every corner - there aren’t even any corners. It’s just thousands of acres of wetlands and miles of water.

 The river is home to an astonishing variety of natural communities, many of them rare, both at the state level and globally. This is the most biodiverse region in Virginia this side of the Blue Ridge mountains and there is no other river in Virginia with as many rare, threatened, and endangered plant and animal species and wetland communities. This is an environmental wonderland where eagles and osprey share the skies, dolphins feed in waist deep water, deer and bears slink through the sawgrass and - if you know where to look - river otters can be spotted under low hanging Spanish moss. 

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Morning in a Swamp

I am trying out a new idea I came up with today. A kind of video blog, in a way. I will take my writings, condense them a bit, and record myself reading the excerpt while displaying some of my pictures. We’ll see how it goes! The very first one is now available below. I may have to upload future videos to YouTube and embed them below due to space constraints on this site. Take a look and let me know what you think!

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A quiet morning in gum Swamp watching the wildlife.

Sitting in a Swamp

Sitting here in this swamp. Leaning up against a tree in my ghillie suit, I feel like I am invisible. Many warm months have passed since I last explored this tangled, mysterious world. It’s dark. Shadowy. The water is as black as the coffee in the thermos cup I clutch with both hands for warmth. It is at last getting cooler at night now that Fall has arrived. The cold chases the snakes out of this deep, wild swamp and allows me to wade and wander with less trepidation. Now I can concentrate on not falling and filling my waders instead of scanning every log and bush for the legless one, although, I must admit, I still look.

The towering cypresses and gums block out all but the most random rays of light, leaving a world of black and gray and shadows. And secrets. It is here, where the ground and the water have traded places, that the North Landing River originates. Like most blackwater rivers, her source is the groundwater that is stained by the primal mud and layers of peat of this southern swamp. The dark, tannic water percolates through the soft muck, gathers and flows between the cypress knees and swamp tupelos rising out of the lightless water, forming streams and ultimately the river. 

Silent and motionless, I watch the mink clamber about the beaver lodge. Searching. The beaver seems oblivious. Wood ducks and mergansers glide silently by. It’s morning in a swamp.Quiet. Dark.

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Live Oaks & Spanish Moss

The raw, bone chilling winds that race across the lagoons and drowned river mouths of southern Virginia Beach in winter are giving way to more gentle, warmer southerly breezes. Signs of spring are beginning to surface along the creeks, hinting at the miles of vivid green grasses that will soon emerge from the soft, dark mud. Unending numbers of flowers in every color prepare to reappear as the days get longer and the migrating birds return to the feast the marshlands offer.

Shallow draft boats, shove poles and chest waders are preferred to explore this shallow, unique world of dunes, islands, sinuous creeks and marsh. In the shade of imposing live oaks draped in curtains of Spanish moss, the borderlands of Virginia and North Carolina still keep secrets and make for the perfect place to drift lazily on an early spring day.

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Bird Watching

Bird watching - or birding - is the fastest growing hobby in the United States with over one third of Americans participating at some level. Here in Virginia Beach and northeastern North Carolina, birdwatchers have the opportunity to see hundreds of species of birds depending on the time of year. Birds from the arctic and the tropics pass through our area because we are situated along the Atlantic Flyway. The variety of birds to be seen is astounding. There are shorebirds on our strands and wading birds in the wetlands. Raptors soar through the air during the day as well as the night sky and our swamps and forests echo with birdsong. A most impressive sight is the island rookery in Currituck Sound where hundreds of pairs of wading birds raise their young each year.

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Dolphins & Wading Birds

Along with the rookery at Monkey Island where there are hundreds of wading birds nesting, one might get lucky and run into dolphins in Currituck Sound and perhaps a wild horse or two in the marsh.

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Dolphins in Currituck Sound

Spring Flowers

The first flowers to bloom on the North Landing River are the Virginia iris, beautiful - light blue and purple flowers that emerge along the water's edge. The iris is also known as the Southern Blue Flag Iris. Shortly after the iris bloom in early spring, pickerelweed begin their show of violet and blue and continue blooming all through the summer months. Unlike Virginia iris, much of the pickerelweed plant is edible, including the seeds and leaves. As the heat of summer builds, evening primrose add yellow to the palette, as do the pinks of the swamp mallow and the white flowers of arrowhead. The largest and most showy of the blossoms on the river are the rose mallows, but they will not begin to bloom until mid summer. All of the flowers of the river add vibrant color to the wetlands and stand out strikingly against the dark, tannic waters. 

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Escape

There may not be a place in Virginia Beach where you can escape into the natural world more completely than in the marshes along the North Landing River, particularly if you venture into these wetlands before the sun makes its appearance. There are no houses or roads or even cell towers to be seen. The sounds that break the stillness are part of the peace - they are of fish and frogs and owls. This is the place to take a rest from your thoughts, quiet your mind and watch the mist drift across the dark water. 

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Spanish Horses & Spanish Moss

It was a splendid late morning day in early June and we were exploring the lagoons along the border of Virginia and North Carolina. The temperature was comfortably cool, the heat and stifling humidity of summer not yet a reality. There was a fine, thin layer of clouds that diffused just enough of the sun to soften the harsh shadows. The marsh grasses bowed ever so gently with the slight breeze and it was in every way a perfect morning. 

I push poled slowly along an island in the dense marsh. The water was only a foot deep so the motor was of no use. The shallow water glowed a soft yellow from the reflection of the sand on the bottom and was strangled with grass from top to bottom. Under the surface there is as much grass unseen as there is seen above it. In summer, there is but one way to travel by boat in these shallow waters, and that is slowly. Throughout the marsh are clumps of trees - high spots in this otherwise flat landscape. Live oaks and pines draped in Spanish moss conceal the shady interior of the islands. These are wild places and wild things watch you through the moss.

I see wild horses often in these wetlands, but there was one shot I have been trying to get for some time. Poling along the island, I finally found what I had been searching for for seven years - the descendants of Spanish mustangs grazing in the marsh under the Spanish moss. 

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An Island Rookery

It’s late February and the osprey pair has returned to their nest at my place of work. Each year they seem to return a little earlier than the last, perhaps a sign of the warming trend we are experiencing. Tundra swans and snow geese are still resting and feeding in the Back Bay and Currituck marshlands, but the great flocks will soon return north to the arctic along with other northern migratory species. As the earth continues to wobble and tilt and allow more direct sun to warm our hemisphere, the great migrations will begin. The osprey are one of the first bird species to arrive in our area from as far as South America, but they will soon be followed by legions of other birds seeking to nest and mate in the lush wetlands in southern Virginia Beach and the nearby Carolina marshes. 

There is an island rookery not far from the mouth of the North Landing River. Soon, hundreds of pairs of wading birds will build their nests among the trees and bushes of this diminutive, isolated island. Far from predators and near to wetlands teeming with fish, the island is a haven for these long-legged birds and their chicks. Due to the small size of the island and the number of wading birds, it is common to take pictures of several species at once, and because of its isolation, human visitors are infrequent. It is quite an experience to float along on a gentle summer day with a gentle breeze and a hint of salt in the air as over a thousand wading birds prepare and care for their young.

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Wild Horses in the Marsh

There are wild horses in the marsh. For centuries, they have inhabited the maritime forests and marsh islands along the border of Virginia and North Carolina. 

Encountering the horses among the islands is never assured. There are miles and miles of creeks that wind and cut through the marshlands, but most are too shallow or choked with submerged, prop-fouling grasses for a V hulled boat, but I tend to push the limits. In the end, I always have my shove pole and waders. The horses seem to prefer to graze along the edges of the islands, moving slowly with a marsh mentality, testing each step on the spongy islands. Sometimes, I hear them before I see them, their bodies hidden in the grasses and shrubs. And if I am lucky, they swim the channels between the islands.

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