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.

Schedule your ecotour to explore this environmental wonderland.