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. 

Schedule your ecotour to explore this environmental wonderland.