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?)

Schedule your ecotour to explore this environmental wonderland.