THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, March 1, 1995 TAG: 9502280078
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 02 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Coastal Journal
SOURCE: Mary Reid Barrow
LENGTH: Medium: 86 lines
Thousands of white snow geese looked like clumps of new fallen snow all over the marsh at the south end of the Knotts Island Causeway last week.
Mackay Island National Wildlife Refuge burned the winter-dead marsh grasses back at the end of January, uncovering new grass shoots and clumps of root. Since then the snow geese have been feasting en masse on the bountiful results.
Some were walking around with huge clumps of green trailing from their beaks. A tasty morsel like that was probably the base of the stem of giant cordgrass or cattails, said assistant refuge manager Ben Nottingham.
Some white heads had turned a muddy gray from rooting around in the sooty foliage. Occasionally a goose would splash clean in a pool of water among the grasses. Then it would rise up, spread its big black-tipped wings and shake the water off.
It sounded as though each and every goose was talking all at once about the feast. Loud and persistent, their honks and chortling were as integral a part of the world that morning as earth and sky.
Nottingham estimates anywhere from 8,000 to 10,000 snow geese are chattering away on the causeway at any one time. By the middle of March he expects the birds will migrate to their Northern breeding grounds.
Until then, the sights and sounds are worth seeing and hearing.
A VELVETY BROWN HARBOR SEAL with big soulful eyes spent the day around the Virginia Beach Fishing Center at Rudee Inlet last week.
Most of the time, the seal was out of the water, hauled up on a floating dock, said John Crowling, general manager of the fishing center. Sometimes it would leave and swim up into Owls Creek and then in 20 or 30 minutes return to the dock again.
``He just laid up there all day sunning,'' Crowling said.
It's not unusual to see a seal in the area, he added. Last year one ventured through the inlet and spent some time on a resident's dock.
``I don't know why they come,'' Crowling said. ``He wasn't injured. They must need to rest.''
Seals occasionally stray down into Virginia waters in winter. One was reported hanging around the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel islands recently.
Folks at the fishing center called the Virginia Marine Science Museum and staff there said the seal appeared to be in good health, too.
``We just watched him,'' Crowling said. ``He was pretty, wasn't he?''
A BEAUTIFUL PAINTED BUNTING isn't the only unusual visitor that Mary Etheridge has had recently. The brilliant purple, red and green finch, out of its southern range, has been dining at Etheridge's feeder since the end of January.
Now that they know the rare bird has taken up with Etheridge in Oceana Gardens, bird watchers are flocking to the feeder, too.
``A neighbor called,'' Etheridge recounted, ``and said, `There's a man in your yard with binoculars!' ''
That same morning, several more bird watchers arrived, she said. The next day, another birder visited, gave Etheridge a bag of birdseed and sat in his car, filming the bunting as it fed.
Etheridge has kept notes on the event but only on her rare bird visitor, not the human ones. The bunting arrived Jan. 26, she said. Since then it has come to her feeder almost every day, morning and afternoon.
``You read about it and you say, `I'll never see anything like this,' Etheridge said, ``and now I've seen it.''
And the bird watchers, too.
P.S. Explore the ecology and nature of Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge on a field walk at 10 a.m. Saturday with refuge volunteer Vickie Shufer.
P.P.S. Check out Tidewater Vignettes, an exhibit of Chesapeake Bay watercolorists at the Life-Saving Museum of Virginia. Call 422-1587. MEMO: What unusual nature have you seen this week? And what do you know about
Tidewater traditions and lore? Call me on INFOLINE, 640-5555. Enter
category 2290. Or, send a computer message to my Internet address:
mbarrow(AT)infi.net.
ILLUSTRATION: Photos by MARY REID BARROW
Since dead marsh grasses were burned off at Mackay Island refuge,
thousands of white snow geese have fed on new grass shoots and
roots.
This healthy brown harbor seal spent a day around Rudee Inlet last
week, alternately swimming up into Owls Creek and sunning himself on
a jetty.
by CNB