Coastal Journal: Daycationers have a treat waiting on Owls Creek

Paddling a kayak on Owls Creek is like taking a trip to another world right in your own backyard.

Despite busy General Booth Boulevard, Ocean Breeze Waterpark and Rudee marinas nearby, Owls Creek offers up its own serene brand of recreation for nature lovers. Fish, birds, shellfish and native flora and fauna all thrive in this oasis in the middle of a tourist resort.

Owls Creek is a small body of water that flows behind the Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center and into Rudee Inlet but it truly belies its location. I learned how much the little creek has to offer when I went along on a paddle with Chris Witherspoon, education director at the aquarium; David Gracie, aquarium educator; and Andrea Battin, trip manager for Wild River Outfitters.

The three were on a trial run to plan kayak tours for the public that are taking place Tuesdays in August. A Wild River Outfitters instructor leads each trip and a museum naturalist also is on every tour to collect specimens in a dip net and to talk about the flora and fauna along the way.

But we didn't need a dip net that day to know the creek was alive with fish. Big mullet jumped out of the water all around, probably in the creek to feast on plankton and maybe to escape bigger predators, Witherspoon said. Schools of baitfish rippled the surface again and again as the sit-on-top kayaks glided down the creek.

A great egret, perched on an osprey platform, took off up the creek as we paddled near. The handsome bird stayed just ahead of us coming and going as if kayaks were no huge worry.

A kingfisher flew up and down its territory and squabbled with an intruding kingfisher. At least one green heron flew back and forth across the creek as we paddled. Overhead, a bird - perhaps a young hawk - called over and over for its parents to feed it.

Oysters, big ones, lined the shore in many place at low tide that day. Marsh crabs crawled over the mud flats like insects.

Surprisingly, marsh grasses grew in many places, protecting the shoreline. Some marshes were planted by the aquarium after it was built years ago. Salt marsh shrubs, such as marsh elder and wax myrtles, and maritime trees grew behind the grasses in many places.

Over the years, museum personnel have seen everything from bald eagles to white pelicans, from otter to deer, from water snakes to sea turtles along the creek. Many species of young fishes use the creek as a safe, protected nursery.

Many years ago, Owls Creek, Rudee Inlet and Lake Wesley were marshy backwaters off the ocean. The city dredged the area around Rudee Inlet and over time, Owls Creek also was dredged. Because no rivers flow into Owls Creek, its only fresh water comes from rainwater runoff.

Now Owls Creek, created by man, has become its own special place over the years, where humans can escape the rest of the man-made activities nearby.

Kayak trips take place from noon to 1:30 p.m., 2 to 3:30 p.m. and 4 to 5:30 p.m. on Tuesdays in August. Tickets, $28 per person, cover everything from kayaks to life preservers. Buy them ahead of time at the aquarium's Guest Services Office. Participants will be told where to gather for the trips.

No experience is necessary because a Wild River Outfitters staffer will provide instruction before you launch. Even children, 6 and older, can participate. Call 385-0300 to find out more.

READERS' CLOSE ENCOUNTERS

More of Owls Creek  Cindi Fitzgerald , who lives in Lakewood, wrote that her sons, Will and Lee Fitzgerald , were fishing in Owls Creek near the municipal docks and saw a large sea turtle, 3 to 4  feet  long, in the water. They thought it was a loggerhead turtle.

Cuckoo sighting  Robert Brown  was on the observation deck off the trail to the Narrows in First Landing State Park when he heard a “clacking” call. Brown found himself “nose to beak with a black-billed cuckoo,” less than 5 feet  away. “I had a very good look at the scalloped markings at the base of the tail, and the whole handsome bird before it sailed off,” Brown said.    He added that he also has seen  numerous red-headed woodpeckers  along the trail.

Good mother  All summer, Don Crago   has kept  tabs on a vigilant mother duck and ducklings that visit his yard in Cardinal Estates. The mother started out with more than a dozen babies and remarkably  still has 10, and the youngsters are almost full-grown. Crago puts out a tub of water for them and in the beginning all the babies could swim in the tub. Now only three  youngsters, tightly squeezed, can fit in the tub.

Osprey   Sue Athanas  reports there’s a big osprey nest on a cell phone tower near her condo in Fieldstone Glen. “The nest is near our pool and we enjoyed watching the birds all last summer,” Athanas wrote. “This summer they came back and we are enjoying them again.”

Photo ops  Bobby Hill   snapped a photo of a young Cooper’s hawk on his deck at his home in Great Neck Meadows. “When he flew off I suddenly realized that less than 10 feet away on the deck was a squirrel frozen like a statue,” Hill wrote.  Very lucky squirrel. 

Dave and Ginny Hucks sent a cute photo of a young green heron walking across a hammock in their Bay Colony yard. The youngster was one of three born in a nest in the Hucks’ willow tree this summer.

Michael Adamchuk  sent a photo of a handsome gray fox, stretched out on a stump, “almost posing.” He took the photo at dusk recently near the 12th hole of Signature Golf Course at West Neck.

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