We live in perfect place for people and wildlife to meet

We live in an area with wonderful wildlife preserves and parks that provide great back-to-nature experiences, but when there's no time for a hike and you need a nature fix, walk over to your neighborhood lake.

Or, just look out of your window.

This winter, Judy Liberman did not have to leave her house to snap photos of gray foxes in full daylight in her Lake Shores yard on the shores of Lake Smith. Over the weekend, she watched the pair interact in a way that could only be a sign of spring.

"One had its back arched and head down in a submissive manor," Liberman wrote. "The male approached with its mouth open. My husband and I probably were watching a mating ritual, although they moved out of sight."

An eagle in your backyard, or a fox for that matter, would have been unheard of several years ago. But now sightings are becoming commonplace.

Over the past month three bald eagles - two adults and one juvenile about 3 years old - have been putting on a show on the lake in front of Steve and Sharon Shaffer's home in Forest Lakes in the Great Bridge section of Chesapeake.

"Each eagle has been seen perched in our pines, carefully watching the lake for fish at the water's edge and then swooping down to catch one," Steve Shaffer wrote. Their success rate is amazing, over 80 percent of the attempts that I have witnessed alone."

Shaffer even managed to take a photo of one eagle dining on its catch in a pine tree in their yard. He said he suspects the pair is nesting somewhere between Forest Lakes and the Grassfield High School area.

"We have seen bald eagles in the wild on several occasions in Pennsylvania and Maryland," Shaffer added, "but never expected to have them as a regular visitor to our new home here in Chesapeake."

That's because Hampton Roads with the Chesapeake Bay, Atlantic Ocean, myriad rivers and neighborhood lakes, many preserves and parks and nearby farmland all around is a place destined for wildlife and people to meet on a regular basis.

Take Cindi Fitzgerald, who lives in the Lakewood area at the South End off the resort strip.

As Fitzgerald takes daily walks around Lake Holly, she has been struck by the wildlife she has seen there recently. She said she always thought of the lake as a little polluted and not very deep, but she has had numerous waterfowl sightings this winter, from herons and egrets to flocks of hooded mergansers and other ducks.

Other lakes in the city offer great viewing, too. River otter surface playfully on occasion in both Lake Holly and the Kings Grant lakes. Kings Grant lakes also have a variety of waterfowl, including nesting wood ducks.

For several years, Lake Christopher has been a winter home for a flock of ruddy ducks, along with other waterfowl. Ruddy ducks are diving ducks that also can be found in larger bodies of water like rivers and bays.

A few years ago, a Eurasian wigeon, a European species, spent time in the Hunt Club Forest lake and a white pelican swam among brown pelicans in Lake Windsor.

Unusual looking northern shovelers with their big broad beaks often can be seen swimming in tight circles in the lake at the foot of Pleasure House Drive. With heads down in the water to feed, each shoveler swims behind the other, their feet stirring up food for the duck behind.

Even uncommon birds are attracted to neighborhoods. Painted buntings and hummingbirds have been showing up at winter feeders. Coopers hawks, especially, have been raiding backyard bird feeders across the area.

Every lake and neighborhood has a wildlife story to tell so keep your binoculars in the car and be ready to do a little nature watching on walks, on the way to pick up the kids or as you drive to and from the grocery store.

"All you need to do is sit up and start taking notice," Fitzgerald said.

READERS' CLOSE ENCOUNTERS

More buntings

Rose Ann Arnaud, who has been keeping tabs on a painted bunting pair at feeders at the MSA offices off Witchduck Road, wrote last week: "Mary, there are two female buntings! They are both on the feeder! The male is in the tree. Wow!!"

Kathy Spencer drove out to MSA and was able to get one of the buntings for the Great Backyard Bird Count. Spencer also found 100 cormorants, surf scoters, brown pelicans, greater black-backed gulls, buffleheads, and more at Fort Story and a flock of 35 cedar waxwings also arrived in her Paragon Court yard on one day of the bird count.

Eagles

-The Norfolk Botanical Garden eagles have a third egg in the nest now.

-Kathy Earnest saw a bald eagle on the lake at Atlantic Shores Retirement Community.

-Robert Brown also saw a Bald Eagle over the west end of Hilltop Saturday.

Sightings

-Kathy Loomis reports that a few rarely seen purple finches with "raspberry-colored" heads and breasts, scads of pine siskins with "gorgeous yellow" on their wings, goldfinches and several fox sparrows were among the birds at her daughter's feeders in Blackwater.

-Susan Wenzel in Red Mill e-mailed: "I have an amazing 28 to 30 goldfinches on my thistle socks. Wow!"

Photo Op

-Robert Brown snapped a beautiful male wood duck on the lake off the trail to the Narrows at First Landing State Park.

-Sherry Quiban, who lives in Munden Point, took a comical photo of a mockingbird with its wings flapping as it strove to maintain balance on a flimsy branch so it could reach a berry on the branch tip.

-Robert Preston sent photos of a Cooper's hawk in his Level Green yard.

-David Vevoda, took portraits of a beautiful red cardinal that he aptly named "Red" that has nested in a holly tree in his Bellamy Manor yard for six years.

UPLOAD YOUR CLOSE ENCOUNTERS SNAPSHOTS

What surprises or puzzles have you come across in nature, or do you have a tidbit of local lore? Send e-mail to barrow1@cox.net. Include name, neighborhood and city. If you have injured wildlife, call the Virginia Beach SPCA, (757) 427-0070.