Explore! Take a tram tour through the Back Bay refuge

VIRGINIA BEACH

Heed my words: Dress warmly.

The wind was blowing hard on the otherwise bright, sunny day I chose to ride the tram into Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge and False Cape State Park.

"Do you have a hat or anything? 'Cause you're gonna need it," advised one of the drivers.

I did, in fact, have a hat and a hood and a scarf and gloves because I knew that the wind is always colder than one expects. That could be because it's winter, but if you want to see migrating waterfowl, that's the only time to go.

Back Bay refuge, which has dike trails open to hikers and bikers in other seasons, is closed from Nov. 1 to April 1 to protect the birds. So the twice-a-month tram is the only way to get in to see tundra swans, snow geese and other waterfowl that fly in for the winter.

Two open-air tram tours are offered: A two-hour loop early in the month or a 3-1/2-hour ride-walk later in the month. The latter trip includes a tram ride through the refuge and into False Cape State Park, where visitors may take an easy half-mile walk to see the cemetery and church steeple marking the former location of a small community called Wash Woods.

I took the longer tour, along with six other hardy riders. The tram is driven by volunteers from the Back Bay Restoration Foundation, a nonprofit support group for the refuge.

"You're at the right time of year for birds," the driver said, and he offered to stop any time someone wanted to take a photograph. A refuge pamphlet lists more than 300 species of birds that have been seen there.

We were rich with tour guides, having four people along to tell us what we were seeing - the two drivers, a wildlife intern from the refuge and naturalist/interpreter Vickie Shufer from False Cape.

One of the drivers said Shufer also leads wilderness survival treks and is an expert at finding wild foods that, to the rest of us, looked remarkably like acorns and sticks.

The intern, Gabe Harper, gave a little quiz as we started, and you should pay attention to the answers for reasons that will become clear later on. He is from Atlanta, and he also thought it was cold, but one of the drivers is from New England, and he wore only a lightweight jacket and no gloves or hat.

"We're going to have a good time today," Harper announced, as the tram passed a placard reading, "Birds Only Beyond This Sign."

I mean it about the warm clothing.

Even when the wind is not blowing hard, it is still blowing. The birds do not seem to mind, and we saw swans, geese, cormorants, mallards, black ducks, egrets, herons, hawks and more as we rode along.

We were treated to a close-up view of a diving bird's effort to get airborne - it ran along the surface of the water, flapping furiously, until it could lift off. No promises are made, but sometimes the tram encounters raccoons, feral hogs, river otters and other animals.

"This is where North meets the South," Shufer said. "This is the northernmost and the southernmost point for a lot of birds and plants."

The refuge is managed for waterfowl. It also works hard to preserve its sea turtles that nest on the beaches, and managers keep it marshy by raising or lowering water levels in the impoundments. False Cape State Park, however, is allowed to progress in its natural state, which means a lot of it has grown up into maritime forest.

As the tram entered the woods, the wind was blocked. We got off the tram to troop under a live oak tree to see its thick leaves and tiny acorns, which Shufer said are about the only kind that can be eaten by humans without processing.

We discovered that rubber mats had been laid on the short trail to Wash Woods, making our progress considerably easier. Shufer pointed out the tracks of bobcats, foxes, deer, raccoons and wild hogs in the soft sand alongside.

We stopped to sniff sassafras - two remarkably different smells between root and twig - before climbing aboard for the ride back.

As the gate closed behind us, Harper asked a question from the earlier quiz, and he awarded a small prize. See what I mean about paying attention?

And I'm not kidding about the warm clothes.

Diane Tennant, (757) 446-2478, diane.tennant@pilotonline.com