The odds of seeing an eagle sitting on eggs at Norfolk Botanical Garden's first Eagle Festival on Saturday are getting slimmer by the minute.
But that is just one more reason for the festival to celebrate the many facets of eagle life that we have been privileged to see at the garden over the years.

IT DIDN'T TAKE long for Russell Crow to jump from one of his many perches onto my arm.
At first I thought the shiny black crow liked me. Then I realized no, the big bird liked my earrings. And my hair. And the button on my shirt cuff.

ODD-SHAPED mushrooms that jiggled like jelly showed up recently on a log in Patricia Seay's yard on Shore Drive. Seay was so interested in the strange sight that she researched the fungi online and identified them as tree ear mushrooms. That's because they look somewhat like the outer part of a dog's ear.

TO THE UNTRAINED eye, trampled grasses around pools of water in the marsh at Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge look sort of normal.
To David Bishop, an invasive species biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, those areas are anything but normal. All signs point to feral pigs, one of Bishop's nemeses.

I just finished registering “my” osprey nest with The Center for Conservation Biology’s Project OspreyWatch.
Every year I go back into First Landing State Park on the last weekend of February to look for returning osprey. Every year without fail at least one osprey is back at its nest on the road into the Narrows.

THERE IS ONLY one thing my dog Sam would like better than going for a walk with me in First Landing State Park and that would be running off leash with me in the park.
But I won't let him run free.
First off, it's against park rules. In fact, it is not even First Landing's rule. A Virginia State Parks regulation says dogs must be leashed in state parks.

VIRGINIA BEACH Imagine a quiet walk along the marshes of the Lynnhaven River where herons and egrets stalk the edges, big oysters clump together in the shallows and ducks silently swim, leaving V-shaped ripples in the water. That's what a walk around Pleasure House Point off Shore Drive was like the other day when I took a tour of the property.

CHESAPEAKE
Most winters someone in the area is lucky enough to get a visit from a painted bunting, a bird so colorful that it looks like it belongs on an exotic tropical isle and not in Hampton Roads.
This year Hilve and Bob Firek in Norfolk Highlands are among the lucky ones.
The red, blue, green and yellow beauty can't be missed or confused with any other bird, Hilve said.

Adult eagles are settling down now to begin raising a family, but the youngsters are giving them a fit.
As teenagers are wont to do, they are zooming overhead, competing with adults and with one another for food and perching spots.
A perfect place to watch the eagle wars is an area near Honey Bee Golf Course off Salem Road.

VIRGINIA BEACH
John Kersh was out on the bay fishing for striped bass last week but he did not catch a fish.
And Kersh didn’t care, because that day whales, not striped bass, were stars of the show.