Following John Smith

On a chilly morning recently, Chesapeake Bay Foundation senior educator Bill Portlock eased his Boston Whaler away from the dock at Jordan Point Yacht Haven, just east of Hopewell at the southern end of the Benjamin Harrison Memorial Bridge in Prince George County. In the boat as well was Jeffrey Trollinger, watchable (as opposed, apparently, to "huntable") wildlife program manager for the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries.

Captain John Smith's Trail includes some sites that can be reached by land or water (the online guide and printed map indicate which sites are land, water or both). Rivers and waterways were the "roads" for the first English settlers, the fastest and easiest way to travel (which is why the older plantations along the James face the river as today our homes typically face the street).

When Smith explored these waters, the James River was known to him as the Powhatan Flu: "Powhatan" for the ruler or chief of the region's as many as 20,000 Algonquian-speaking natives, and "flu" from the Latin for "river." The waters swam thick with fish, including shad and massive Atlantic sturgeon; nearer the coast were vast shoals of oyster beds. The woods, marshes and waters were alive with ducks, cormorants, great blue herons, eagles, osprey, deer, wild turkey, beaver, raccoon (the name derived from the original Algonquian term for the animal, roughly translated by the English as something like "aroughcoune") and many species of songbird.

Today the natural world of the James River and the entire Chesapeake Bay watershed is barely a shadow of what it was in Smith's time. "Don't accept what we have now as the norm," said Portlock, whose work on behalf of the bay must often feel like presiding over a gravely ill patient with guttering vital signs and an uncertain prognosis.

Still, though much urgent work remains to protect and restore these waterways, there is cause for hope in the midst of a rather sobering saga of decline. Though peregrine, osprey and bald eagle populations in Virginia (and elsewhere) were decimated in the decades after World War II (the chief culprit in their destruction was the pesticide DDT) and as recently as 1977, according to Portlock, no bald eagles were breeding on the James, the raptors have made a steady comeback.

On a buoy just below the bridge, a pair of osprey was sprucing up a large nest. A peregrine falcon nests on the bridge itself, Trollinger said. A short distance east of the marina came the first of many eagle sightings for the day. The setting was the shoreline of the 4,200-acre James River National Wildlife Refuge on John Smith's Trail, where last summer and fall, Portlock said, as many as 200 roosting birds were counted. Undeveloped lands like these, he added, will remain crucial to the birds' continued survival.

Portlock pointed out a solitary gull flapping past. "There aren't many places where you can see more eagles than gulls," he said happily.

Although access to the refuge itself is limited and available only by permission, for eagle-spotting, the water is the place to be. Portlock advises observers to keep a distance of at least 100 yards from any nests during the breeding season, which lasts through the middle of July, but a decent pair of binoculars is all you need to get a good view. (As a bonus, the area boasts a large wintering population of eagles as well, some of which migrate here from elsewhere.) Paddle from the marina along the shallow southern side of the river and you can avoid the motorized traffic in the main channel.

Portlock offered these helpful tips for the novice bird-watcher: Osprey like to nest in dead trees; bald eagles prefer tall pines that can accommodate enormous nests that are added to each year, reaching weights of up to a ton. From a distance, eagles in flight can be distinguished from vultures by their smooth, steady soaring; vultures tend to wobble on their axis, tipping their wings to one side and the other.

Portlock and Trollinger are the kind of naturalists who can identify birds by their calls and reel off the Latin names of things (such as Mercenaria mercenaria for the familiar hard clam, so named because it was used by Native Americans to make the valuable beads known as wampum), and they took obvious and unconcealed delight in every sighting of anything furred, feathered or finned (though for the latter, the evidence was mostly the occasional flash of silver followed by a splash). Just to the east on the opposite side of the river, as Portlock motored quietly into Herring Creek, the two of them began excitedly calling out birds they spotted. "Bufflehead!" "Green-winged teal!" "Wilson's snipe!" "Killdeer!" Also present were an osprey, gulls and several great blue herons sporting a seasonal flourish of feathers sprouting off the back of the head, known as a "nuptial plume."

For paddlers, Herring Creek lies not far to the west of Lawrence Lewis Jr. Park, home to eagles, great blue herons and bald cypress trees the Algonquian once used to make long canoes paddled by dozens of men. On foot, you can get to the marshy borders of Herring Creek from Westover Plantation overlooking the James, first established in 1619. Its lovely grounds and gardens are open to the public for a small fee. Both Westover and Lawrence Lewis Jr. Park are also part of the Virginia Birding & Wildlife Trail (order an illustrated guide by calling 866-822-4737 or find the complete guide online at http://www.dgif.state.va.us/wildlife/vbwt/index.asp ), as are several other points along John Smith's Trail.

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