Monday, January 16, 2012

As the tides change...

Aerial View of Fishermans Island and Eastern Shore of Virginia National Wildlife Refuge
Southern tip of the Eastern Shore of Virginia including Fisherman Island.  The Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel can be seen crossing the island and extending out over the Chesapeake Bay.

Crossing the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel is routine for many Eastern Shore inhabitants and visitors. Cresting the high rise approaching Fisherman Island from either direction offers a beautiful view that is always a little different.  Flocks of birds can be seen on her shores. Marshlands are continually changing colors with the seasons.  Larger birds like ospreys and vultures perch high in dead trees along the edge of the roadway.  Less obvious than the birds, but just as interesting to observe, is the growth of the island on its southeast side.  Watching the sandy shores widen, new plants emerge, and tidal pools get created brings the same perennial joy as watching a garden grow.  It takes patient observation- but it’s a lot of fun to see what changes next.   

The Eastern Shore of Virginia National Wildlife Refuge website states that Fisherman Island was about 25 acres in an 1852 coastal survey.  Since then the island has expanded to over 1850 acres.  While other barrier islands along Virginia’s coast are shrinking Fisherman continues to grow- how lucky we are to have such a great view of the action!

While crossing the bridge with friends and family look around and discuss the changes you see.  Which changes are permanent and which are merely seasonal?  What is your favorite part of the island and its surroundings?  What do you think causes the island's growth?  If you were a bird where would you build your nest? 
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Location: Kiptopeke, VA 23310, USA

3 comments:

  1. Bo LuskJanuary 16, 2012 at 6:50 PM

    My favorite part is watching the vegetation come back along the roadside between the toll booths and the Little Bridge. Hurricane Isabel killed all of the pine trees with salt spray in 2005, and the return of vegetation and the osprey nest have attracted a lot of people's attention.

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  2. Denard SpadyFebruary 22, 2012 at 1:17 PM

    Part of the reason Fisherman's Island has grown so dramatically is the it was once a group of three islands: Adams Island, The Issacs, and "Linen Island" later known as Fisherman's Island. The three islands have grown together as the channels separating them filled in. Another reason Fisherman's may have grown so rapidly is that, after the Bridge-Tunnel was built in the 1960s, work was done on the west side of the island to stabilize the area where the roadway crosses. That work seems to have allowed the whole island to grow. In any case it is a beautiful place to see and an important part of the national wildlife refuge system.

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  3. David WilsonMarch 7, 2012 at 6:41 AM

    My favorite . . . memory . . . was not a sight but a smell. When I returned home from Viet Nam in 1970, I flew in to Atlanta to see my sister, then my wife and I drove up to the Shore to see my parents at Smith Beach. We drove across the CBBT at night, so didn't see a lot, but as we got to Fisherman's Island, to the Shore the tide was out, and that rich pungent smell of the marsh, the black mud, the smell of life and decay and salt and sea, it was a real "welcome home to the Shore." To me it was better than Chanel.

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