Annual month-long Virginia Beach Winter Wildlife Festival offers an array of outdoor fun for greenhorns and experts alike
By Eric J. Wallace
Virginia Beach 2024 Winter Wildlife Festival
January 27-February 4
Plus weekly workshops in January
See also: Our Winter Play Guide: Things to Do Outside
Imagine enjoying a brisk January afternoon with a group of about 25 on an exclusive guided tour on one of four artificial islands along the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel. Excitement charges the air as you peer through binoculars, catching views of sunning harbor seals and regionally rare maritime birds like Northern gannet, brant, king eider, harlequin duck, purple sandpiper, black tailed gull and more.
The manmade islands are a hotbed for migratory coastal and pelagic wildlife — and are typically off limits to the public for conservation purposes. But participants in this annual Virginia Beach Winter Wildlife Festival birdwatching excursion get a rewarding backstage pass.
“We’re [on the midpoint of] the Atlantic Flyway, so we get a tremendous amount of visiting and wintering species from the northern U.S. and Canada,” says festival coordinator and Virginia Beach recreation specialist, Katie Webb. The uninhabited islands “sit deep in the Chesapeake Bay and offer some of the best winter birding and wildlife viewing opportunities in the state.”
Webb and her team work with an ever-growing list of local, regional and national agencies and organizations to offer a month-long schedule of events from Jan. 4 to Feb. 3 that cater to everyone from outdoor greenhorns to pro-level naturalists. Partners include the National Audubon Society, Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources, Virginia State Parks, Lynnhaven River NOW and others.
“Our goal is to work together to showcase and help community members discover, access, and explore the incredible nature opportunities our region has to offer, even during the winter months,” says Webb.
The festival is now in its 14th year and boasts an array of more than 50 guided nature excursions. Opportunities include waterfowl-spotting trips in the otherwise seasonally closed 9,200-acre Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge, guided eco tours by boat in wildlife-rich marshlands surrounding the North Landing River, an exclusive walkabout through 729 acres of wetlands and woods in heavily restricted North Landing Park —and the list goes on.
“Each trip is led by expert guides from one or more partnering organizations,” says Webb. For instance, Brent James, notable tree program coordinator for Lynnhaven River NOW, will take groups of 20 on a walking tour to see and learn about some of the city’s oldest living trees. The strategy “enables us to cover a tremendous amount of ground and provide festivalgoers with a range of extremely high-quality education opportunities that would be impossible to pull off otherwise.”
But the fest offers more than just excursions.
Weekly educational workshops are held throughout January on topics like how to attract eastern bluebirds to your yard and keep them there year-round with the Virginia Bluebird Society, or exploring the fascinating world of wild waterfowl with master decoy carver Ed Morrison at the Atlantic Wildfowl Heritage Museum.
There’s also a six-category photo contest, regional wildlife activist award ceremony, and keynote address from New York Times best-selling author Scott Weidensaul on his book, A World on the Wing: The Global Odyssey of Migratory Birds, and the research that informed it.
Festivities culminate on Saturday, Jan. 27 with an exhibit hall experience at the 83,931-square-foot Princess Anne Recreation Center. Visitors will enjoy more than 60 stations manned by wildlife-related vendors, a full lineup of children’s activities—including live animal shows and a bird-centered storytelling session led by Weidensaul—food trucks, and a fleet of educational workshops.
Webb is quick to point out the diversity of programming.
“We’ve worked very hard to make sure we have something for everyone and anyone,” she says. If you haven’t thought much about nature in the past but suddenly find yourself intrigued, “we have something for you. The same is true for kids, intermediates, even experts. We’ve spread things out so that folks of all levels can come enjoy themselves and learn something new.”
Last year’s fest drew more than 2,500 total participants. And Webb expects 2024 to be even better.
“When we put on the first of these it was just a Saturday and Sunday with a handful of vendors and workshops, and a few fieldtrips,” she says. But the celebration—one of the few of its kind in the Mid-Atlantic—soon blossomed. “I think people quickly realized what a perfect opportunity this was for getting folks outside and introducing them to the incredible uniqueness of the ecosystems that surround us during a time of year when most of us are trying hard to avoid being outdoors.”
Looking to the future, Webb hopes to parlay the festival’s ongoing success into a sister event in the spring, summer or fall.
Photos by Virginia Beach Winter Wildlife Festival Photos Contest winners Shawn Brooks, Aleshia Matthews, Judy Jones and Heather Cormier
Eric J. Wallace
Eric J. Wallace is an award-winning lifestyle journalist based in Staunton who has contributed to WIRED, Outside, Reader’s Digest, Atlas Obscura, Best American Food Writing, All About Beer and more.
