Forget Rehoboth or Dewey. For a truly untamed experience, head to Delaware’s Prime Hook and Bombay Hook wildlife refuges, where you’ll see far more birds and beasts than people.
I feel like I’m flying. As the airboat glides through the serpentine marsh, land shifts shape and color in front of me as earth and sky meld into a silvery blue-green. A great blue heron keeps pace on my right, just close enough for me to see the stretch and motion of its seemingly effortless flight.
At 35 mph, grasses and water become a surreal blur, as I feel the wind and water on my face. Suddenly, Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge manager Jonathan Schafler, our tour guide for the afternoon, slows the boat so we can see snowy egrets that stand like Dr. Seuss figures, with their long necks and round bellies. We slowly round a marshy corner and a flock of dark oystercatchers takes flight. Another water route takes us into an isolated fishing area where flashes of silver are bass jumping high in the air like the catfish in the Porgy and Bess song. Then Schafler guns the throttle, and we’re off again on our wild ride.
Prime Hook refuge managers use the airboat for routine maintenance (and to give the occasional CL reporter a tour), so visitors shouldn’t plan their trip to Prime Hook around an airboat ride. But even without a personal guided tour, Prime Hook, and its northern neighbor, Bombay Hook Wildlife Refuge, offer plentiful (and downright easy) opportunities for viewing wildlife by car, canoe, or foot.
Unlike the National Park Service, which manages diverse historic sites and open spaces, the National Wildlife Refuge System’s primary purpose is to manage wildlife at 548 refuges across the United States. (Each state has at least one refuge.) Florida’s Pelican Island was the system’s first refuge, created in 1903 by Theodore Roosevelt as a safe place for egrets, herons, and other waterfowl in danger of becoming extinct due to hunting and the fashion industry’s desire for fancy plumage for ladies’ hats. Prime Hook, established in 1963, and Bombay Hook, in 1937, were created as nesting, wintering, and migratory habitats for migratory wildfowl. Each refuge is a mix of woodland and grassy upland (some of it planted with agricultural crops), freshwater and tidal salt marshes and each offers hiking and auto trails. (Prime Hook also has a canoe trail; see sidebar.)
Back in the airboat, because it’s impossible to hear voices over the boat’s engines, Schafler smiles and points to flora and fauna as we explore the watery paths. He’s already told us, “Anything you see sticking up in the water, it’s a turtle. And we’ve got 
some huge snapping turtles.” He’s right. We see turtles bigger than my house cat sunning on the dead branches that break the water’s surface.
We pass blooming purple water lilies and the invasive grassy-gold marsh plant Phragmites before we turn into a creek area sheltered from the sun by tree cover. I begin to feel like we’ve somehow taken a turn into the Everglades when Schafler makes a sign for beaver by flapping his hands up and down in a giant clapping motion, like a beaver pounding its tail. I see a flash of brown fur but nothing else (though later, I think I see a muskrat). I also miss the snake that drops from a tree into the water behind us, and my husband and Schafler smile in unison while I shudder.
Near the end of our ride, Schafler cuts the motor to point out hunting blinds for deer and duck and to allow a canoeist to pass safely. (The refuge’s canoe trail passes through the heart of the freshwater marsh.) He speaks passionately about the way the wetlands are managed so they’re able to provide food and a safe environment to migrating waterfowl populations (like the ducks and geese that winter here every year) and of the need to introduce children to wildlife and wild places. He takes a breath, pointing to the huge turtle we’ve just drifted pass, while his eyes light up like a small boy’s. “Cool, isn’t it?” he smiles.
Better than cool, I think. Time to borrow my sister’s canoe and try navigating these waters on my own. At Prime Hook, in Milton, Delaware, about 30 miles north of Bombay Hook, we trade the airboat for an SUV. Our guide is Tina Watson, an eleven-year veteran of the wildlife refuge who has a propensity for the word “sweet,” which she uses to describe everything from baby foxes to jazzy blue indigo buntings. Although we looked forward to hiking through the refuge with Watson, she suggests we take a vehicle because there are some spots in the refuge where the flies are biting fiercely. (This is early June after all.)
From the visitors’ center, we drive southeast along a wooded portion of the refuge’s twelve-mile wildlife drive. As we cross into open meadow, a ruddy fox cub saunters across the tarmac dragging his oversized tail behind him. “What a sweet little fox!” exclaims Watson. “In April,” she explains as I gape at the kit, “the young ones are born, and they just sort of hang out and sun themselves.” Now that it’s June, the cubs are surer of themselves and beginning to explore on their own. What you see in the park, Watson emphasizes, depends on what time of year you visit.
This becomes even clearer as we round the bend into view of the sprawling Shearness Pool, one of four fresh-water impoundments the refuge manages seasonally to provide optimal environments for migrating waterfowl. In the spring, explains Watson, the water table is lowered to expose the marsh flats to hungry shorebirds. Grasses are allowed to grow in the flats during the summer, providing feed for migrating geese. In the winter, the dykes are opened to allow the water back in. Now in early summer, the small “islands” in the pool are hazy green with growing grass, and the ditches next to the road are filled with tall grass and singing red-winged blackbirds.
We cruise further north along the drive to a point where the road divides the freshwater impoundment to the east and saltwater tidal marsh to the west. Thousands of ghostly gray fiddler crabs in the salt marsh catch the light like nickels in the bottom of a fountain, while Watson, oversized binoculars to her eyes, points out the differences between the snowy and great egrets on the freshwater side. (Snowys have black bills and legs with yellow feet, while greats have yellow bills.) We see spindly black-neck stilts picking their way across the flats and several eagles congregated together in the distance. All of a sudden two egrets lift off into the air. “What a presentation!” exclaims Watson. “Did everyone see them land?”
My husband did, but I didn’t, and he nudges me to look up in a tree, where several of the strikingly graceful white birds are perched. I’ve never seen egrets in the trees, and the incongruity of these large creatures standing in the branches takes my breath away.
The bird sightings come fast and furious after the egrets. Several eagles fly over us and a few more fish in the salt marsh, prompting us to laugh at how eagles are a dime a dozen at the refuge. “Birding is timing,” Watson says. “Some people drive by and say, ‘I saw nothing out there.’ If you’re interested in birding, it’s a good way to slow you down a little. I like to wait for the birds to come to me.”
As we continue along the Wildlife Drive, Watson demonstrates ways to identify the refuge’s many birds. (The refuge publishes pamphlet guides to aid visitors with wildlife identification.) “One way to identify eagles is their shape and the way they’re sitting,” she offers as we try to count the birds in the distance.
She points to another group of tiny birds—semipalmated sandpipers. “At this time of year, sometimes it’s hard to tell the color of the feathers. You need to look at the bill and the legs because you can mix them up with juveniles.”
As we head back to the visitors’ center, we drive through another wooded area where a chubby groundhog waddles into the underbrush. We also pass signs for two more hiking trails, the Bear Swamp Trail that circles Bear Swamp Pool, and the one-mile Parsons Point Trail that meanders through woods and marsh. And as a red-tailed hawk, its red underside striped with white just visible in the afternoon sun, soars over fields of corn and golden green wheat, I make a plan to return and explore on my own. There’s still three seasons of birds and more refuge to see.
Mary K. Zajac writes from Baltimore.
Exploring the Refuges
Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge
Prime Hook’s Canoe Trail offers fifteen miles of creek, stream, and marsh access by canoe or kayak. Trail access is open April through August and limited times between September and March. Bicycles are not permitted on the trails. Four walking trails include hikes through forest, fields, and marshland (some of them wheelchair accessible). The refuge also has designated photography blinds. Visitors may also view the refuge by car on one of the four state highways (1, 16, 5, and 14) that bisect the refuge. Check the refuge website for seasonal flora and fauna.11978 Turkle Pond Rd. Milton, Del. 302-684-8419, http://www.primehook.fws.gov.
Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge
Visitors can tour the refuge by car on the twelve-mile auto route. Five hiking trails range from ? mile to 1 mile in length; three trails have thirty-foot-tall observation towers. Check the website’s calendar for special events like Migratory Bird Day, National Wildlife Week, and spring and fall festivals.
2591 Whitehall Neck Rd. Smyrna, Del. 302-653-9345, http://www.fws.gov/northeast/bombayhook.
