Eastern Neck National Wildlife Refuge

Author's Comments

The swans arrive without announcement. One morning in late November the coves are empty, and then they are not, and you stand at the water's edge on the Chester River side trying to count what cannot be counted. Hundreds of tundra swans, their white so complete it reads almost as light rather than color in the gray morning. Eastern Neck sits at the end of a long drive down the Eastern Shore, past the marinas and the crab shacks and the flat farm fields going brown. The bridge over to the island is small enough to feel like a threshold. On the other side, the Chesapeake opens in three directions and the sky doubles in the water and the world becomes mostly horizontal. I came here first in December, an overcast morning that turned briefly luminous at half past seven when the sun found a seam in the clouds and lit the bay copper. That light lasted maybe eight minutes. The swans on the water went from white to gold and back to white and I stood there slightly stunned. Boxes Point is worth the walk. Eagles use the dead trees at the water's edge the way a person uses a good chair, and if you arrive before the day warms they are still there, close enough that a moderate telephoto is sufficient. The bay behind them on a clear winter morning is the color of pewter and hammered light. This is not a place that tries to impress you. It asks for patience and an early alarm and a willingness to drive two hours from the city for eight minutes of perfect light. That exchange seems fair to me.

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