David Stapleton is currently the Assistant Park Manager at Mason Neck State Park. Not only does he live in the park, but he's been working for Virginia State Parks for 29 years. He started his career at Holliday Lake, moved to Hungry Mother, then Pocahontas, Douthat, and finally Mason Neck. 

Here's a little story from all his years of experience working in Virginia State Parks.

A glimpse into the past...

In my younger (and more athletic days) my brother and I co-owned a monstrous 8’ long surfboard that we used many a day and night on the relatively small but sometimes rideable waves in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Alabama. Riding a wave was exciting, but most often the experience was that of falling into the water as the wave passed over you. Then it was up and at the next one with victory over the next wave on your mind. Mom didn’t care too much for our surfing because that was for “hippies and deadbeats” and, according to her, we were neither. She tended to overlook the fact that my hair was down to my shoulders and I hardly ever wore shoes. She also didn’t care too much for the sand we brought home in our clothes, hair, sleeping bags and everywhere else a grain of sand could lodge itself. Yet to this day, I am soothed by the sound of the waves washing in predictable rhythm upon the shore, wherever I am blessed enough to hear it. 

David Stapleton (right) speaks with a volunteer at the annual

Eagle Festival at Mason Neck State Park
 

Fast forward a number of years...

Back in the late 80’s I had the distinct pleasure of working at Pocahontas State Park. Now, if you worked at Pocahontas back then you deserve a Purple Heart for bravery and actions above and beyond the call of duty. The park was just overwhelmed with visitors every weekend and holiday all summer long. The pool was often so crowded it was said you could walk across on peoples’ heads and never touch the water. I never tried that, but I do believe it would have been possible many times. The water was sometimes so clouded with sunscreen that washed off the multitude of bodies it would take three days of 24 hour a day full bore filter operations to clear it up enough to see the bottom of the 12’ deep section of the pool.

Enjoy a day of free swimming for each night of overnight

camping at Pocahontas State Park 

The picnic area surrounding the pool complex had 300 tables, three shelters and 75 grills. By 9 a.m. not an empty table could be found. The parking lot that served this mass of humanity was gravel and could hold about 400 cars if you lined it every Friday afternoon, similar to what high school grounds crews do on the football fields in the fall. And we used the same method, a lime lining machine, a tape measure and a ball of string. It was cruel prep work and all the while you knew you were doing it just to prepare for the onslaught of guests that would invade the next morning like locusts on a field of grain. I likened it to being forced to build the gallows where you were to be hung. When the pool closed at 7 p.m. the mass exodus began and the dust didn’t settle until sometime around dark, which was about time the park staff would get the most egregious trash picked up around the place. It was grueling work to say the least.

There are 300 picnic tables surrounding the pool complex at Pocahontas State Park 

As the seasons changed...

Fall would take hold and the crowds would thin, the air got cool and crisp, the pool closed and the leaves after a brilliant and colorful display, would brown up and begin to drop. About this time, nature thumps some species of animals in the head and tells them they must begin to move south if they want to continue to enjoy warmer days and nights. Virginia doesn’t have many large mammal species that wholesale migrate with the seasons such as the elk of Yellowstone or the big horn sheep of the Rocky Mountains, but we do have lots of birds that head north or south with the seasons along the Atlantic Flyway seeking just the right temperature for their liking.

Most of the time we think of geese, swans, hawks, ospreys, warblers and other birds when we think of migrating bird species. If you asked a hundred birders and naturalists to name three bird species that migrate with the seasons most likely the ones mentioned above would be the ones they would list. But my favorite is the red-winged blackbird. Surprised? You shouldn’t be. I have watched these birds fly in amazing formations over fields and waterways and marveled at their ability to change direction all at once, seemingly just to entertain those who may take the time to stop and watch. I have seen them attack a stand of ripe, ready to eat wild rice in the upper reaches of a marsh and gorge themselves until not a kernel was left. The noise they make when flocked together causes an uptick in my heartbeat and can drown out the incessant noise of highway traffic only a couple of miles away and is certainly more melodious and pleasing than the monotonous drone of semi trucks and airplanes. 

A red-winged black bird (Photo credit Roger Mallet)

My favorite is the red-winged blackbird...

It was this noise that first attracted my attention that late fall day at Pocahontas State Park. The summer rush had settled down but guests were still coming out to enjoy the pleasing and refreshing fall weather by picnicking, hiking, camping and enjoying the beauty of the park around them. Without the maddening crowd, Pocahontas can be a very beautiful and restorative place. Needless to say the park staff looked forward to these times of the year. That day I had gone down to the shelter to the left of the parking lot early in the morning to rake the leaves out because it had been rented by a family to hold a small reunion. This shelter is on the lower side of the parking lot which gently slopes upwards from it and levels out before ending at the picnic area on the other side. The noise came from the parking lot and I couldn’t see them, but I heard them better and better as it became louder and more rambunctious. Then I saw the first “wave”, a hundred feet wide, come rolling over the rise. Hundreds of blackbirds came flying over the hump of the parking lot and landed, kicking the now brown and crackly leaves around looking for some morsel of food. I stopped raking to watch, knowing that there were likely more birds behind these that I couldn’t see. What an understatement.
 

A flock of red- winged blackbirds (photograph credit, Roger Mallet)

I watched these marvelous waves barreling toward me...

After that first wave of birds another wave came rolling over the hump and then another and then another. I stopped counting and just watched. Across the parking lot they came just like waves in the Gulf of Mexico. From the back of the pack a few birds would fly up quickly followed by hundreds more. They would fly out over the rest of the sea of blackbirds and crash into the leaves some twenty or thirty feet beyond the rest of the flock. Leaves would fly and cackles would sound and then from the back it would start all over. Covering about twenty or thirty feet per wave, this sea of thousands of blackbirds moved closer and closer to the shelter where I stood transfixed. It was as if I couldn’t have done anything else at the moment if I had wanted. I was mesmerized into a statuesque (meaning carved out of stone) stance as I watched these marvelous waves barreling toward me. And they didn’t stop at the shelter. They rolled right up to it without slowing down and rolled wave upon wave right over the roof as I stood quietly and watched.

It probably didn’t take more than five or six minutes for these multitudes of blackbirds to pass me by, but it seemed like an eternity. I had a flashback to the Gulf of Mexico and the feeling of being tumbled along underwater as a wave pushed its way past me and on towards the shore. As the last wave of this feathered sea passed over the shelter and disappeared into the woods, their sound fading into the forest, I was left standing in the quiet of the fall morning with just a gentle breeze whispering in the trees and thankfulness in my heart for what I had just experienced. And I couldn’t help but think that you don’t get paid much in dollars and cents for doing the work that we do but at that moment I wouldn’t have traded my position at the shelter at Pocahontas, hanging 10 with the blackbirds in the parking lot, for the biggest corner office in the tallest building in Manhattan.

Click here for more information about Virginia State Parks