For most of its length the Nanticoke remains in marsh and wooded swamp and forest. Surveys beginning in the 1970's confirmed an unusually high diversity of rare and endangered plants around the river; also high concentrations of eagles and habitat for the endangered Delmarva Fox Squirrel. The river holds the nation's northernmost stand of bald cypress, some of the Bay region's best remnants of Atlantic white cedar swamps; also seaside alder, a shrub found only on lower Delmarva and Oklahoma.
Numerous organizations, from The Nature Conservancy to state natural resources agencies in Maryland and Delaware, have made the river and its watershed a focus for protection from development.
In season the modern explorer can see flights of waterfowl, including more than a thousand great, white tundra swans that winter around the Nanticoke each winter from as far off as Alaska's North
Slope. Great blue herons fish the river edges year-round, and spring warblers throng the extensive wooded swamps of maple, black gum and green ash that line the river from Vienna northward.
The Nanticoke is also a premiere fish spawning river, and expect from April through May to see the ocassional rolling of female striped bass that can go to 70 pounds or bigger. Doug StephensShar, a Sharptown realtor and kayaker, found himself literally surrounded by spawning stripers while paddling near his home on Easter weekend in 2008--"the most extraordinary experience I've had in nature," he says.
Fishing for stripers is prohibited in the river during spawning season; but beginning in March there's excellent fishing for tasty, spawning white perch. The river is also popular with bass fishermen; and catfish are available most anytime.
In Smith's spirit of exploration, the Sharptown-to-Phillips Landing traveler might poke into side creeks along the way. Quadrangle maps of the river, obtainable from the U.S. Geological Survey and Maryland Geological Survey, will show them in detail. Two of the finest side trips are up Gales Creek just north of Sharptown, and Plum Creek a little south of the town. In April and May, the blossoming swamp azaleas, fringe tree, sweetbay magnolia and native viburnums can be spectacular, especially on Gales Creek.
The side creeks are also a place to see beaver lodges. The Nanticoke in Colonial times was the best fur producing part of Delmarva, so it is no surprise that as beaver stage a comeback across Maryland and Delaware, the river is again becoming their stronghold.
An evening or night paddle along the river is a good time to hear beaver splashing, and to listen to the hoots of barred and great horned owls reverberate through the swamps.
