Delaware Bay

Delaware Bay 2011

2011-11-04T23:08:00.000-07:00

Clive Minton has provided such an excellent summary of this year's shorebird work in Delaware Bay that we can do no better than to include it, slightly edited, as follows:

Activities at Delaware Bay (New Jersey and Delaware, USA) in May and early June this year followed a very similar pattern to previous years. The usual international team (8 Canada, 4 Australia, 3 England, 2 Chile, 1 New Zealand, 1 Kenya, 1 Argentina, plus around 12 from USA) assembled at the Reeds Beach base on the New Jersey side of the Bay and a similar team was based at Slaughter Beach, near Mispillion Harbour, in Delaware. Fieldwork operations started on 10th May and continued until 2nd June.

Overall it was an excellent year except that the number of Knot and Turnstone coming to Delaware Bay was lower than in 2010 and lower than in any previous year. Those birds which did arrive were on time and generally in good condition, except for a few low weights in the Turnstones which arrived on 17th and 18th May. Crab spawning continued on the New Jersey side of the Bay at a good level throughout the month, two tides per day, and almost regardless of tide height (springs and neaps). This was because the weather was either calm or the winds were from an easterly direction which meant that the New Jersey shore of Delaware Bay was protected. Horseshoe Crabs will not come to the shore to spawn (around high tide) if there is significant wave action because they get overturned and can be left stranded upside down on the beaches. By about 20th May spilled Horseshoe Crab eggs could easily be seen on the New Jersey bay shore and some dense patches collected in creek mouths and other sheltered places. Birds thus gained weight steadily, uninterrupted by the short, cold, wet, windy spells which have occurred during the middle parts of May in most previous years.

Overall 2,171 birds were banded and flagged or retrapped, in 13 cannon-net catches (2,181 in 17 catches last year). The Red Knot (713) and Turnstone (588) samples were ideally spread at 3 or 4 day intervals between 12th and 30th May. The Sanderling (870) were mainly caught in 4, rather more widely spaced catches (deliberately), between 11th and 31st May. There were more within-season recaptures in Red Knot (25) and in Sanderling (23) than normal. Most Red Knot gained weight at 3 to 5 g per day (one, however, gained 15 g in one day) and most Sanderling gained weight, at 1 to 2 g per day. Peak weights reached by individuals were 210 g for Red Knot, 185 g for Ruddy Turnstone and 110 g for Sanderling.

Finally, to round matters off, the weather was particularly settled for the last 10 days of May, meaning that suitable weather conditions for northward migratory departures were available every day. There were huge emigrations of Dunlin and Short-billed Dowitchers from about May 20th onwards and the first Red Knot/Turnstone/Sanderling left on May 24th - a day earlier than ever previously recorded. At the end of the month it was surprising to see that perhaps 20% of the population of these 3 species still remained, even though their weights were satisfactory. Presumably they were waiting for the appropriate date - an unusual situation since in most previous years birds have been struggling to reach take-off weight and have suitable weather conditions for migration by their preferred date of departure.

It is very disappointing that the Knot and Turnstone populations again showed a further decline this year. This was confirmed by both aerial surveys and by coordinated ground/boat counts. With the Red Knot population at the main site at Bahia Lomas in Chile having reduced from 11,000 to 6,000 according to the usual aerial survey earlier this year it was not unexpected that Knot numbers would decrease. Just under 14,000 were present on the whole Bay at peak. The explanation for this apparent sudden further decrease in population is not clear. It has been suggested that the increased frequency of severe hurricanes (there were 8 this year) in the Caribbean during August/September may be causing the loss of some birds during their southward ocean-crossing from North America to South America. Insufficient is known about Ruddy Turnstone to know what factors are affecting their populations other than the obvious one of the major decline in overall Horseshoe Crab numbers at the Delaware Bay northward stopover.

Five geolocators were retrieved from Red Knot this year. Two had been put on in Florida, 1 in Massachusetts, 1 in Argentina (which had originally been banded in Chile) and only 1 from Delaware Bay itself. However this was a particularly interesting one as it was a bird with a geolocator which was retrieved last year (and replaced with a new one). Its migration in both years was very similar. However one of the Florida birds (where 3 migratory journeys were recorded on the logger put on in early 2010) had changed its migration pattern this year, stopping off in Delaware Bay whereas in 2010 it had flown directly from Florida to Hudson Bay. This bird also, notably, had arrived back in its non-breeding area in Florida (again by direct flight from Canada) at the early date of August 15th. It was still in Florida until the day before we caught it in Delaware Bay (May 21st). The bird from Argentina had flown directly across the South American continent on its northward migration and made its initial stopover in Colombia. Fifty new geolocators were applied to Red Knot at Delaware Bay this year.

Delaware Bay 2010

2010-08-08T23:24:00.000-07:00

Thursday, 13 May

The down escalator at the busy 8th Avenue entry to Penn Station does not work so we haul our luggage downstairs. We vow to travel more lightly next time. We were warned about the chaos at Penn Station — travelers only know what track (platform) their trains leave from about 15 minutes before departure. So we all congregate under the large electronic departure boards, watching for details. An enterprising Red Cap porter crosses the floor, asks where we're going and if we want help with out 7 leaden items. We nod. He puts each piece on his trolley and beckons us to follow him into the labyrinthine depths of the station. His key turns escalators that bring us to our carriage ahead of the others – and all for a few dollars.

The impressive foyer in Philadelphia Central Railway Station

Between NY and Philadelphia it is generally industrial and unremarkable. Clive Minton and Prue Wright from Melbourne pick us up at Pennsylvania Central. We meet quite a few core members of the Delaware Bay Shorebird Project at Reed’s Beach house when we arrive. We’re a motley bunch; apart from the four Australians, people come from Britain, Canada, NZ, the States, Colombia, Argentina, Holland and Spain. Among other things, Helen is assisting with her smattering of French. The project is led by Larry Niles and Amanda Dey (husband and wife) from New Jersey. Scientists and avid birders mix it with academics, postgrad students, volunteers and, sometimes, enthusiastic locals.

Evening meals are prepared by supporters of the project – Citizens United (to Protect the Maurice River), headed by Jane Galetto, cook and organiser supreme. Team numbers vary from 17 to 40, with 7 sleeping in the cottage, 9 in the house, several in their trucks (large 4WD), while others return to their homes – and only one toilet and shower (combined) per house! We are all expected to clean up after ourselves but some take advantage. One has to have forbearance and a good sense of humour not to get rattled by the noise, mess, overcrowding and changes in plan – a genteel chaos at best. People come and go, plans change suddenly and one needs to be flexible, take the initiative, get involved and put up with heat, cold, wet, mud, bugs, heated commands during bird netting and off-key singing of poorly chosen songs such as ‘God Save the (Bloody) Queen!’ after dinner.

Friday, 14 May

Today is our first catch day – at Kimbles South. The team sets the net, loads cannon at the beach and waits quietly in the marsh reeds. Larry talks on the radiophone to Peter and Prue who are twinkling (herding the flocks to the catch site from opposite ends of the beach), to Mark Peck who is scoping for geolocator birds and to Clive, who specialises in assisting Larry in the catching operations. Clive always sits beside Larry. After several low, tense interactions we hear the order to fire and the blast of cannon. Scooping up covered red plastic boxes we dash out of the reeds towards the net, toss a green shade cloth over the trapped birds and quickly, but carefully, extricate them. Each box contains either Ruddy Turnstone, Red Knot or Sanderling. While experienced handlers extricate the birds, Helen and some others run around the catching net with a covered box shouting, ‘Knot’, ‘Turnstone’, ‘Sanderling’. This is a critical time to minimise stress and injury to the birds, so we move quickly among the noise and chaos, careful not to stand on the net or trip on ropes or shade cloth and careful not to let the caught birds escape.

Further up the beach, hessian keeping cages are set up ready to receive the contents of the red boxes. Another shade cloth over the keeping cages keeps the birds calm and cool. Various roles are assigned for the processing part of the operation: leg flaggers and banders, feather snippers, measurers (of bill, head and bill, wing), weighers and scribes. Today, Helen scribes and Peter snips feathers from Turnstone and Knot, measures and bands.

The catch: 86 Red Knot (11 retraps); 14 Turnstone (2 retraps); 55 Sanderling (5 retraps) = total 155.

We catch a datalogger (geolocator) bird Flag Lime YOU. Everyone rejoices!

Larry and Joanna with the first recaptured Red Knot carrying a datalogger

Datalogger on Red Knot YOU

Dinner: baked ziti (ricotta and meat sauce pasta) and brownies for dessert. Rosemount wines from Australia are only $8.00 a bottle at the local supermarket so we drink that each night.

Saturday, 15 May

We set a net at Norberg’s on Reed Beach but no cannon is fired today. We concentrate on catching datalogger birds but none come within the catching area. After lunch Peter and Helen are assigned to do a bird count at Kimbles South after the aerial count is completed.

Laughing Gulls at Kimbles

Dinner: A ‘Thanksgiving Dinner’ of turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce and salad is prepared by Jane Galetto, prime motivator of Citizens United and coordinator of evening meals cooked by others. Early this morning Peter Galetto shoots a wild gobbler and this bird is one of the three we eat. Strawberries and pumpkin pie and cream for dessert.

Sunday, 16 May

We set a successful catch at Kimbles South but dismantle the cannon at Reed’s Beach – cold conditions and too much wind.

The catch: 72 Red Knot (8 retraps); 8 Turnstone (1 retrap); 34 Sanderling (2 retraps) = total 114.

After lunch we drive to Cape May with Angela and Barrie, ostensibly to shop for supplies. In the process we visit Cape May lighthouse, the Audubon shop to check out binoculars and the old town centre for a coffee.

Cape May street views

Dinner: Tilapia fish, rice and mixed vegetables; brownies.

Monday, 17 May

The team sets up a catch at Cook’s Beach in still, mild conditions so bug shirts are needed for the long wait in the reeds. Rejoicing at catching a datalogger bird is short-lived when we discover it is the same bird, banded YOU, we caught two days ago! Much disappointment and mutterings about being trigger happy. Helen scribes again and Peter twinkles and collects feather sample for isotope analysis.

Horseshoe Crabs and Laughing Gulls feeding on their 'spilled' eggs.

A few immature American Herring Gulls join the feast

A bunch of locals turn up outside the cordoned-off area interested in our work and willing to help us. Helen gets bitten despite wearing Peter’s bug shirt.

The catch: 98 Red Knot (11 retraps); 8 Turnstones = total 106.

After the catch we drive north of Atlantic City to the Edwin B Forsythe Nature Reserve at Brigantine with Gerry in search of the elusive Bar-tailed Godwit seen there recently. Instead we see Dunlin, Skimmers, Egrets, Sanderling, Semi-palmated Plovers and Black-bellied Plovers, a pair of magnificent Wood Duck and Short-billed Dowitchers. A racoon wanders across a muddy creek to the saltmarshes.

The cold change that arrives late in the day brings rain.

Tuesday, 18 May

A very wet and cold day follows a bitter night. We doubt that the school children will arrive for this morning’s educational sessions, but some keen Grade 6 and 7 children appear around noon. Peter, Helen, Angela and Barrie are tasked with seeing to the children. We huddle in the windblown back room. Netted walls at the back of the Reed's Beach house give no protection from the elements.

Peter explains what the project is about and answers questions from the children, teachers and parents. Helen declines to go on today’s catch because she is too cold. Gwen from Canada kindly lends her a toque (pron. tuke), a beanie, and hot shower and hot drink soon dispel the bone-chilling cold.

Catch: a sample of gulls for educational purposes and bleeding for pathogens.

Later in the day, Gerry invites us to bird watch with him at Cape May. Although we don’t spot the Black-necked Stilt we went to look for, we are delighted to see a beautiful Scissor-tailed Flycatcher.

Dinner: shredded pork casserole, assorted vegetables and lemon tart.

Wednesday, 19 May

Rain abates but it’s still cold and windy. Strips of blue sky struggle to emerge from the grey curtain. We lay the net at Kimble’s but pull it up about an hour later to re-lay it at Reed’s Beach. It's a good catch but a couple of Turnstone escape during processing.

Catch: 9 Red Knot (1 retrap); 76 Turnstone (3 retraps), 7 Sanderling and Semi-palmated Sandpiper (43) = total 135.

Shorebird counting from the air

Ravenous, we wolf down lunch at 3.00pm, then count birds at Kimbles South – plenty of Laughing Gulls and numerous Turnstone much further south. No birds of interest on our beach. Everyone is red-faced (wind and sunburn). Peter and Helen are quite tired and head up to ‘the bridal suite’ for an early night.

Dinner: Chicken, mushroom, tomato, pea and chicken casserole with apple pie and ice cream.

Thursday, 20 May

Laughing Gulls at the tide edge feasting of Horseshoe Crab eggs

It's a lovely day today. We go with Barrie and Angela to the Audubon shop at Goshen to purchase a pair of binoculars. Barrie chooses a Nikon and Helen a Minox. We see Cardinals and a Red-bellied Woodpecker in the grounds.

A large catch at Pierce’s Point: 151 Red Knot (23 retraps); 67 Turnstone (7 retrap) and 85 Sanderling (8 retraps) = total 303.

Dinner: beef tenderloin and a variety of salads with brownies to follow.

After dinner we watch the Philly Flyers vs Canadiens ice hockey match. It's the culmination of the league's season and Gerry loyally wears his supporter's shirt! The Canadiens win this game but lose the remaining matches to be out of the finals. Gerry good-naturedly takes the teasing that comes from losing playful bets with rival supporters.

Gwen, Gerry and Paige watch the hockey

Watching the hockey

Helen taking a keen interest

Kevin Karlson, Humphrey, Stuart Pimm, Clive and Kevin's wife

Friday, 21 May

No catch this morning. We drive to Brigantine again with Gerry, trying out the new Minox 7x42 binoculars. Still no sign of the Bar-tailed Godwit but we see some other good birds along Jenn’s trail and the short trail at the entrance, and in the waterways.

The Brigantine Reserve

Helen is smitten by her first Wood Ducks

Singing Catbird

Artificial nest sites for Purple Martins

Greater Yellowlegs

View SE from the platform

Elegant Skimmers at Brigantine

A wildlife photographer's ultimate mobile hide with driver!

Yellowthroat in full song

Forster's Tern

Ospreys at nest

Atlantic City beyond the bay

Willets copulating

Semi-palmated Plover

Skimmers resting in shallow water

A tortoise on the move

A well-camouflaged toad

A catch is attempted on Reeds Beach North for 7 hours without success. The idea is to target only datalogger Red Knot. Several datalogger birds are seen but the flock is so tightly packed that it's impossible to keep track on the datalogger individuals weaving in and out of the throng. Too many birds! Lynn Salmon drives down from Chappaqua, NY, to volunteer with the team. She helps set the net when Helen and Peter are still at Brigantine with Gerry! John will join her tomorrow – travelling down by bus. They're staying in Atlantic City for the weekend.

Dinner: Pork spare ribs and great salads. Strawberries and cream for dessert.

Saturday, 22 May

PR day today on a mild and sunny day. John joins Lynn from Atlantic City. Because the tide is late today, Helen, John and Lynn climb to the top of the Cape May lighthouse but, instead of seeing some more of the local historic sites, a phone message from Peter requests their immediate return to Reed’s Beach. A demo catch is in progress because two funding-friendly people are present as well as formerly hostile locals whom we need to woo – all part of a volunteer's job.

Laughing Gulls on Kimble's Beach

Today's net firing at Reed's Beach

The catch: 12 Red Knot, 25 Turnstone and 1 retrap = total 37.

John weighs birds and cleans cannon; Lynn scribes and mends a net. They dine with us before returning to Atlantic City for the night.

Lynn and John Salmon

Clive leads a group processing shorebirds

Helen checking data entry with Lynn Salmon

John Salmon enjoying the task of weighing birds

Various teams in action

Helen and Ruddy Turnstone

Dinner: New Orleans gumbo and shrimp. Joanna’s fabulous chocolate fudge disappears rapidly.

High tide drift rows of flotsam and jetsam on the beach south of our house

Sunday, 23 May

Rain and colder conditions this morning. Peter goes to Heislerville with Gerry, Gwen, Sue Rice, Mark Peck and Prue Wright but weather deteriorates with rain showers by the time we get there. Very little to see and very few birds although we do find the usual summer plumaged Curlew-Sandpiper. As ever, we get confused with the roads to Matt’s Landing!

Mute Swan with 4 'Polish morph' cygnets at Heislerville

Sue, Prue and Peter head to Cape May to check out the jetties near the lighthouse for Purple Sandpiper but none are visible. Overcast conditions with increasing showers do not make the prospects of looking for warblers any more attractive. Gerry and Gwen join us after checking out Moors Beach with Mark (dropping him off at base on the way home) but we head home. We farewell Sue who sets off to catch the 1pm ferry to Delaware en route to home in Virginia.

Marsh Wren singing in the rain

Killdeer Plover

Cardinal

Pair of Mallards

Eastern Cottontail Rabbit

Snowy Egret catching fish

Peter takes his unsettled stomach to bed while Helen, Dick Veitch and Jan van der Kam shop at Wal Mart, Rio Grande, and Acme supermarket, Cape May Court House, for photographic supplies for Jan.

Two catches at Reed’s North: the first consisting of 58 Red Knot, (6 retraps, including 1 datalogger bird YOY) and 6 Turnstone = total 64; the second of 10 Red Knot (3 retraps) and 4 Turnstone = total 14.

Dinner: seafood bonanza with asparagus, salad and black-eyed peas. Joanna’s choc fudge makes another welcome appearance and rapid disappearance.

Monday, 24 May

Early morning at Reed's Beach

After a count at Norbury’s Landing early in the morning in the mist, we drive to Drumbeg Road to see a Red-necked Phalarope that Steve Gates has spotted, but fail to find it. Gerry drops Gwen and Prue at Gandy’s Beach to do a count, then drops us at Money Island to do a recce while he goes on to Fortescue where David is woosh netting Semi-palmated Sandpipers. At eerily quiet Money Island gnats abound and a black dog befriends us. Excitement rises when we see a datalogged Willet!

Snow Goose (first year 'clipped' left wing)

Willet with datalogger attached, Money Island

An abandoned stilt house, Money Island

We're all invited to dinner at Mandy and Larry’s own-designed and built house in the countryside near Greenwich. (Good-natured banter ensues about the correct pronunciation. In this 'culture war' the Americans and Canadians insist on Green-witch while the Brits and Anzacs counter with Gren-itch.) On the way home some cars go to Hansey Road in search of Whipoorwill, Chuck-wills-widow and Screech Owl. We get the first two!

Tuesday 25 May

Strandlines south of the Reeds Beach house

The count at Norbury’s Landing is done in good conditions and this time the count plane passes by late in the morning (close to midday!).

Beach at Norbury's Landing

Norbury's Landing

The group catches a datalogger bird in the late afternoon but we're at Stone Harbor from mid-afternoon until dusk with Humphrey Sitters and Jan van de Kam. Among the usual shorebirds, we see two male (immature) Eiders, a Gull-billed Tern, 22 magnificent Skimmers, 1600-2000 Red Knot scintillating in the late afternoon sky in readiness for their northern takeoff. Jan photographs the sequinned shimmers for hours. Helen is fascinated by the ever-surging tide over the sand spit and the flats.

Helen keeps her feet dry at the Stone Harbor spit

Humphrey and Jan on the Stone Harbor flats

Jan capturing the flock of Red Knot

Jan van der Kam misses nothing with his big lens

Red Knot alighting

Red Knot in flight in evening sunlight

Skimmers over the sandbar, Stone Harbor

American Oystercatcher

Catch at Reed’s Beach North: Red Knot 18, Turnstone 10 and Sanderling 0 = total 28.

Wednesday 26 May

Our final catch is at South Kimbles: Red Knot 84, Turnstone 39 and Sanderling 15 = total 138. We leave for Philadelphia airport with Barry and Angela who were returning to Toronto. Prue Wright drove with us as she was heading home to Melbourne. At the airport we again encounter problems with weight. However, Helen is able to persuade the ticketing clerk to waive the fee. Mercifully, the overnight flight to Milan via Frankfurt passes relatively quickly.

Daily bulletins in the form of charts and graphs

Newly hatched Horseshoe Crab. A long way to go!

Last evening at the Reeds Beach house

Last light

TRANSCRIPT OF TWO REPORTS PREPARED BY CLIVE MINTON - all pictures by JAN VAN DE KAM

PART 1

Overall, we have had a reasonably good start but, as always, there are some negatives.

The best news is that for the second consecutive year horseshoe crabs started spawning early (at the beginning of May) and have continued to spawn all around the bay since then. This means that there are plenty of eggs buried in the sand and enough spilled on the surface to keep all the shorebirds which are here well fed (and unfortunately myriads of Laughing Gulls and big gulls).

The first arrivals of Sanderling, Turnstone and then Red Knot were in the May 8 to 12 period. Arrival weights were satisfactory and birds immediately started to gain weight (one retrap Red Knot gained 12 grams in 2 days!) Quite often in the past the early bird has not caught the worm and birds have almost starved in mid-May due to a lack of eggs and cold windy weather.

Mixed flock of waders, Delaware Bay, 2010

The weather has generally been calm, warm and dry. But we did have an interruption earlier this week when it rained continuously for 36 hours and blew a bit from the north- east. This weather system was extensive over the whole of the east coast of the USA and seems to have cut off the waves of migration which should have been arriving here around 16 to 21 May. The net result is that we are short of birds with numbers on all species below what we would normally expect at this date (May 22). Hopefully there will be big new arrivals in the next few days and, if food continues to be available at present levels, they could still get to the church on time (i.e. get to the necessary weight to leave here by May 28 to 30).

We've been able to make catches of all species when necessary to band, flag and monitor their weights with totals so far of 424 Red Knot, 257 Turnstone and 364 Sanderling. Initially the average weights were slightly above the 13-year average, but now they have dropped back to be pretty well on the line. However, some individuals are already at top weight and, theoretically, able to depart if they wish. Several birds of all three species were banded as long ago as 1998, and one Turnstone came from our first catches here in May 1997.

Red Knot, Delaware Bay, 2010

The greatest focus, of course, has been on recapture of birds carrying geolocators (datalogges). About 15 different individuals have been seen so far (out of 49 applied in Delaware Bay last May and another 150 plus elsewhere in the flyway). We've spent hours intensely scanning Red Knots in the catching area of the cannon-net, holding off firing until we could see a geolocator bird present. On our first significant catch of Red Knot we got one. On our second catch we thought we had one but it wasn't in the birds in the net when we extracted them! On our third catch we again got one -- unbelievably the same individual that we had caught several days previously!! (We had put a new datalogger on to replace the one removed.) Yesterday we spent 4 hours searching through 100 to 500 Red Knot which were in the catching area and never fired the net. Four different dataloggers were seen in the 3000 Red Knot around the catch area (feeding up the beach in eggs in the high-tide wrack) but never once could we see one which was catchable.

Red Knot carrying datalogger

Our disappointment of yesterday was hugely relieved this morning when we got information back from British Antarctic Survey on the contents of the datalogger which we had removed. We have a full record of its northward departure from here in late May 2009, a stopover in James Bay and its 6 weeks' period of breeding on Southampton Island, at the north end of Hudson Bay (including its incubation period). It then came back via James Bay and Delaware Bay and flew across the Caribbean, stopping at Guadaloupe for a week on its way to its non-breeding area on the north coast of Brazil. It stayed there for 6 months and its battery only ran out 3 weeks ago just before it came back here on northward migration.

We've also carried out 2 bay-wide ground and aerial counts and the next one is scheduled for Monday. We got better correlation between ground and air this year than sometimes in the past. On non-technical matters, we have been eating wonderfully. A very kind and generous lady (Jane Galetto) has organised for sumptuous dinners to be brought in to us by volunteers each day. Last night it was accompanied by 4 volunteer musicians (flute, fiddle, guitar and squeeze box) and, unbelievably, we were joined by a visitor with bagpipes from an adjacent house!!

In summary -- we've had a good start but the outcome of the season is still in the balance. However, most of the signs at the moment are quite positive. I'll send another report before I leave on June 3.

Clive Minton 22nd May 2010

PART 2

Herewith the second, and final, report on the Shorebird Studies at Delaware Bay (New Jersey/Delaware, USA) in May/early June 2010.

I left Delaware Bay last Thursday (June 3rd) with a smile on my face. It is the first time in the 14 years I have been visiting there that everything went really well for the shorebirds using it as the final stopover on their northward migration from South America and the southern US to breeding areas in arctic Canada. Red Knot, Sanderling and (eventually) Ruddy Turnstone all reached satisfactory take-off weights and the whole population was able to depart for the arctic on schedule in the last week of May and the first few days of June.

This successful outcome was largely due to the unusually settled and generally warm weather experienced throughout the period from early May. The Horseshoe Crabs were thus able to come ashore to lay eggs at high tide on almost every day and night tide throughout the period, almost regardless of the phase of the moon/height of the tide. Only three or four tides were affected by strong winds which prevent the crabs coming ashore for fear of being turned over in the waves and then being left stranded on the beach. On most days in the last week of May the edge of the sea was green with spilled eggs and sometimes these were left stranded in green-coloured winnow lines in patches on the beaches. This situation extended throughout the bay and on the Delaware side it was reported that eggs were 25cm deep in one backwater eddy. Although the weather clearly played a most important part all the evidence also suggests that there was a genuine increase in the numbers of spawning crabs present this year. Subsequent survey data may show that we have at last turned the corner in the number of crabs breeding - the first tangible benefits from the restrictions on Horseshoe Crab harvesting progressively increased since the late 1990s.

'Flagged' Red Knot, Delaware Bay, 2010

Unfortunately population levels of the three main study species remain depressed and there is not yet any sign of an increase. Red Knot levels (an estimated 16,000 on the bay) have been at a relatively constant level now for the last three or four years (as have the winter counts in the Tierra del Fuego wintering areas). Thus the fact that this year there was sufficient food available for all the waders which came to Delaware Bay has to be judged in the context that their numbers are only around 25% of those which visited there to feed on migration 20 years ago.

The distribution of Red Knot in Delaware Bay this year was quite different from other recent years, with the majority of Red Knot being on the New Jersey side of the bay. The early waves have often come to the New Jersey side but then moved back across the bay to Delaware where Mispillion Harbour has usually had far more Horseshoe Crabs than anywhere else on the bay. Although eggs were abundant there again this year, heavy predation by local Peregrines in the first half of May (three attacks per hour were recorded at one stage) seems to have deterred the Red Knot from congregating there and with such good food available continuously throughout May elsewhere they found it safer to use other locations. The Atlantic marshes around Stone Harbour supported very few feeding Knots this year but there were still some roosting aggregations of Red Knot moving there from Delaware Bay (up to 4000) when high tides occurred in the early evening.

The catching, banding and flagging program went extremely smoothly in New Jersey with samples of 50 or more birds of each of the three main study species being caught at three or four day intervals between 11th May and 2nd June. The total of 660 Red Knot (83 retraps) was similar to last year (696). However Ruddy Turnstone (558) was well down on the 2009 figure of 796. The second wave of migrant Turnstones, mostly females, did not arrive in the bay until around 21st to 24th May - rather later than usual. The Sanderling catch (962) was significantly up on the previous year (692), due to two large catches at the end of the season. The overall total (2181) was almost identical to the previous year (2184).

YOY datalogger carrying Red Knot

A special target this year was the retrieval of geolocators put on Red Knot in May 2009. Scanners particularly searched for these and saw 41 different birds altogether. Twenty-three of these were from the 47 geolocators applied in Delaware Bay in 2009. Others came from Massachusetts (7), Florida (6), the Atlantic coast (3) and Argentina (2). Catching also targeted birds carrying geolocators with four observers with telescopes scanning the birds in and around the catching area. This technique eventually proved successful with three different birds being recaptured (compared with the random catching probability of only one recapture). The results of downloading the data stored on the geolocators were fascinating. All three birds had had to stop in James Bay in early June 2009 because of the late snowmelt and snowfalls further north in arctic Canada. One then proceeded on to Southampton Island, the southernmost breeding area for Red Knot and as it stayed there until mid-August and showed some signs of incubation it probably bred. The other two went further north into the southern Arctic and appeared to wander around quite widely, not attempting to breed before they returned southward again in late July. All three birds wintered in South America, reaching there after long flights across the western Atlantic. One was in northern Brazil, one in north-east Brazil and one in central Argentina. The northward migration was also recorded for two of the birds including the non-stop flight across the sea from South America direct to Delaware Bay. The bird from north-east Brazil left there on the surprisingly late date of 19th May and reached Delaware Bay on 23rd May, after a continuous four-day flight across the ocean. It was recaptured and the logger removed on 25th May. Hopefully more dataloggers will be retrieved of Red Knot on southward migration and in their wintering areas, especially Florida, before again being available for recapture on migration through Delaware Bay in May 2011. Undoubtedly the data arrived from even a few retrieved dataloggers provides vastly more insight into the migrational strategy and routes of Red Knots than is currently obtainable from flag resightings and recaptures of banded birds.

Sue, Humphrey and Larry look at the first Red Knot map generated from datalogger information

Catches are controlled and scheduled in order to provide close monitoring of the weights of birds on arrival in Delaware Bay and during the weight gain process prior to departure northwards. Because of the good food supplies, arriving birds started to gain weight immediately and throughout most of the period average weights of Red Knot and Turnstone were above the 13-year average. All three species achieved average weights above the minimum take-off weight, with Red Knot peaking at 183gr on 28th May (one bird weighed 221gr), Ruddy Turnstone 158gr on 2nd June and Sanderling 90gr on 1st June and 91gr on 2nd June. These Sanderling average weights have only been exceeded twice in the 14 years of Delaware Bay studies. Histograms of birds caught in late May and early June showed almost no tail this year, i.e. virtually the whole population had gained weight sufficiently to achieve take-off for the arctic on time in the last week of May and the first few days of June.

Weight for date chart for Delaware Bay Red Knot on 26th May 2010

A huge departure of Red Knot took place on the evening of May 25th - the earliest date on which birds have previously been seen to leave. Apart from one day conditions remained reasonably favourable for departure right through to early June and flocks of birds were observed from the Reeds Beach house migrating northward out of the bay each evening between 5.30 and 7.30pm. By the time I left Delaware Bay on June 3rd few Red Knot remained and most of the Turnstone and a good proportion of the Sanderling had already left.

So, it was a good year at Delaware Bay. With the majority of birds getting away in good condition and on time the foundations are laid for a potentially good breeding year in the arctic. Last year the breeding season was ruined by an exceptionally late snowmelt. This year there are reports that it is an early spring and the forecast is for a good summer. Let us hope that this leads to the much needed breeding bonanza - the high production of young necessary to start the process of rebuilding population levels. We will keep our fingers crossed for the next few weeks until the outcome is known - hopefully with large numbers of juvenile Red Knot appearing at the east coast migration stopover sites in Canada and the USA in August and September.

Clive Minton 12th June 2010

Red Knot, Delaware Bay, 2010

Uncorrected first output of results from Red Knot YOU - the first datalogger/geolocator carrying Red Knot to be recaptured.

(Map courtesy of Ron Porter)

See this (forthcoming) publication for full details:

NILES, L. J., BURGER, J., PORTER, R. R., DEY, A. D., MINTON, C. D. T., GONZALEZ, P.M., BAKER, A. J., FOX, J. W., W. & GORDON,C. 2010. First results using light level geolocators to track Red Knots in the Western Hemisphere show rapid and long intercontinental flights and new details of migration pathways. Wader Study Group Bulletin 117(2) xx-xx.

Maps showing the movements of three different Red Knots (extracted from above publication) look like this:

Rede Knot YOU fully corrected
Released 11 May 2009

Red Knot 1VL
Released 26th May 2009 - recaptured 25 May 2010

Red Knot YOY
Released 11 May 2009 - recaptured 23 May 2010

Thanks to Larry Niles for permission to reproduce these maps here in this blog.

Delaware Bay 2009

2009-05-31T06:25:00.000-07:00

Shorebirds

We assemble on the 12th May at the usual Reeds Beach house of #83C (North Beach road) and get underway the following morning. I am, as usual (and as I prefer!), in the overspill house (#86) on the opposite side of the road.

This year the weather is kind to us and the Atlantic Horseshoe Crabs Limulus polyphemus have a good spawning up to the end of May. Calm and warm conditions prevail and the numbers of crabs seen on beaches is much more spectacular than we have seen for some years past. Also, the numbers of Red Knot are higher than of late with the possibility of a Baywide count of at least 30 000 by the 26th.

The following day numbers crash on all beaches. We saw some flocks heading north at higher altitude in the twilight of the evening of 27th - reinforcing the assumption that many had probably left overnight on 26th with further departures on this second evening.

Counts by the BTO led team at Misspillion on the Delaware side peaked at the astonishing number of 25 000 Red Knot estimated as present amongst about 45 000 shorebirds thought to be in the harbour on the 26th! Our counts for the eastern shore on that day amounted to a further 5000, at best.

The following is the report that Clive Minton prepared in two parts - an early, interim report and a final overview put together towards the end of the work. It best summarizes the success of this years Delaware Bay studies.

First report from Delaware Bay, May 2009 from Clive Minton (17^th May)

We have been on Delaware Bay for six days now. The season has started well. The weather has been warm and calm except for Friday and this has given good opportunities for the horseshoe crabs to spawn on both the nightime and daytime high tides, in spite of it being neap rather than spring tides. They don't come ashore to spawn in rough weather because they get turned on their backs by the waves and often cannot right themselves.

The shorebirds (sorry, waders!) have also arrived on time and in reasonable numbers. They seem to have had a good journey and most of the new arrivals have had a satisfactory weight. With widespread food available they have also started to gain weight satisfactorily. The average weights of all the Red Knot, Ruddy Turnstone and Sanderling catches we have had so far have been marginally above the mean weight versus data graph for the twelve previous years.

Catching has gone according to plan except that today we couldn't get the number of knot we wanted to sit in front of the net and eventually had to settle fro a Sanderling and Turnstone catch. So far we have caught 649 birds - 179 Red Knot, 214 Turnstone and 256 Sanderling. We also had a big catch of about 200 Laughing Gulls and 5 Herring Gulls for the Avian influenza people.

So far so good. But as we have seen in previous years, everything can turn around so quickly if we get a spell of cool windy weather. If we can just get through the next week, when all the remaining birds should arrive, we could have quite a good outcome this year. We are keeping our fingers crossed.

Will keep you posted.

- The following is an update on 31^st May 2009

Report from Delaware Bay Shorebirds study for 2009

This is a 'good news' report. After twelve years of depressing reports of reduced horseshoe crab spawning, decreasing shorebird numbers and poor rates of weight gain we at last have what appears to be a turn round in the situation. It's too early to be absolutely certain that things will be better in the future because we cannot separate this years results from the obvious major contribution deriving from the best May weather conditions we have experienced in the thirteen years of the study.

Let me give you some more detail - on the weather, on the horseshoe crabs, on the shorebird numbers, on our banding, on the weights of birds and on our data logger application.

Firstly the weather. We have only had two wet days and one really windy day in the three and a half weeks since we arrived here on May 7th. The relatively calm sea conditions have been particularly beneficial to crab spawning and contrast markedly with the ten continuous days of cold wet and windy weather we experienced in May last year. We have only had the one cool (beany) day as north winds have been almost completely absent. Most days it has been in the 20-27C range - perfect.

Good numbers of crabs came ashore at high tide to spawn during the full moon period in the second week of May. Because of the calm weather they continued right throughout the neap tide period. Then there was a huge bonanza of spawning over the spring tide period of the New Moon in the fourth week of May. Crabs were ten deep on some of the beaches, absolutely covered some of the sheltered creek mouths and eventually spawned along every beach of the Delaware Bay coast. Sufficient food was therefore available for even the earliest arriving shorebirds and by the last week there have been winnows of crab eggs along every shoreline and heaps accumulating in all the pools on the foreshore. This is the first time we have seen this in New Jersey for five years or more and it is much more like the situation that existed when we first started the studies here in 1997. Whilst a part of the increase in spawning horseshoe crabs is associated with the relatively calm seas it does appear that a genuine increase may have come from the first beneficial effects of the restrictions on horseshoe crab harvesting which began to be introduced in 1998-9. Horseshoe crabs take ten years to reach breeding maturity.

Waders started to arrive in good numbers at the end of the first week in May, rather earlier than usual. With the settled weather conditions arrivals were fairly continuous until the last birds got here around May 23rd. With feeding conditions being good it seems that they all remained, though as usual Red Knot gyrated around the Bay with their distribution patterns changing quite markedly over each two or three day period. As usual Misspillion Harbor in Delaware, became the focal point when Red Knot numbers were estimated to be 17 000 on May 24th and an amazing 25 000 on May 25th. At the same time we had between 4 000 and 6 000 Red Knot on the New Jersey side of the Bay. The total of around 30 000 was slightly above the previous estimated population for rufa Red Knot in the flyway last year and well above the highest total recorded on any one day in Delaware Bay in recent years. However, we don't think this represents a significant turn around yet in Red Knot population numbers. More, it is the result of the unusual weather and feeding conditions, which meant that this year all the Red Knot had arrived in DB before any had departed. Additionally, we know that the count in Virginia was much reduced this year (3 500 max - versus 7 000 normally) and that even these only stayed there temporarily as feeding conditions were apparently not good there on the shores of the Atlantic coast. We thus, therefore, probably had almost the whole of the rufa Red Knot population present together in Delaware Bay for a couple of days.

Arrival weights of Red Knot, Ruddy Turnstone and Sanderling were all good this year, even on the early arriving birds. Few were below fat free weight. Some of the cohorts arriving around the 20th May were rather low in weight however, because they had had to go through particularly unsettled weather down in Florida. Average weights of nearly all the catch samples of all three species throughout the month have almost always been above the average weights of birds for the previous twelve years of the study. This is in marked contrast with last year when the early arriving birds certainly 'didn't catch the worm', but instead almost starved. As an example of the good situation this year over 50% of the Red Knot we caught on May 26th were above our estimated average departure weight of 180g (last year this figure was 17%). As a consequence there were massive migratory departures of Red Knot that evening with an almost 80% of the population leaving. May 25th-28th was the traditional May departure period and this is the first time that a major part of the population has been able to depart northwards on time for several years. Today (May 31st) we still have a couple of thousand Red Knot and a few thousand Ruddy Turnstone in the Bay (and probably several thousand Sanderling) but even these later arriving/fattening birds look likely to reach satisfactory departure weights in the next two or three days, given the copious supplies of spilled horseshoe crab eggs on all the shores. So when the team disperses on June 2nd the shores are likely to be almost empty of shorebirds, in marked contrast with most recent years when we have gone home (usually on June 5th) with thousands of shorebirds still remaining.

As the above information implies our catching program has gone very much according to schedule enabling us to monitor weights and arrival cohorts throughout the period from May 8th up to the present time. We have a Sanderling catch scheduled for today, but it is possible that we change that and try for a final Red Knot catch (or try for these tomorrow if any are still left). In 16 cannon net catches on the New Jersey side we have so far had 640 Red Knot, 787 Ruddy Turnstone and 629 Sanderling. Excluded are by-catches of several hundred Dunlin and Semi-palmated Sandpipers (500 of each?) most of which have been released unbanded although we did have the separate Semi-palmated Sandpiper study team with us on one occasion. I don't have figures for the catches on the Delaware side of the Bay (they only operated from the 16th -30 May) but they did have a similar number of Red Knot, fewer Ruddy Turnstones, and one small catch of Sanderling (plus lots of Semi-palmated Sandpiper and Dunlin also).

We put geolocator data loggers on 47 Red Knot. These were the same product that we used recently on Ruddy Turnstone in Victoria. They were all applied via a leg flag on the tibia though a variety of designs was used. The main difference was that darvic spacer rings were placed on the tibia below the flag with the geolocator attached in order to raise this a little above the ‘knee’ joint. All birds with data loggers were placed in a specially constructed pen and observed for ten minutes (and compared with banded/flagged birds without geolocators) before release. Great efforts were also made to look for these birds in the field during flag scanning operations and over 30 individuals were relocated (some several times) and some observed for extended periods. Almost all walked, ran, fed and roosted normally. A few seem to find the geolocator attachment slightly inconvenient, but no injuries or serious inhibitions were observed and at least one such bird was later observed not exhibiting any inconvenience. By good fortune two of the nine within-season recaptures were birds carrying data loggers. One had gained 11g in weight in three days and the other 56g in 15 days. These rates of weight gain (3.7g per day) are similar to those for the population as a whole.

All we have to do now is recapture some of these birds so that we can download the data loggers at Delaware Bay next year (or in a later year) or at one of their wintering locations in Florida, Argentina or Chile!

It has been really pleasing and enjoyable to be part of the team which has at last seen some potentially significant benefits from the huge study and conservation efforts which have been put in at Delaware Bay over the last twelve years. Because Red Knots at best only reproduce slowly and Horseshoe Crab eggs take a decade to turn into egg-laying adults recovery to mid 1990s levels of shorebird numbers will inevitably take a long time but it is really good to see that this process has started.

Clive Minton

Addendum:

But it all ended magnificently. Against all our expectations that it could be achieved we actually managed to catch Red Knot (53) and Sanderling (63) in the one catch this morning. Furthermore the average weight of the knots was the highest ever recorded for this date (or later) and has only been exceeded by three catches in the exceptional 1998 year. The average Sanderling weight was also well above the average departure weight and has again only been exceeded on three occasions in the previous twelve years. There was hardly a low weight bird for either species and this means that almost the entire populations which have called in at Delaware Bay this year will have been able to get away at the right weight and on time. As a bonus the small sample of Ruddy Turnstone today (9) contained a Brazilian bird.

Tomorrow, the final catch is of large gulls (Herring, Black-backed and Ring-billed) just to provide samples for the avian Influenza people. We leave here Tuesday afternoon and will be back home on Thursday morning.

[In fact we made a small catch of Herring Gulls at Delaware Avenue, Villas with the potential of a larger catch being missed.]

Charts

2009-05-31T06:00:00.000-07:00

The wall charts!

All catches on the New Jersey side of Delaware Bay 2009

Red Knot, Ruddy Turnstone and Sanderling - mean weights of catch samples

Weight distributions from catches of Red Knot

Weight distributions from catches of Ruddy Turnstone

Weight distributions from catches of Sanderling

Some of the people

2009-05-30T15:04:00.000-07:00

Clive Minton

Patricia Gonzalez

Robyn Atkinson

Carl Keuhner

Humphrey Sitters measuring a Red Knot

Alan Baker

Clive Minton

Ron Porter

Patsy at Fortescue working on Semi-palmated sandpipers

Joe Jehl

Robyn Atkinson

Kevin Karlson

Steve Gates

Joanna Burger

Dale Karlson

Jan van der Kam

Mike Gotchfeld

Jane Galetto

Peter Galetto

Tony Glock

Sue Taylor

The Reeds Beach House

2009-05-30T15:00:00.000-07:00

Entrance door to 83C

Sidewalk with boat at 83C

Signage on the beach to the north of the house

Beach north of 83C North Beach Rd, Reeds Beach

The busy kitchen- Patsy in the foreground -

Mandy, Alan Baker and Patricia Gonzalez behind her.

Around the Kitchen table! Amongst others,

Susan Taylor at the laptop and Humphrey Sitters alongside.

Jeannine Parvin chatting with Ron Porter with others in the main room

Humphrey Sitters and Dick Veitch at their typical posts with laptops

Front verandah and balcony at 83C

Migration watching

2009-05-30T14:00:00.000-07:00

In the last few days of this year's shorebird work we saw evening departures of shorebirds heading north. Just on dusk, as the sun was setting, we could often see parties of between 20-100 or more shorebirds at a time heading off at higher altitude than would be normal for them if they were simply moving to and fro between beaches on Delaware Bay. Flocks often began to form into chevrons - another sure sign that they they were intent on a long trip!

Sunset over the Jetty at 834C Reeds Beach

More sunset. Ideal conditions for good migration watching!

Clive Minton in place for an evening migration watch.

Note the glasses of red wine - one of them mine!

Mostly these migrant departures were far off and not easily identified to species but they undoubtedly included Red Knot and Ruddy Turnstone whose numbers over this period declined rapidly with each passing day. Sanderling were also declining but not so quickly as the knot and turnstones and the Short-billed Dowitcher numbers had already fallen dramatically and almost overnight a week or so before. Dowitchers are often the first to leave and it seems that the Semi-palmated Sandpipers are also the last to go along with the Sanderling.

Spectacular to watch and wonderful to contemplate them winging their way towards their ultimate destinations - their breeding grounds in the high Arctic of Canada.

Clive, Mandy and Larry watching out for migration

Flock about 1130 from the sun

Shorebirds top left.

Others now join in for the migration watch on the last night - 1st June 2009

Some of the shorebirds

2009-05-29T15:12:00.000-07:00

Shorebirds at Money Island

Various shorebirds and an American Oystercatcher - Gandy's Beach

Willet on Musk Rat house!

Another Willet guarding its territory

Red Knot with Ruddy Turnstone in forground

Flypast of shorebirds - mainly Red Knot and Dunlin, but with a Short-billed Dowitcher and a radio-transmitter fitted Red Knot at the upper centre; if you can locate it!

Red Knot, Dunlin, Sanderling and Ruddy Turnstone

Another massed take-off of shorebirds - Red Knot, Dunlin and Short-billed Dowitcher

Piping Plover at Cape May

Beaches looking a little deserted by the time we leave

Shorebird cannon netting

2009-05-27T17:21:00.000-07:00

Holding boxes - transfer of birds from the net to the keeping cages

Processing teams

Measuring a Red Knot

Processing and film crew

Drying the smaller net

Assembling shorebirds before a catch

Checking the danger zone

Cannon net setting

Firing the net at Moores Beach

Covering material

A catch of gulls!

Processing teams

A geolocator data logger on a Red Knot. The device is sewn and glued onto a specially made tibial leg flag with two Darvic spacers

Fitting a geolocator on a Red Knot

Geolocators ready to fit onto Red Knot

A geolocator fitted Red Knot

Joanna Burger checking the well-being of geolocator fitted Red Knot before release

Horseshoe Crabs

2009-05-26T18:58:00.000-07:00

Horseshoe Crab eggs

Winnows of Horseshoe Crab eggs at the tideline

Horseshoe crab tracks in the sand

Winnows of Horseshoe Crab eggs at the tidelines

Some other birds and a rabbit!

2009-05-25T19:07:00.000-07:00

House Finch

Laughing Gulls at it again!

Thought to be a Glaucous Gull x Herring Gull hybrid? A so called Nelson's Gull.

Might be a good Glaucous Gull in fact.

Eurasian Starling

Eurasian Starling in song

Ospreys

Mute Swan brood - Cape May

Note the pale legs - so called 'Polish form'

Great Egret

Red-winged Blackbird

Canada Goose

Pair of Gadwall

Fleeing Turkey

Turkeys alongside the road

Purple Martin - male, Money Island

Clapper rail at Thompson's Beach

Ospreys at a practice nest site behind house #86

Purple Martins -male and female at the Galettos jetty

Bald Eagle - adult on Maurice River

Osprey

American Fish Crow at the garbage - house 83C!

Eastern Cottontail

Other oddments

2009-05-24T19:37:00.000-07:00

Fortsecue

Garbage Collection - 83C North Beach Road, Reeds Beach

Views inside 83C North Beach Road, Reeds Beach

Leg flag making

Half Moon

Sunset over Delaware Bay

House at sea - Money Island

View south from our jetty at house 83C North Beach Road, Reeds Beach

Cord-grass marshes

Bottom of South Beach Road , Reeds Beach

Coastal erosion of house sites South Beach Road, Reeds Beach

A morning under sail on the A J Meerwald

2009-05-23T19:46:00.000-07:00

Riverside house in Mauricetown

On board the A J Meerwald

The A J Meerwald and the docks at Bivalve (Port Norris)

News reports

2009-05-22T03:24:00.000-07:00

Wed, Jun. 3, 2009

Biologists hopeful red knots have turned a corner
By Sandy Bauers
Inquirer Staff Writer

After more than a decade monitoring the steady decline of a small migratory
shorebird called the red knot, researchers on Delaware Bay are finally hopeful.

For the last several nights, the international crew of bird experts watched as
flock after flock - sometimes hundreds of birds at once - lifted off and headed
north, bound for their breeding grounds in the Arctic.

"It was inspiring," said Larry Niles, the Department of Environmental Protection
biologist who first drew attention to the bird's plight and who is now a consultant
for the nonprofit Conserve Wildlife Foundation of New Jersey.

"The whole team really felt some satisfaction that, after all this time, we're finally
seeing something go right."

In recent years, the birds didn't gain the weight they needed at their Delaware Bay
stopover, and the departures were sporadic, uneventful.

But this year, in part because of good weather, the birds did gain weight, priming
them for reproductive success. If they have ample young, it could bolster a
population considered to be on the brink.

The bay is known worldwide for the springtime spectacle of dozens of shorebird
species migrating through. All have declined, but none as much as the red knot.

The knots begin one of the longest migrations on the planet at the tip of South
America. Every May, they stop at Delaware Bay, emaciated, to bulk up on the
fat-rich eggs of horseshoe crabs, which are just then coming ashore to spawn.

The birds need to double their weight in about 10 days to make it to the Arctic
in time to breed and get out before the late-summer snows.

Once numbering nearly 100,000 on the bay, the birds have declined to about
15,000. Biologists blame a reduction in the number of crabs, which were
heavily harvested through the 1990s.

Gradually, in what officials said was the first time a species not in trouble was
regulated to help another that was, crab harvest restrictions have been enacted.

Still, neither the crabs nor the birds have shown a comeback. Biologists fear
the red knots could plummet into extinction with an event as simple as a
summer snowstorm in the Arctic or an oil spill in South America.

Advocates have repeatedly, but unsuccessfully, tried to get the U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Service to designate the bird - a subspecies called Calidris
canutus rufa - as federally threatened or endangered.

Yesterday, the researchers packed up and headed home after spending
a month on the bay capturing red knots with sophisticated netting devices.
They logged biologic data and banded the birds before setting them free.

Australian shorebird expert Clive Minton, who has joined Niles on the bay
since 1997, called it "an exciting year. We think we're really seeing the
beginning of a possible turn-round in the fortunes of the crabs and the shorebirds."

Based on the birds the biologists netted, Niles estimated 60 percent
reached their optimum weight before heading north. Last year, only
about 15 percent did so.

What made the difference, the researchers said, was a surprising ally: the weather.

"It cooperated beautifully," said Amanda Dey, a biologist who is now the DEP's
lead red knot researcher. With calm waters and warm temperatures, the crabs
swarmed ashore to deposit their eggs in the soft, moist sand.

She said that for the first time in more than a decade, the researchers were even
seeing "washes" of eggs on the beaches.

Biologist do not yet have a final red knot count for this year because clouds and
fog hampered the weekly aerial surveys. Based on ground counts, however,
Niles doubted the birds had increased.

If the birds do have record numbers of young in the Arctic this summer, the
researchers are unlikely to know it for more than a year.

They base overall population estimates on the January count in Tierra del
Fuego, and the first-year young do not fly that far south.

So any uptick in the population likely would not be documented until 2011.

June 6, 2009

Red knots dine well on Del. beaches

Endangered birds may be rallying -- along with horseshoe crabs

By MOLLY MURRAY

The News Journal

There may finally be good news for the red knot. Biologists still must analyze data on this spring's shorebird migration through Delaware Bay and the horseshoe crab spawning season, but early indications are that it was a good season for the birds and the crabs. Now, said Kevin Kalasz, a zoologist with the state's non-game and endangered species program, "We need a few more years like this." Red knots, the migratory shorebird species that many believe is most at risk, seemed to have little trouble putting on weight -- an indication that crab eggs were in plentiful supply, Kalasz said. And the aerial surveys of birds in the bay likely missed the peak of migration because of bad weather around May 24, when scientists believed the largest number of birds were in the estuary, he said. Still, even with missing the peak, the estimated number of red knots at Mispillion Harbor alone was at least 20,000, Kalasz said. In recent years, the peak number of red knots in the bay has numbered somewhere fewer than 16,000 birds baywide during the annual migration to Arctic breeding grounds. The birds -- and other migratory shorebird species -- stop over for two to three weeks to eat and put on fat reserves before continuing their northern journey. Red knots need significant weight gain -- they typically weigh about 110 grams when they arrive on our shores and need to weigh 190 to 210 grams when they leave two or three weeks later. They depend heavily on a diet of protein-rich horseshoe crab eggs. Simply to maintain their weight, they need to eat 13,000 of the pearly-green, pin-head-sized eggs each day. To put on the huge fat reserves for migration and breeding, they need a diet of 24,000 eggs a day. During this migration, "it appeared there were a large number of eggs on the beach," Kalasz said. "It seems like it was a really good season for the birds." It also seems like it was a good season for the crabs. Stewart Michels, a state wildlife biologist, said that researchers will need to look at the spawning count numbers baywide to get a complete picture, but it appears that in key areas, it was a good year. Michels said he did survey work at Pickering Beach -- an area he has surveyed for several years. "It was about as good as I've seen there," he said. "It's probably some of the best early spawning I've seen." Michels said what scientists are seeing could be crabs that are just entering the spawning cycle -- crabs that were protected by strict fisheries management rules that were enacted amid concerns of overharvesting. Delaware still allows a harvest of 100,000 male-only crabs. New Jersey has a ban on horseshoe crab harvests. Delaware's season opens on Monday. The crabs are cut into quarters and used as a bait in conch and eel pots and in some other fisheries, In the early 1990s, millions of crabs were harvested each year -- raising concerns about the possible collapse of the species, a creature that predates the dinosaur and can take a decade to reach sexual maturity. Michels said survey work also points to a growing pool of juvenile crabs. "I'm so very encouraged," he said. This year's good news comes at a critical time. Last year, a late season nor'easter disrupted crab spawning and impacted the birds, as well. Commercial fisherman Charles Auman said he probably won't be out hand-collecting horseshoe crabs when the season opens. Instead, he said, he'll probably be at his site at Mispillion Harbor, buying crabs from other fishermen. Auman said he has heard that spawning was good this year. "I think even in their own surveys, they are realizing there are a lot of crabs."

Delaware Bay 2008- part one

2008-06-02T22:03:00.000-07:00

Reed's Beach Houses - high tide
Our main house is behind the blue-grey house on the right;
the second house is out of view on the opposite side of the road.

Shorebirds

May 12^th to June 2^nd

Back again!

As I write this at the end of the first week there is a Carolina Wren singing heartily outside this window not 2 metres away. It is late afternoon. His loud and musical twidgaloo, twidgaloo, twidgaloo, twidgaloo, is ringing in my ears. This is a very common sequence from this bird and I remember it from last year so it may in fact be the same individual. Regular as clockwork he will give it at dawn from a scraggly bush just below the window beside my bed and he seems to be the first bird I hear just on first light. Often it takes 200 repeats of this four note sequence at the start of the day before he switches to another song and maybe a third if he does not move along to another song post beforehand. A Willet is calling in the distance. Fascinating!

Gathering Turnstone near the house at Reed's Beach and wind blown spume

My Carolina Wren

Mockingbird in song at Reed's Beach

I started off a week ago when I headed to Sydney to stay the night with Kate, Iain and Rohan in Erskineville before taking a United Airlines flight across to Boulder (actually to Denver) via San Francisco. I then stayed the night with David, Tracey and James before heading on to Philadelphia. My flight out of Denver was held back because of air traffic problems at Philadelphia caused by high winds following severe storms along the east coast over the past weekend. However, this did not matter to me as I was originally due to arrive some 3 hours ahead of my other Australian colleagues who were due in at about 7pm. Clive Minton, Susan Taylor and Prue Wright came in from Melbourne via Los Angeles. As it happened we arrived at different parts of the terminal and there are several baggage halls to make matters more complicated. Humphrey Sitters eventually found me and, along with Dick Veitch and Larry and Mandy Niles, we all headed to Reed’s Beach. It was raining! We are back in the same two cottages as before and we soon settled in for the first night.

Week one – 12^th - 19^th May

High winds and stormy weather during the week before our arrival has left some very visible signs. The view from the back of the cottage on the first morning was unusual. The marsh was flooded at high tide to an extent that I had not seen before. There was nowhere for secretive marsh birds to go and the rails were wandering along the roadside or were heading to any other high ground they could find.

Remarkably there are few Horseshoe Crabs to be seen this first week. The high tides, wind, rough water and cold conditions seem to have prevented spawning along most of the beaches we normally work on. It takes more than a week for me to see a live horseshoe crab!

By the time we arrived two catches had already been made at Reed’s Beach by Larry’s local team. On the 7^th they caught: Ruddy Turnstone 10 (2); Red Knot 5 and Sanderling 77(2) a total of 92. Then on the 10^th they made another catch: Ruddy Turnstone 72(7); Red Knot 93(12) and Sanderling 59(3) a total of 224. Figures in brackets are retraps.

We get off to a good start on Tuesday 13^th with a small catch just south of the Nordberg’s house, which is about half way along Reed’s Beach road on the Bay side. We process: Ruddy Turnstone 68(6) and Sanderling 20(1) for a total of 88. Then things begin to get frustrating. Difficult conditions including wind and rain and early and late tides add to the fact that we simply cannot find any Red Knot on the usual beaches in sufficient numbers. Our only concentration at first seems to be at Stone Harbor where up to 3000 seems to be gathering at high tides but an all day effort on 15^th at Stone Harbor ended in no catch being possible.

Panorama of Red Knot at Stone Harbor

Red Knot

Tightly packed Red Knot roosting at Stone Harbor

Red Knot in flight at Stone Harbor

Sanderling at Stone harbor

Red Knot flock at Stone Harbor

Luckily by the 16^th we had found Red Knot on our local beaches at Cook's and a catch was possible that day with the following numbers being processed: Ruddy Turnstone 25(4); Red Knot 150(13) and Sanderling 48(12) giving a total of 223. Condition of the Red Knot was remarkable with heavy birds in a reasonably normally distributed spread of weights averaging 140g. This looked good for the birds and confirmed what we had seen at Stone Harbor suggesting that many of the Red Knot looked fat and healthy judging from body profile.

Processing in foul weather at Cook's

Two more catches at Reed’s Beach on the 17^th and 18^th gave us the following numbers processed: 17^th: Ruddy Turnstone 34(10); Red Knot 1 and Sanderling 26(2) for a total of 71. 18^th: Ruddy Turnstone 39(8); Red Knot 38(5) and Sanderling 103(8) for a total of 188.

Red Knot

Shorebird viewing platform at North Reed's Beach

Bird observations can be summaries as follows. Most of this week we have concentrated on trying to find catchable shorebirds and this has limited our exploration to the Reed’s Beach area and Stone Harbor. However, on the 18^th in the afternoon a small group of us visited Belleplain for some birding. We heard Prothonotary Warbler and Red-bellied Woodpecker and saw a Louisiana Water Thrush and a singing Wood Thrush but best of all was a male Yellow-throated Warbler gathering food with a female sitting tight on a nest nearby. Unusually, the nest was at about 4 metres above ground level along a branch and outside a cabin! We also had splendid views of Eastern Towhee and Hooded Warbler and saw a Black-and-white Warbler and a Common Yellowthroat. Eventually we headed up to Heislerville when it began to rain more heavily. At Heislerville on the main pond we saw, despite the fact that it was much fuller than at this time last year, good numbers of shorebirds. A spectacular gathering of at least 3000 Short-billed Dowitchers, lots of Dunlin and Semi-palmated Plovers, good numbers of Semipalmated Sandpipers, several Black-bellied Plovers (c 10) and at least 2 Least Sandpipers. There was a roosting flock of at least 300 Black Skimmers and we spotted a number of other interesting birds including Osprey, Turkey Vultures and a Bald Eagle. The best bird, however, was a superb full summer plumaged Curlew-Sandpiper. It was (as we had half expected) in the same general area that we had seen one using the previous year! Probably the same individual we suspect.

Curlew-Sandpiper

On the 20^th we took the morning off to go to Higbee’s on Cape May Island and then on to the nearby Rea Farm. Specially interesting sightings included a Red-bellied Woodpecker, several Indigo Bunting and a male Blue Grosbeak for comparison. We saw several Northern Cardinal, a male Rose-breasted Grosbeak, a splendid Yellow-breasted Chat, some Field Sparrow, together with sightings of Orchard Oriole, American Redstart and American Goldfinch and a couple of male and a couple of female Brown-headed Cowbirds.

Northern Cardinal

Male Brown-headed Cowbird

Yellow-breasted Chat

Carolina Chickadee

Indigo Bunting

Tortoise

There have been a few small groups of Brent Geese about the place during this first week but I suspect we are soon to see the last of them. Mostly they have been seen at Stone Harbor or nearby on the Spartina marshes. Three Red-breasted Merganser late in the afternoon at Stone harbor on the 14^th were nice to see and an adult male Long-tailed Duck was also seen in the area a few times but not by me. Other waterfowl have not been noteworthy. I have only seen one Common Loon at Stone Harbor flying over along the ocean side. Groups of Double-crested Cormorants have been seen here and there – mostly at Stone Harbor or flying over at Reed’s Beach, often in flocks of 25-50. Small numbers of Great and Snowy Egrets have been seen here and there with an occasional sighting of a Black-crowned Night-heron and one or two Great Blue Herons. However, we have seen several small groups of Glossy Ibis. A Northern Harrier was seen a couple of times quartering the marshes at Stone Harbor but no other diurnal raptors have been particularly noteworthy. I have the impression that so far I am not seeing the numbers of Osprey that I would expect, particularly on the road across the marshes to Stone Harbor. This may be due to the windy overcast condition that prevailed for much of this first week. Clapper Rails have been seen along the roadsides a few times, but no doubt this was due to the high tides flooding them out of the marshes!

Other noteworthy comments about shorebirds would be that Piping Plovers lost a many nest in the gales and high seas a week ago but several sites made it through and relaying is now under way. American Oystercatcher followed the same pattern. This is mainly at Stone Harbor where we most often seen these species. I have not seen many Killdeer Plovers so far this trip and Willet have been remarkably undemonstrative up to now but again conditions have not been very favourable for them. The Laughing Gulls have lost their first attempt at laying and despite being raucous and conspicuous everywhere they have rarely been concentrated on the beaches. I saw only one Least Tern feeding in the Bidwell river mouth on the 20^thand few Forster’s Terns were established at the regular sites although they were beginning to do so by the end of the week. Common Tern arrived in some numbers by 15^th when about 20-30 were roosting on Champagne Island at Stone Harbor. Other gulls and terns were not noteworthy although I have seen both Herring Gull and Great Black-backed Gull in some numbers, mostly sub-adults on the beaches. Ring-billed Gull and Royal Tern have been scarce. I have seen Gull-billed Tern once.

A Yellow-billed Cuckoo was seen at Higbee’s on 20^th along with a Ruby-throated Hummingbird and a Belted Kingfisher. A few Chimney Swift were also seen on 20^th.

Several Great Crested Flycatchers were seen either at Belleplains or Higbee’s along with Eastern Wood-Peewee, Eastern Kingbirds and Acadian Flycatcher and of particular interest was the finding of up to three or more Willow Flycatchers at Higbee’s on 20^th. Also calling loudly at Higbee’s was Carolina Chickadee and Tufted Titmouse.

Fish Crow again seem to be the only crow to be found on Cape May itself. Purple Martin were active at some ‘martin houses’ near our base camp at Reed’s Beach but apart from the fact that Northern Mockingbirds have been in full song during warmer and less windy periods, including a very persistent songster near our base that has occasionally sung for long spells during the nights, there has been little else to comment upon from amongst the jays, wrens, warblers, blackbirds and sparrows seen up to now. Boat-billed Grackles certainly have been noisy in display on calmer days at Reed’s Beach and much the same can be said for Red-winged Blackbird. I have seen few House Finches or House Sparrows. Common Grackles have been few in number but when seen have been along the roadside at various places. Song sparrow have not been obvious to me but I have had a few pointed out to me on the marshes.

Participants this year include (apart from those already mentioned): Claudio Moraga and Jose Cabello (from Chile – they work in Tierra del Fuego. Claudio studies Guanaco); Laura McKinnon and Cedrik Juillet (from Quebec – they work on Bylot Island where Laura is studying Baird’s and White-rumped Sandpiper breeding success); Mark Peck and Jerry from Toronto (Mark is from the Royal Ontario Museum); Angela and Barrie Watts (also from Toronto); Graham Harrington, Sue Rice and Rosemary Gibson. Allan Baker and Patricia Gonzales are based with Ron Porter at Stone Harbor and Steve Gates mostly works on his own and concentrates on flag re-sightings. There are others in the team that concentrate on swabbing and collecting blood samples for avian diseases. This avian disease team is also radio tracking Turnstones and Sanderling during the time the birds are in the bay area this May. David Mizrahi from the Cape May Audubon Research Centre is continuing his studies of Semi-palmated and Least Sandpipers with daily catches when possible.

Boat-tailed Grackle

Willet

Ruddy Turnstone squabbling over food resources

Sanderling

Laughing Gulls

Delaware Bay 2007 - Arrival and first week

2007-06-06T23:17:00.000-07:00

SHOREBIRDS
May 2007

May 12th

I joined Clive Minton and Susan Taylor at Melbourne Airport - but only just! My early morning flight into Tullamarine from Canberra was almost thwarted by fog. After a long delay circling in a holding pattern, until almost the time we were going to be diverted back to Canberra, we were finally able to land during a short spell of better visibility. That was not the end of it because the unseasonal fog also held up our incoming international flight which was diverted to Sydney before heading into Melbourne. We got away three hours late and, despite some time catch-up during the crossing of the Pacific, we still missed our original connexion in Los Angeles for the onward flight to Philadelphia. After getting over the formalities of immigration followed by some harrowing efforts at re-organizing our onward flight we eventually got ourselves, and luggage, onto the next available aircraft - although this meant a much later arrival was now certain. A phone call to our colleagues in the east let them know that we were delayed. They were expecting to meet us at the airport and drive us the last hour and a half to our destination at Reed's Beach on Cape May. We finally arrived at Philadelphia airport and it was good to see Humphrey Sitters and Larry Niles at the baggage retrieval area. We quickly loaded into the truck for the final segment. It was raining! We arrived safely sometime after 11:00 PM and very tired!

Our Green House -83C North Beach Avenue.
It is the house behind the car

Views of and from our bay side veranda

I was delighted to find that we were to stay in the same house that I had stayed in during my last wader expedition to New Jersey -back in May 1999! The 'Orange House' was now GREEN! Things were much as I remembered them, but with many improvements and redecoration of the interior. The house was pretty full but I was able to have a room to myself, at least for a while. Home from home! And so to bed after more than 30 hours on the go with air-travel from Canberra to Cape May.

For the official website see: http://www.shorebirdproject.blogspot.com/

Laughing Gulls, Rudy Turnstones and Sanderling roosting at high tide
Note the Red Knot and Short-billed Dowitcher in the bottom picture

May 13th

Up early for a check on the local beaches. Still very overcast and dull but many birds at some sites. We Checked out the Reed's Beach area then briefly scanned Cooks and Kimbles beaches before running across to Stone Harbor, but not going far out on the point. Most of the day was then spent sorting out at base and shopping at Acme!
In the mid afternoon we returned to Stone Harbour and walked to the point to scan a few Red Knot just before high tide. Piping Plovers were scattered across the area with 13 pairs breeding we later discover. American Oystercatchers at this site have all lost eggs to predators (fox claimed to be the culprit) in addition to some recent stormy weather washing the tide across the spit. We see a fine summer plumaged Common Loon on a small lagoon near the car park. A few Killdeer seen but lots of Semipalmated Plovers in small flocks scattered across the sand plains. Probably 200 or more in total. Not much else of note except a few Common Terns in courtship flights, some Least terns darting about and a scattering of gulls mostly (American) Herring Gull and . Red Knot numbered less than a 100 along with a few Sanderling and Ruddy Turnstone. At high tide they seem to be settling on a small crescentic ridge or going across to Champagne Island to the SW.

Beaches at dawn

Stone Harbor spit

Clive, Alice and Larry checking out the Red Knot

May 14th

Today we made our first catch. I did some photography along Reeds Beach Avenue up to as far as the creek in the morning. After an early lunch the Canon net was set at Reeds Beach (South) (N39 07 05.4: W74 53 29.3) and we made a successful catch of 141. This catch included only one Red Knot, but 78 Ruddy Turnstone (7 recaptures) and 62 Sanderling (4 recaptures). In fact it was really the second catch of the expedition because on the 10th a preliminary catch of 92 was made at Reeds Beach. This catch included 27 (9) Red Knot, 33(5) Ruddy Turnstone and 50(4) Sanderling.

Sanderling crowded together at high tide roost near the Green House

Red Knot feeding along strandline

Ruddy Turnstone and Red Knot

Mixed flocks of Ruddy Turnstone, Red Knot and Sanderling at the strandline

Eastern Cottontail Sylvilagus floridanus

Red-winged Blackbird in song

Boat-tailed Grackle

Horseshoe Crabs along the beach

Laughing Gulls

Reeds Beach

Setting the first net, waiting to fire and processing the catch

A Brazilian banded Ruddy Turnstone recapture

May 15th

An early check on the beaches at 06:30AM revealed the possibility of a good catch being made at Cooks road so the crew was assembled following a small party that headed out to set the net and the canons fired at 07:30AM, barely an hour after making the decision to go ahead! A good catch although the net was held up a bit by the breeze but we had 153 shorebirds netted. This time we had some Red Knot 48(2) a few Ruddy Turnstone 28(6), 76(7) Sanderling and one Semi-palmated Sandpiper. I should point out that most catches include some Laughing Gull but these numbers do not figure in the final statistics (not strictly shorebirds!) and they are released unbanded.

Sanderlings (mostly!)

Ruddy Turnstone

More Sanderling including a flagged individual

Horseshoe crabs at the strandline in daytime

Laughing Gull

Forster's Tern feeding nearby our processing area

Larry, Mandy and Phil at the processing table

Mandy and Phil checking a bill measurement

Laughing Gull, Sanderling and Ruddy Turnstone

Willet on station in the marsh at Cooks Road

May 16th

A repeat day. We go for another catch at the site used yesterday and set the net for a 9:0AM catch. Today the New Jersey marine fisheries council and some other VIPs had been invited to join us. A successful firing of the net occurred soon after 9AM with a large catch which disappointingly included few Red Knot. In the end we processed 66 (13) shorebirds with 6 Red Knot, 57(13) Ruddy Turnstone (but many were released unprocessed because we had already examined enough for our quota) and 3 Sanderling. It was windy but a screen had been erected to give us some shelter.

Preparing and waiting for the catch

Net set

Three, two, ONE - FIRE!

Settling after the catch

In the afternoon, with the wind increasing from the SW, Clive and I headed across to the Stone Harbor spit to meet up with the local ranger Chris Vogel. Chris was going to accompany us while we checked on the Red Knot roost at the late afternoon high tide. It was, to say the least, unpleasant at the point with the sand blowing in streams ahead of a strong sou'wester combining with an ominous looking dark sky that was inexorably creeping towards us from the NW. Heavy rain was forecast for this evening and so, eventually, without making much headway with any numbers of Red Knot we decided to beat a retreat before getting wet!

We learned a lot from Chris about the bird populations at the spit. He was amazingly enthusiastic and full of very useful local knowledge. Having worked overseas in many places including Bolivia and Vietnam and working for many years with the AMNH (American Museum of Natural History) he clearly brought a wealth of experience to his job as the Stone Harbor ranger. He would be joining us tomorrow evening to dinner.

Downwind sand streams at Stone Harbor spit

Clive and Chris Vogel in the distance at Stone Harbor spit

The gathering storm over Stone Harbor spit

Some weight-gain statistics including those of birds caught this year up to today.

May 17th

A day exploring the shoreline of the Bay with Clive, Pablo and Victor northwards to as far as Fortescue. First, we headed to Thompson's point where a team from the Audubon Centre was mist netting Semipalmated Sandpipers and Least Sandpipers on the high tide. When we got there they said that the catch had been poor and the water level was getting too high to continue netting. On the way out we see a couple of Common Merganser on a pool close beside the road.

The "Semipalm" banding team at Thompson's -
a small biting midge paradise!
Tidal marshes at Thomson's.
These have been consolidating in the years since I last visited
Sub-adult Herring Gull
Banding a Least Sandpiper
Barn Swallow collecting nesting material
Glossy Ibis silhouetted

Heaps of pictures of Least Sandpiper

We moved on to Heislerville where the concentration of small shorebirds was fantastic. At least 22 000 had been counted the day before. Only a week before the basin was full of water but draining it had provided excellent high tide roosting areas for many species. Largely Semipalmated Sandpipers, but also many Dunlin, Black-bellied (Grey) Plover and Short-billed Dowitchers. A scattering of other species with noisy Semipalmated Plovers, at least one White-rumped Sandpiper and a Curlew sandpiper in reasonable alternate plumage. The latter was attracting much attention being a rarity hereabouts. A few gulls on the mud banks, mostly Ringbilled Gull but including at least one Boneparte's Gull. A fantastic place!

Heislerville. Overlooking the impressive gathering of about 20 000 shorebirds!
Lower picture shows the bank dividing the pool from the tidal marshes

Huge assemblage of smaller shorebirds - about 20 000 all told!
Distant but distinctive view of a White-rumped Sandpiper
Semipalmated Plover
Semipalmated Plover and Short-billed Dowitcher
Short-billed Dowitcher
Massed shorebirds at Heislerville
Semipalmated Sandpiper and a few Semipalmated Plover
Brood of Greater Canada Geese

We then moved on to Fortescue for Red Knot flag scanning. We were very successful at this with sightings of several birds marked in Chile, even more from Argentina and a Brazilian marked bird apart form many locally flagged individuals. The bugs got worse and worse as the wind dropped and eventually drove us off! Then followed a quick dash back to the Audubon Centre at Goshen to see if we could buy some bug-shirts for our two Mexicans. We thought it closed at 4PM but in fact it closes at 4:30PM!

Fortescue Beach
Laughing Gull
WilletHorseshoe Crabs in the wash at the tideline
Beach near Fortescue
A lone Dunlin with Semipalmated Sandpiper and Short-billed Dowitcher
Red-winged Balckbird on the beach

Ruddy Turnstone near Fortescue

Red Knot, Ruddy Turnstones and Horseshoe crabs

May 18th

Today I went to Cape May with Jerry. We headed for the Audubon centre then took a look at the shoreline where we would 10+ Purple Sandpiper on a weed encrusted concrete-boulder groin. At sea large numbers of terns out to as far as we could see and a couple of Northern Gannet far off. Heading then to the park and the Hawk Watching platform from which we then walked along the the back of the dunes and took a circular trail back through the marshes to the car park. Piping Plover breeding on the dunes and a good number of Least Tern incubating. Nice close up of a Mute Swan on nest beside board walk. Jerry got me onto a number of useful birds. Headed then out to the Rea Farm because Jerry was an Audubon member and had access permission. Pleasant walk then back to Reed's Beach.

For more information and a different slant on our activities try the official website at:

http://www.shorebirdproject.blogspot.com/

Cape May lighthouse and dunes where the Piping Plover nest
along with the Least Tern colony

Singing male Red-winged Blackbird

Cooperative Mute Swans close beside the boardwalk

Kitten Eastern Cottontail alongside the boardwalk

Rea Farm at Cape May
Lower picture shows Jerry walking a track ahead of me

May 19th

Unsuccessful at making a catch north of Cooks so it was then out to Fortescue for a late catch with horrendous bugs!

Shorebirds gathering at Cook's Beach

Waiting in the dunes

Clive and Pablo dismantling the Cannons

Great Black-backed Gull

Short-billed Dowitchers

Common Grackle