Journey North News

Shorebirds Arrive In New Jersey From South America

If there were an Olympics for animals, shorebirds would be the gold medal marathon winners. Imagine this: Each spring, shorebirds migrate all the way from South America to the Arctic to nest.

About 1.5 million shorebirds stop on the shores of New Jersey's Delaware Bay each year in May. This is virtually their only stopping place. Why? Because millions of horseshoe crabs lay their eggs on the beaches, and these eggs are the food that fuels the rest of their journey to the Arctic.

Here's a first hand-report from New Jersey students who visited Delaware Bay yesterday. If you'd like to learn more about shorebirds, drop them a note! You can also learn about shorebirds that travel up the West Coast to Alaska by visiting the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service's Sister Shorebird Project

To: Journey North
From: Mrs. Devine's Class, North Dover Elementry,Toms River New Jersey

Dear Journey North,

On May 8, 1996 we went to the Delaware Bay and saw migrating shorebirds - red knots, ruddy turnstones. When we arrived at the Wetlands Institute in Stone Harbor we all gathered in a room and watched a film. It taught us that:

• The shorebirds depend on this pit stop every year.
• The birds can fly 6 thousand miles in 13 days.
• Horseshoe crabs can bury in the sand which acts as mud. They can last in the mud until the tide comes in once more, about a month later. It showed us how the horseshoe crabs mate and how the poor female has to drag all of the males onto the shore with all of the males on her.
• We also saw how many eggs a shorebird can eat, it was pretty amazing! The birds have to eat 1 egg every 5 seconds for 14 hours a day. We also learned that a female horseshoe crabs can lay 3 to 4 thousand eggs buried in the sand.

Then we went to the aquarium we saw a small Diamondback Terrapin, it was so cute! We saw 2 horseshoe crabs, a female and a male. We touched the mouth and felt the shell. There was a spider crab there too. They had sea horses, and sea turtles. All of these animals were alive. It was really neat to see the nursery in the back where they had the baby turtle and other animals.

Later we went to the beach. The class was divided into 2 groups. Then we switched places. We couldn't disturb the birds because they need their nurishment. We went to the viewing area tha had a a great telescope and you could see all the birds from a mile long. We watched a female crab drag a male crab up to shore. Later she would dig a hole and lay eggs. On the beach we found many eggs. Eggs of horseshoe crabs are green and the size of a pin head. Each female lays thousands at a time. We couldn't go on the beach but could see lots of eggs and birds.

This was a great trip. The height of the migration for shorbirds will be in 2 weeks according to the number of birds that have already arrived. Each year it is difficult to calculate when the birds will be there. We were very luck to see so many neat natural things!

Anne Sherry, Lynsie Clookie, Jennifer Keating
North Dover School, Toms River, NJ
tomsriver@igc.apc.org