The start of summer holiday weekend human
migration
Means our two hour trip takes four hours in heavy traffic
Though we are going to the opposite Jersey shore
Away from the boardwalk beaches, going to the Delaware Bay.
We have wheels and an internal combustion engine
But we are grounded, confined to the network of roads
Filled over capacity bumper to bumper
Inching along the New Jersey Turnpike.
We are going to see the red knots migration stop over
Feasting on the horseshoe crabs spawning egg deposits
Resting and building up energy reserves for continuing on
To their arctic nesting grounds 2,000 miles away.
Their flight over the ocean from Brazil to the Delaware Bay
Flying for days no rest no drink some 3,500 miles nonstop
Arriving utterly exhausted and vulnerable
Inconceivable to us humans how they do it.
This part of New Jersey is really another state
South of the Mason Dixon line on the map and in the mind
set.
The pine barrens terrain flat sandy soil barely above sea
level
Wetlands everywhere flooded by tidal creeks.
We stay in Millville, where glass making once thrived
And brick factories and military pilot training during WWII
Now all faded glory run down and out poverty scenes
And failed attempts at urban revival stand shuttered.
The birds care not a whit about the traffic jam
Or the sorry state of the local economy.
They only care whether they can find plentiful food
And for the shorebirds that is horseshoe crab eggs.
The horseshoes are a living fossil species 350 million years
old
Struggling to survive in the 21st century
Harvested by the baymen as cheap bait for blue crabs
Harvested by the pharmaceutical industry, too.
We go to remote Fortescue beach and the red knots are there
Perhaps 200 mixed in with turnstones and laughing gulls and
sandpipers
Working the high tide tide margin where the horseshoe crabs
are
Thousands upon thousands of birds feasting on the eggs.
We walk the trails through the nature preserves
Some woodland roads, some marsh boardwalks,
Sometimes a pathway filled with broken shells.
Almost never seeing another person there.
There are so many birds here flying about.
We hear them on every side calling and singing.
We have learned to recognize many species
Appreciating the diversity of the spectacle.
We meet a woman from Heislerville by the East Point
lighthouse
Combing the shore for stranded horseshoe crabs
To pick them up and help them back to the bay
Happy to do her part to help the red knots.
Now that’s a good surprise finding such a volunteer.
She tells us she lives in the Victorian house on Main Street
Lived there forever is how long, and she corrects us
Teaching us the accent goes on the first syllable in
Fortescue.
We meet an older man from Millville in the Peek Preserve
Tending to his caterpillars kept in cloth bags
Tied to the branches and leaves of the cherry trees
Moving the bags to fresh grazing sites on other trees.
Now that’s interesting and fun to find this retired
professor.
He tells us he is studying an unnamed moth species
He hopes to name for Millville pride.
We delight in his stories as the sun sets on a good day.
The Maurice River tide is high again
And now we know the accent is on the first syllable.
In the morning we will return to Heislerville for another
look
And I will see my first yellow billed cuckoo.
rufa red knot horseshoe crab
