NYBG June 2014

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leonia wood park cedar waxwings

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magnificent montclair gardens

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nature lovers

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 21^st 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