Feisty Red-winged Blackbird

Tags

boat-tailed grackle, horseshoe crab, photography, postaday, red-winged blackbird

Red-winged Blackbirds were very active at the beach at Fortescue, NJ while the birds were feasting on Horseshoe Crab eggs. I couldn’t help noticing the following male who seemed quite feisty patrolling the beach close to its territory in the dunes.

Male Red-winged Blackbird.

Male Red-winged Blackbird.

Male Red-winged Blackbird: “You guys keep out of my way!”

When not on the beach, he perched on a nearby tree and belted out his warning calls.

Male Red-winged Blackbird.

Male Red-winged Blackbird.

He was not scared of and studiously ignored a bigger Boat-tailed Grackle that was only a short distance away, singing his own warning calls.

Male Red-winged Blackbird and Boat-tailed Grackle.

Horseshoe Crabs 2018 – 2

Tags

dunlin, horseshoe crab, laughing gull, photography, postaday, red knot, sanderling

Here are some more photos to give you an idea of what the annual Horseshoe Crab egg feast is like on the South Jersey shoreline.

Sanderlings and other birds near an upside down Horseshoe Crab.

Shore birds, including Red Knots to the left of image, waiting for Horseshoe Crabs eggs being spawned on the right.

Shore birds flying up as a Bald Eagle passed by.

Red Knots, Dunlins, Sanderlings eating eggs by upturned Horseshoe Crab.

A couple of Laughing Gulls had needs other than food to be met.

Laughing Gulls temporarily did not care for Horseshoe Crab eggs.

Northern Mockingbird

Tags

fortescue, horseshoe crab, northern mockingbird, photography, postaday

While watching the Horseshoe Crab egg feast at Fortescue, I saw several other kinds of smaller birds flying around. One of them was a Northern Mockingbird that openly paraded on the road.

Northern Mockingbird crossing the road.

Northern Mockingbird looking at intruder.

The bird was very active flying in and out of some bushes by the road. Inside one of the bushes was a juvenile waiting to be fed.

Juvenile Northern Mockingbird.

The adult fed the youngster several times, but I could not see whether it was with a Horseshoe Crab egg or not.

Northern Mockingbird feeding juvenile.

The juvenile kept asking for more as the adult contemplated what to do next.

Northern Mockingbird.

Finally it flew up to an electric wire, surveying the landscape.

Northern Mockingbird on electric wire.

Horseshoe Crabs 2018

Tags

fortescue, horseshoe crab, laughing gull, photography, postaday, red knot, sandpiper

This year I had to go twice to the South Jersey shore at Fortescue, NJ to photograph Horseshoe Crabs as they come ashore to mate. It rained heavily last weekend, and I had to shoot from the car quickly before the camera got wet.

Upturned Horseshoe Crab, still alive.

Red-winged Blackbird eating Horseshoe Crab eggs.

The second time was yesterday, with plenty of sunshine. There were tens of thousands of birds of all kinds on a stretch of the beach no more than a quarter of a mile (0.4 km) long.

Sandpipers, Laughing Gulls at the mouth of Oyster Creek. The rocks in the water are Horseshoe Crabs.

Red Knots depend on Horseshoe Crab eggs to replenish their energy during their long migration flight of 9,300 miles (15,000 km) from the tip of South America to the Artic. This year there were many of them, and they appeared well fed and in good shape.

Red Knots (orange breasts) on beach at Fortescue, NJ.

Red Knots

Tags

horseshoe crab, photography, postaday, red know

It was a month ago that I first heard about red knots from a young, starry-eyed couple who had traveled from California to New Jersey to watch the birds as they stop along the beaches of Delaware Bay during their annual migration.

The red knots have one of the longest migration path of all animals. In the spring, they fly more than 9,000 miles from Tierra del Fuego to the Canadian Artic, their breeding grounds. They time their migration to arrive in New Jersey when horseshoe crabs come ashore to lay their eggs from early May to early June. The birds eat the eggs to regain the weight they lost during their flight and build up their stamina to be able to reach their Artic destination. Unfortunately, the use of horseshoe crabs as fishing bait and in medical tests has led to a decline in horseshoe crabs. The red knot population has also declined 80 to 90% as a result.

New Jersey has had a moratorium on fishing for horseshoe crabs for the past eight years. Now some people say that is long enough and that horseshoe crabs and red knots have recovered from their respective nadir. Is that true? I had to go see for myself.

Yesterday, I went to Reeds Beach in Cape May Court House, NJ. There are now guards who prevent people from going on the beach and disturb the birds while they are feeding. There were people from Canada and Australia who were monitoring the red knots, all very serious and dedicated to their cause. One pointed out to me a small plane that flew overhead to take photos for counting the birds. The red knots I saw were more numerous and seemingly fatter than those I saw two weeks earlier (see Horseshoe Crab Season). Here’s how they looked then.

Red knots – two weeks earlier

and here’s how they looked yesterday.

Red knots – yesterday

Some closer looks from yesterday:

Red knots at Reeds Beach

In the following photo, you can see that the red knots are much smaller than the laughing gulls behind them

Red knots and laughing gulls

How many were there? I couldn’t tell, but certainly a lot. For the actual count, we’ll have to wait for the official tally from that small plane.

Red knots at Reeds Beach

In the following photo, the red knots are lined up in three orderly lines, in contrast to the other shore birds. Perhaps they know to organize themselves in platoon-sized groups to travel such long distance.

Three lines of red knots

Red knots feeding

Meanwhile, what were the horseshoe crabs doing? There were hundreds of them lying overturned and dead on the beach, their decomposing bodies emitting an unpleasant smell. But many others were having a good time. In the following photo, six male crabs were crowded around a female that was partially buried in the sand.

Horseshoe crabs

I also went to Cook’s Beach and Kimbles Beach. Those places also had many birds, but I could not get a decent shot because the guards were keeping visitors a good distance away from where the birds were.

Horseshoe Crab Demise

Tags

horseshoe crab, photography, postaday

Horseshoe crabs often get overturned by ocean waves as they try to reach the sandy beaches where they lay their eggs. In the following photo, you can see one that got flipped over in the lower left corner.

Horseshoe crabs

When that happens, the crab cannot always turn itself over and lay there helpless to be stabbed by the sharp beaks of sea gulls. Or they may just die of exposure. Here’s a part of another beach where the shells of dead horseshoe crabs are strewn about randomly.

Dead horseshoe crab

Dead horseshoe crab

However, their greatest enemies are not the elements or even the birds. It is us, humans. We don’t usually eat horseshoe crabs, but fishermen like to capture and use them as fishing bait, and in some areas they can catch hundreds of thousands of them each season.

Horseshoe crab blood is blue and is used in the pharmaceutical industry to test that products such as vaccines, drugs, or medical devices are free of bacteria. So the crabs are harvested and bled of part of their blood for such uses. A quart of blue crab blood can fetch $15,000. After losing up to 30% of their blood, the crabs are fed and released back to nature in a weakened state. In regions where such medical harvest occurs, the population of horseshoe crabs has been declining.