Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Between the island and the mainland shore are the salt marshes and back bays or lagoons, which are among
the most productive habitats, acting as nurseries for local fish species and feeding and breeding grounds for
birds. This is an especially important area for waterbirds and waterfowl which breed and/ or winter here.
Egrets, osprey, and herons have their nesting sites in the trees during the summer; in winter, a variety of water-
fowl, including canvas backs, use the lagoons as food rich and sheltered areas. But the lagoons are especially
important to overwintering brant.
The yellow-rumped, or myrtle, warbler (left) is attracted to the berries of the maritime forest, such as those produced
by the namesake myrtle bush and holly (right).
Sex and Gluttony in Delaware Bay
Delaware Bay is host to two remarkable migrations that come together, precise as clockwork, along its beaches
and marshes: that of primitive arthropods known by the colloquial name horseshoe crab, which come ashore
from the deep waters of the bay and beyond to lay their eggs, and huge flocks of shorebirds, notably red knots,
ruddy turnstones, sanderlings, and semipalmated sandpipers that greet the crabs after making a spectacular
flight from Patagonia, at the southern tip of South America.
For many years I wanted to witness this spectacle, which is timed to the full or new moons in late May. To
get there I first had to run the gauntlet of seemingly endless strip malls in northern New Jersey, a place where
nature and any semblance of its life-giving processes have long ago disappeared under asphalt. Finally—and
mercifully—the Garden State Parkway opens to surprisingly extensive green vistas of salt marshes on the
ocean side and, inland, tall dark silhouettes of pitch pines, the signal species of New Jersey's famed Pine Bar-
rens. I arrived in Cape May, the historic seaside resort town at the tip of the peninsula, on the night of the full
moon. Before sunset, I drove out to some of the nearby beaches to find out whether the crabs had come ashore.
Disappointingly, the beaches seemed deserted, and locals opined, “No, not many crabs yet.”
