Connections: Birds and Crabs, Part II

           These shorebirds are travelers with a purpose – like a family on a cross country summer drive.  Except that the winged travelers in this geographical location have come all the way from the southern tips of South America and will eventually travel all the way to distant and necessary nesting grounds near the Arctic Circle.  This is an annual ritual - a long and exhausting journey each spring that provides these birds a few precious stops along the way…a few precious places to feed and rest.  Delaware Bay just happens to be one of those stops and the timing of their visit is critical.  It is vital that the birds reach the Arctic while the snow is melting to ensure their eggs will hatch in time for the annual insect hatch.  Those insects constitute the primary diet of the young shorebirds.  If the birds arrive too early the insects are not there.  If they arrive too late the newly hatched young have nothing to eat.  This is similar, in many respects, to the feeding habits of teenage boys (“There’s nothing in the refrigerator!,” he yells.  “Sure there is, I just went shopping,” his mother yells back.  “There’s nothing GOOD in the refrigerator!,” he yells even louder.).
            The Delaware Bay is a critical stopover point in the long-distance journey to Arctic regions.  It is vitally important that the hungry birds find plenty of food here or they will not have sufficient energy to complete their arduous journey.  Most have traveled night and day and day and night to arrive here.  After departing from near the bottom of the world they make a single pit stop on the southeast coast of Brazil.  After a brief rest they take off for an unbelievable nonstop journey of 5,000 miles over vast oceanic distances and occasional land forms for the shores of Delaware Bay.  Imagine traveling for 5,000 miles hoping, just hoping, that there will be some food at your destination.  If there is, you live!  If not,….
            The Delaware Bay is not haphazard – for it is here that one of the great massings of creatures takes place each year.  It is here that one of the great mysteries of nature is about to unfold – the arrival of these birds in concert with the arrival of horseshoe crabs upon these beaches.  Consider, if you will, the incredible biological coincidences of these two species arriving almost at the same place at almost the same time – all within a very narrow window of opportunity.  It is though a great script has been written and the players (birds and crabs) are merely fulfilling their ecological obligations – obligations that have been taking place for thousands of years.