With a second day of westerly and onshore winds, Horseshoe Crab spawning ceased almost entirely. Birds are scattered along the entire beachfront from Villas to Reed's Beach, but they are mostly Ruddy Turnstone and Sanderling with only about 1,000 Red Knots scattered amongst them. After what Clive described as a "brilliant twinkle" from Kevin Peace of the Highlands Ringing Group, the team made a fair catch of mostly Sanderling and Turnstone.

A group of teachers from around the state arrived as part of a program conducted by the Education and Information Resource Center (EIRC) and the NJ Education Center. Eric Mollenhauer leads the program and has gone through considerable difficulty to try to balance educational opportunities with the potential for disturbance to the birds. With the teachers came a group of 8th grade students from the Harrington Middle School of Mt. Laurel, NJ, who helped process the catch.

Our team works hard at improving the volunteers' understanding of shorebirds on the Delaware Bay. The role of the Bay is complicated. Most of the shorebirds that stopover on the Bay in May don't winter or breed here, so one can easily wonder, "why the fuss?". But the feel of a shorebird in your hand tells the entire story. When birds arrive they are thin and boney, when they leave in two to three weeks, they are as plump as healthy babies. Understanding the rest is easy.

Lawrence J. Niles, PhD
Chief, NJ Endangered Species Program