We're in Delaware...

I've been in Delaware for a week or so. Well, Delaware and New Jersey to be exact but it was southern, rural New Jersey, which minus the WaWa markets it was basically Delaware. I was there to trap birds and do some Horseshoe crab sampling. The Delaware Bay has the highest density of Horseshoe crabs of anywhere in the world, they come up the beach at high tide enmasse, the females dig nests and lay thier eggs by the millions. The shorebirds, migrating northward from South America to the Canadian Arctic, stop off enmasse in the Delaware bay for about 3 weeks every spring and gorge them selves on the Horseshoe crab eggs. It really is one of those wonders of nature that help me to love life. The is basically the system that I am studying and modeling for my post-doc research. Here is a picture that I took of spawning crabs at high tide on Monday morning.