Cook's Beach ~ Glossy Ibis & Snowy Egrets

Out hunting Red Knots and Horseshoe Crabs today. Found a flock of Glossy Ibis and also a flock of Snowy Egrets along the road driving into the beach.

Snowy Egrets ~ Keeping watch

Skimmer Salt Marsh Safari trip

Today's adventure included lunch at Lucky Bones with a high school friend and her significant other.  We get together every year when they are vacationing in my area.  Some years we go out on the Skimmer to look at the birds in the back bays and other years we go kayaking.  This year it was the Skimmer's turn.  It was a fun afternoon filled with great looks at shorebirds. Snowy Egrets and Ospreys numbered in the teens.  Here are a selection of pictures.

Osprey

Snowy Egret

Great Egret

Clapper Rail

Whimbrel

Mom just brought me a snack - Common Tern

Dad and Junior Osprey

Birding Cook's Beach

Red Knots on Spit

Mid May to me means the return of the Red Knots and other shorebirds that come to feed on the Horseshoe Crabs.  The birds fly from South American without stopping and when the Red Knots arrive they need to feed and eat as much protein as possible as the leave the Delaware Bay and fly through to the Arctic Circle where they breed.  The numbers of the Red Knots have been down which the scientists feel is from over-harvesting of Horseshoe Crabs.  The birds get the protein they need from the Horseshoe Crab eggs.  There's been a moratorium in the harvesting of the crabs and now the scientists feel the numbers of birds are rebounding.  Some of the beaches that are good for the birds to feed along are Reed's Beach, Cook's Beach and Kimmel's Beach.  Today I saw Red Knots, Least Sandpipers, Ruddy Turnstones, Willets, Laughing Gulls, Forester's Terns, Great Egret, Snowy Egrets.  Here are some of the pictures.

Red Knots, Ruddy Turnstones, Laughing Gulls

Least Sandpipers

Forester's Terns

Great Egret

Snowy Egrets