There were more red knots at the Delaware Bayshore this spring.
DNREC says the increase marks a change after several seasons of decline, and this year the birds stayed longer than in recent years while gaining weight at or above expected rates.
They stop along Delaware Bay every May to refuel on horseshoe crab eggs as they travel from South America where they stay in the winter to breeding areas in the Arctic.
DNREC Coastal Waterbird Biologist Kat Christie says the number was over 1,000 throughout the season.
"What was more notable was that early in the season, before big flocks built up other places we still had upwards of a 1,000 birds in Misspillion while there was probably only a couple of 1,000 bay wide. Whereas later in the season around the same time that we're seeing 2,000 or 3,000 birds, New Jersey's coast had between 20,000 and 30,000 and things like that," said Christie.
Some factors why the New Jersey shore might be getting more birds include large stretches of protected roosting marsh adjacent to foraging beaches and shallower coastal waters that warm quicker.
The Delaware Shorebird Project counted nearly 2,000 red knots in Mispillion Harbor on May 11, and counts at the harbor regularly topped 1,000 birds, peaking at 3,000 on May 20.
"It doesn't necessarily mean that the population went up by that amount, but it meant that a significant enough portion of their population found our habitat to be necessary and useful in their journey, which we haven't had in the last couple of years," said Christie.
Because of restored habitat designed to support horseshoe crabs and shorebirds, Mispillion Harbor warmed earlier than many other Bayshore locations, and it was one of the first areas with suitable horseshoe crab spawning activity.
Because of that, it saw some of the season’s earliest red knot flocks in Delaware.
