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Chaos on the Delaware Bay

Nope, not the fireworks, though shooting up major fireworks into the teeth of a thunderstorm squall, though that does make for chaos.

Hours earlier, when the Scott Avenue beach looked like the Fourth of July scene in Jaws, a two year old was digging in the sand.

And two year olds are really good at digging, and soon he had a small pool to play in.

He stumbled upon some horseshoe crabs, as happens often in early summer, and his Granddad buried them again, to await the next high tide.

And then, miraculously it seems, the pool filled with tiny horseshoe crabs, spinning and swimming and looking as exuberant as late June lightning bugs. They spun and swam wildly with an exuberance too many of us no longer recognize.

These are “older” horseshoe crabs, weeks old instead of minutes, reared by Rutgers in Lower Township. Photo from”Rutgers lab churning out baby horseshoe crabs,” Washington Times, 9/27/2014 (AP Photo/Wayne Parry)

We tried “saving” them, most of them anyway. Hundreds, maybe thousands ,were sent into the bay.

And maybe one or three will survive the next decade and return to the beach as mature adults. laying eggs for a 12 year old child to discover again.

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Bees and blueberries

A few miles away Kid Rock is waking up, getting ready to defile a beach as only he and his fans can, so we’re staying away from Wildwood this weekend.

Honey bee on a milkweed flower.

But sometimes a backyard is more than enough.

If you have a small patch of land not blanketed in mown grass, herbicides, and pesticides, you have a lot going on right now. Go take a look.

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Limulus love

Every year thousands creep their way to the edge of their world and celebrate the long June days as only a critter around for hundreds of millions of years can.

They came before the dinosaurs.

The only other humans on this half-mile patch of beach were a few kids flipping exuberant males back on their many feet, their parents drinking at the local watering hole across the street.

A few moments earlier, only a few of the critters were visible, but cued by voices humans cannot hear, they rose from the waters, seemingly in unison, to creep to the top of the tide line.

An hour later, most will be gone. A few will not return to the water, their gills a treat for the gulls.

In a couple of weeks, the high tide will help release the few of the millions of new critters that survive through June.

Most will fall prey to the ghost crabs, the gulls, the grackles, the killies and kingfish. The Audubon Society folk will praise the eggs as fodder for the red knots, perhaps easier on human eyes but certainly not nearly as interesting as these creatures from the depths of the bay.

Decades ago I stumbled on thousands of horseshoe crab babies, moments before they emerged from their now transparent shells, spinning and spinning as if anticipating their release.

Never saw a red knot do that.

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They’re baaacckkk….

Well, they never really left.

Ghost crabs spend their winters right here in North Cape May, snuggled a few feet under the beach in their burrows, waiting for spring.

You get through winter several feet under the sand. You greet living again after a long months in your dark wintry tomb. And then you keel over at your doorstep as the sun sets, again, on your patch of Earth. There’s a lesson here.

If the beach is not crowded and you sit real still (their eyeballs work real well), you can see them going ghost crabby things during the day.

Enjoy their company and try not to step on their doorways. They’re locals, after all.

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Dogs, drones, and the Delaware Bay

According to today’s AC Press, The LTPD recently acquired a new drone at the cost of $17,425–it must have come with some extras, or we overpaid.

Ad for the Matrice 30 series drone.

The mayor has taken “capture everything” to heart, and plans to use the drone to patrol the bay looking for “people who allow their dogs to off leash” in an effort to save our officers time.

Maybe Mayor Sippel should ask us which we prefer–putting up with the occasional ( and usually well-trained) off leash doggie or some five-figure eye-in-the-sky buzzing away as we (attempt to) enjoy serenity along the bay’s edge.

A drone-free evening on the edge of the Delaware Bay.

Having an officer stroll along the beach without the high tech would better serve all of us, a gentle reminder that there’s a human under that uniform.

And for those who occasionally nurse an ale or two, be forewarned. First they came after the dogs, then they came after the Dogfish. Heads.

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Beach walk January 22, 2023

The bay has settled down a bit–still wild, of course, always wild, but behaving today.

Scott Avenue entrance to the beach

January is rough on local humans but it is devastating to much of the rest of the living around here.

These guys (Hemigrapsus sanguineus, or Asian shore crab) first showed up around 1988–you can find them all over now, and apparently they are as edible (shell and all)as they are damaging to the native species.

Asian shore crab–a tasty menace

Gannets are usually seen in the spring and fall. Their fluorescent white wings tipped with deep black are marvelous, rivaled by their unreal blue beaks, usually only seen up-close in death.

The bright red of blood, the ghostly white feathers, and the stunning blue beak look out of place on the dull wintry beach.

A vulture feasted on yet another dead bird, now beyond identifying. The vulture sulked as I approached, took a low flight around me, then returned to its carcass as I was leaving.

The days are lengthening again, and the beaches will be filled with humans again soon enough. For now the sand pipers and the herring gulls rule the roost.

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Crocuses, again

We live in paradise, true, but the dark of winter can be tough anywhere.

Less than a mile from the bay a crocus erupts from the January ground, arcing towards the late afternoon sun sinking towards the edge of the bay,

The bay has been here for millions of years, and will be for millions more. A human less than a century, a crocus less than half a decade.

But right now,, here in North Cape May, we’re all here for a moment.

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Summer solstice in North Cape May

The strawberries fade out as the blueberries arrive.

The sunsets have finished their journey northward, inching their way further and further right since the start of winter. Light is at its peak.

Dead horseshoe crabs litter the beach after their last full moon frenzy. All 10 eyes of this one are dark now, its last sunset passed a day or two ago.

The tides will continue to rise and fall as the sun hesitates a few days then starts its journey back towards the ferry jetty.

The light has peaked, the days slowly darken again.