5/30/26 - Migrating Shorebirds & a Fossil
Over the past weekend, before the temperatures got hot, spring migrants finally appeared in numbers that many local birders had been anticipating. I, on the other hand, spent the weekend away. I knew a late migratory push was due to happen, but I was okay with that. Really.
On Tuesday I took a walk on some trails at Island Beach State Park with a friend to see if any of the migrant birds were still around. The short answer is not really. On Wednesday I changed it up a bit and took a solo walk along the beach at the southern end of Island Beach from the end of the paved road to the backside of the inlet, a round-trip hike of about five miles. It was near 90 degrees when I left my house on the mainland, but it was about 30 degrees cooler at the beach. As it has been for most of the year, there was not much to see bird-wise on the beach or out on the ocean though I did pick up my first royal terns of the year. Along the way I debated with myself on walking back behind the inlet since I barely had seen anything. At the jetty I came across sanderlings, ruddy turnstones and some lingering purple sandpipers. The tide was going out, so I knew there would be exposed mud flats and sandbars on the bay side that would entice northbound shorebirds to stop in for refueling.
Left, royal tern. Right, sanderlings. © S. Weiss
Tis the season that horseshoe crabs crawl out of the water to lay their eggs on the shoreline. The eggs are an important source of food that enables the migrating birds to restore much of the weight they lost getting to this point in order to continue the journey to their breeding grounds. The eggs look like tiny, multicolored tapioca pearls. The crabs (actually related closer to spiders than true crabs) must deposit eggs in the thousands. With all the shorebirds, gulls and occasional passerines gobbling up the eggs and a good number of adults not surviving the process, it is mind boggling to understand how these antique creatures have been around virtually unchanged for hundreds of millions of years. For my moment in time at this location, there were laughing gulls, ruddy turnstones, dunlin, semipalmated plovers, semipalmated sandpipers, short-billed dowitchers, red knots, least sandpipers and piping plovers scurrying around the flats picking on eggs, worms, small crustaceans and other invertebrates. Elsewhere along the sandbars and mudflats around the marsh were American oystercatchers, willets, black-bellied plovers, clapper rails, great egret and tricolored heron. Royal terns were also joined by Forster’s and least terns.
Horseshoe crab eggs. © S. Weiss
On the walk back along the beach, I noticed that the tide had receded enough so I could walk along the water’s edge without having to dodge waves. Not long into my return, I remembered that my sister had found her first of the year fossil shark tooth over the past weekend. Since there were barely any waves to hamper looking for and reaching for ocean souvenirs, I figured I might give it a try too. As soon as I looked down at my feet, I couldn’t believe what I saw. Not only did I find my first shark tooth of the year (and maybe only my second or third here ever), but the largest one I’ve ever seen. Most likely it belonged to a great white shark ancestor. According to a friend who studied paleontology, it dates back to possibly two million years ago.
Great white shark tooth fossil, 1-1/4 inches. © S. Weiss
This beach is still beautiful to visit, despite the signs of modern civilization, like golf balls, plastic bottle caps or Mylar balloons scattered here and there. I can only wonder what this beach looked like two million years ago when a shark lost one of its hundreds of teeth. Or even 400 million years ago when horseshoe crabs crawled out of the water to perpetuate their species.
Left, northern puffer. Right, striped burrfish. © S. Weiss
Comments
Post a Comment