06/11/2026
- Horseshoe Crabs
Here they come, millions of breeding horseshoe crabs. In fact, the biggest concentration in the world, beaching themselves on Delaware Bay beaches to lay their tiny green eggs in the sand. And following the crabs are vast flocks of small shorebirds and gulls feasting on the eggs!
It happens every May and lasts into June, sometimes early July. The horseshoe crab (not a crab but an ancient, completely harmless cousin of the scorpion) beaches itself to lay its eggs. Huge female crabs drag one or more males ashore to “nest.” The eggs incubate in the sand and hatch the next full moon, one month later, if they don’t get eaten by greedy birds.
The screams of feeding laughing gulls is deafening, but what’s really exciting are huge flocks of shorebirds that bounce back and forth across the Delaware Bay as they migrate. These shorebirds include the red knot, ruddy turnstone, sanderling and semipalmated sandpiper. Some of these birds spent the winter all the way in Tierra del Fuego in southern South America! They are on their way to the Arctic tundra to nest, flying nonstop from the tip of South America to the beaches of Brazil to feed on small invertebrates. They then fly four days nonstop to the Delaware Bay to feast on horseshoe crab eggs. Then again fly nonstop to the Bay of Fundy in Canada, feast again and spread out across the Arctic to nest. Have you witnessed any recently?
Written by Matt Pelligrine, Naturalist, Cape May Point State Park