Delaware Bay

Since 1997, we have tracked the weights of captured shorebirds at this time to see if they reach the minimum thresholds needed for successful Arctic breeding: 180g for red knots, 155g for turnstones, and 85g for sanderlings

Our team counted 26,626 red knots, 25,360 ruddy turnstones, 10,015 sanderlings, 90,087 semipalmated sandpipers, 60,497 dunlin, and 1078 short-billed dowitchers.

Birds do not have the luxury of regulatory ambiguity. They’re just trying to live – and to reproduce. Each spring they arrive having gambled everything on what the bay will offer. This year, for a few days, the bay nearly failed them. When the eggs finally came, they responded as though their survival depended on it. Our data simply records what they already know.

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