The Yellow Cardinal in South America

Above: a mass of Horseshoe Crabs on a tidal shoreline of eastern North America 
Below: a single Horseshoe Crab
(upper photo by Howard Eskin; lower photo by Rise Hill)

The Red Knot population, visiting the Delaware Bay shores in the spring, has numbered more than 150,000 birds. 
Recent surveys, however, have shown that number has dropped dramatically to an estimated 15,000 birds.
In the last 10 years, according to those studies, this Red Knot population has declined more than 90%.

Surveys in the Delaware Bay area have fluctuated from about 16,000 Red Knots in 2003 down to about 13,000 in 2004, then up to about 15,000 in 2005.

Added to this is a sad statistic relating to a recent survey in South America. In 2005, there, only 17,600 knots were counted, a decline of 40% from the previous year.

The Red Knot, in the Americas, may now be said to be the most endangered shorebird population in the world.    


Not just the Red Knot, but 5 other species of shorebirds, are dependent upon the horseshoe crab eggs along the Delaware Bayshore.

In 2005, according to New Jersey's chief endangered species biologist, surveys of Horseshoe Crab eggs in New Jersey and Delaware indicated, where as normally 4,000 eggs are laid per meter, the count was about 1,500. That was not good.        

Also, in both New Jersey and Delaware, Horseshoe Crab eggs have been harvested, with annual harvests being about 150,000. 
Thus, in certain years, there have been 300,000 less Horseshoe Crabs, depleting further the food supply needed by the Red Knot and 5 other species of shorebirds.

A grouping of 11 organizations have joined together to petition the state governments of New Jersey and Delaware, with a proposal of 4 specific actions urgently needed to save the situation, due to all of the evidence that there is of a "death spiral" for the Red Knot.

The 11 organizations are these: 
the American Bird Conservancy, the American Littoral Society, Citizens Campaign for the Environment, Defenders of Wildlife, the Delaware Audubon Society, the Delaware Riverkeeper, the National Audubon Society, the New Jersey Environmental Federation, the NJ Public Interest Research Group, and the Sierra Club.

The 4 actions:
1) institution of a moratorium on Horseshoe Crab harvesting
2) support efforts in surrounding states to enact such a moratorium and measures to conserve the shared resource
3) support efforts to federally list the Red Knot, Calidris canutus rufa, under the Endangered Species Act
4) continue bay-wide efforts to reduce human harassment (of all kinds) of foraging shorebirds.

Truly time is of the essence for helping the Red Knot, to be as it has been in the Americas. Without such help, again, there simply may not be that many more "mananas" for the bird, on the beaches not that from from Senor Manana's farm.   


Now, some more information regarding the history of shorebirds including the Red Knot along the Delaware Bay, as given by Armas Hill in the Birdline Feature on the internet, on Birdline Delaware and the Philadelphia Birdline, on June 22, 2005, as a continuation of the June 13 feature that preceded it:

It was noted that in 2004, survey-work indicated that the late-spring staging population of the Red Knot along the Delaware Bayshore was about 13,000 birds. 
And it was noted that was considerably less than what the population was a couple decades previously.

It was also noted last time that the Red Knot is just one of about a half-dozen species of shorebirds that stage in the late-spring along the shores of the Delaware Bay.

Over 90 per cent of the shorebirds that flock in the late-spring along the Delaware Bay are of 4 species: Semipalmated Sandpiper, Ruddy Turnstone, Red Knot, and Sanderling.

On May 29, 2006, this flock of Semipalmated Sandpipers
was along the Delaware Bay at Port Mahon, in Delaware.
(Photograph  by Howard Eskin)    

Smaller numbers of Short-billed Dowitchers and Dunlin also occur. That makes 6 species of shorebirds in addition to Laughing Gulls that feed on the Horseshoe Crab eggs on the beach. Also, about a dozen other species of shorebirds occur in the area in the spring.

Semipalmated Sandpipers
(photo by Howard Eskin)

During the years 1982 to 1995, in the spring, as many as 272,000 Semipalmated Sandpipers were counted on both shores (Delaware & New Jersey) of the Delaware Bay. 
The high-day of the year, during that period, averaged 112,000. 
After 1988, no day-count exceeded 100,000.

These Semipalmated Sandpipers non-stop 2,700 miles from Surinam, in northern South America, to the Delaware Bay shores. It is an astonishing journey, really, for those small birds - smaller yet, weighing less than an ounce when they arrive. 
Once by the Bay, they fuel up on the Horseshoe Crab eggs, as they must, to continue their migration north. This feeding is also necessary, in the same way, for the same reason, for the other shorebird species about to mentioned.         

During the years just referred to, the annual high-day for Ruddy Turnstones averaged 70,000. 
It was as high as 108,000 in 1989. 
The Ruddy Turnstones by the Delaware Bay in May probably represent about three-quarters of the eastern North American population. These birds winter from South Carolina south to southern South America, along the Atlantic Coast.
With their sturdy bills, Turnstones not only turn stones, they also dig holes in the sand to expose more Horseshoe Crab eggs. They thus provide what could be called a foraging service for other shorebirds.

Regarding Red Knots, most of which migrate to the Delaware Bay from as far south as Tierra del Fuego (in far-southern South America), nearly as many as 100,000 have been counted during one day (96,000). The average high-day for the species during the survey period (from 1982 to 1995) was 48,000.

Many of the Sanderlings that stage by the Delaware Bay in May come mostly from wintering-quarters in Brazil. But some also come from the sandy coasts of Peru and Chile on the Pacific side of South America. A few winter further north, in for example, Florida. 
The maximum high-count for Sanderlings by the Delaware Bay in May started to decline in the early 1980's. From 56,000 in 1982, it dropped steadily to a level of 10,000 in 1993, 1994, & 1995. 
That decline followed a substantial decrease of perhaps 80 per cent of the Sanderling population along the East Coast of the USA from 1972 to 1982, continuing the downward spiral. 
Generally, over the years, in the Delaware Bay area, Sanderlings have been more to the south, closer to the mouth of the Bay.


To continue our look back at shorebirds by the Delaware Bay, and to continue our effort to get a good perspective of what has been, we'll go now to the writings, done back in 1937, by one of the foremost ornithologists of that region in those days, Witmer Stone. His work, published that year, was entitled "Bird Studies at Old Cape May".

What Witmer Stone did NOT refer to in that work were large flocks of shorebirds as just mentioned, being by the Delaware Bay on the New Jersey side, at places such as Reed's Beach, where since then such large flocks have been. 
One could assume, wrongly perhaps, that those flocks of Knots and Turnstones and the like were there, but that Mr. Stone did not know about them. However, when reading through his book, it is apparent that ornithologists of that day did know what was about, and so another assumption can be made that such large flocks simply weren't there.

What Witmer Stone did refer to was the rampant shooting of shorebirds that formerly took place along that part of the coast of eastern North America. 
The Red Knot, he said, was known to the gunners as the "Robin Snipe" or "Red-breasted Snipe". 
It, along with the Dowitcher (in those days a single species), before the shooting was abolished, were among the most desirable of the shorebirds from the gunner's standpoint, as they both decoyed easily. Thus, they both, according to Stone, "nearly approached extermination".
The accounts in Stone's 1937 book refer to Knots occurring in southern New Jersey, in the early part of the 20th Century, in small groups of 150 or so, or in "low numbers" of less than a hundred. He relates that a gunner, for instance, in late-May 1907, shot 29 of them in Cape May County.     

Something very important in relation to shorebirds happened in 1913. That year, the Federal Migratory Bird Law went into effect and the season was CLOSED on ALL shorebirds except the Woodcock, Black-bellied Plover, Golden Plover, and Snipe (known then as the Wilson's Snipe, as it is now known again today), and the two species of Yellowlegs.
In 1926, the two species of Plovers were put on the protected list, and in 1927 the Yellowlegs followed them.
The season on Woodcock and Snipe, the only two "shorebirds" remaining on the game list, was subsequently reduced to one month with a bag limit.

Populations of the shorebirds of coastal New Jersey were monitored in the late 1920's and early 1930's. 
During that period, let's pick a year - 1931. 
For that year, here's a ranking of SHOREBIRD SPECIES in New Jersey, during their northward spring migration in May, listing the most common first, and then those less so in descending order:
 1  -  Semipalmated Sandpiper
 2  -  Ruddy Turnstone
 3  -  Black-bellied Plover
 4  -  Semipalmated Plover
 5  -  Greater Yellowlegs
 6  -  Sanderling
 7  -  Least Sandpiper
 8  -  Dowitcher (nearly all Short-billed of course, but in those days as noted, it was a single species)
 9  -  Whimbrel (was then called the Hudsonian Curlew)
10 -  RED KNOT
11 -  Dunlin (was called then the Red-backed Sandpiper)
12 -  Lesser Yellowlegs
13 -  Western Sandpiper

A Dunlin surrounded by Semipalmated Sandpipers.
The Dunlin has been called the "Red-backed Sandpiper".
(photo by Howard Eskin)

The following shorebirds, overall during the period 1929-1934, were classified in New Jersey as "abundant" or "very common": 
Semipalmated Sandpiper, Sedmipalmated Plover, Sanderling, Dowitcher, Least Sandpiper, Greater Yellowlwgs.
   
Notice, now, that the Red Knot was in the second category, those classified as "common". 
In that grouping, there were these species: 
Black-bellied Plover, Killdeer, Ruddy Turnstone, Dunlin, Red Knot, Western Sandpiper, Lesser Yellowlegs (less common during the northbound migration than during the southbound), Whimbrel, Pectoral Sandpiper, Spotted Sandpiper.


The author Peter Matthiessen wrote a fine book about shorebirds, published in 1967, and entitled "The Wind Birds". 
In it, he also alluded to the widespread shooting of shorebirds that was referred to by Witmer Stone. That shooting was very prevalent in the late 1800's. It also continued in the early 1900's, even as some species started to show significant declines. 
Matthiessen wrote that "under the circumstances, it's a wonder that any shorebirds survived into the 20th Century". They were shot in numbers, and they were trapped. 
There was even a practice of "fire-lightning", that was commonly done, for example on Long Island NY, when after dark resting flocks of shorebirds, blinded by a bright beam, stood by while men stepped out from punts and wrung their necks.

Among the gunners of that era, Knots and Dowitchers, as noted earlier, were favorites. So were Golden Plovers and Eskimo Curlews, not only because of their fine taste and great numbers (yes, even so for the Curlew), but also because they were unsuspicious to a fault. The Eskimo Curlew would circle back over the guns, calling out to its fallen companions. That was a habit shared by the Dunlin, Dowitcher, and other species. The Dunlin was called "the simpleton" by Long Island hunters, reflecting the low esteem in which its brain was held.  

After the legal protection for shorebirds came to be, as noted in 1913, for a number of species, through the 20th Century, things improved. For the Eskimo Curlew, it was too late.
Yes, shorebirds that at one time existed by the thousands, can in time disappear.

The ESKIMO CURLEW is referred to later in this narrative.  


The following is a passage from Alexander Wilson's "American Ornithology", written in the early 19th Century:

"Everyone who has been on the shore, on a day gleaming and cloudy, may have seen masses of these birds at a distance, appearing like a dark and swiftly moving cloud, suddenly vanishing, but then in a second, appearing at some distance, glowing with a silvery light almost too intense to gaze upon. These are the consequences of the simultaneous motions of the flock, at once changing their position, showing the dark gray of their backs, or the pure white of their underparts."  

With these words, Alexander Wilson was writing about the Knot (in its winter plumage). In his day, the bird was called the "Ash-colored Sandpiper".
The scientific name, "Calidris canutus", refers to King Canute, who loved to eat it (the species does have a European population).

4 books, written over the years, have already been noted in this essay.
 
Another one is: "The Flight of the Red Knot" by Brian Harrington and Charles Flowers, published in 1996. 
If you can get it, it's interesting, and with good background about the Knot.


FONT (Focus On Nature Tours) goes to southern South America, to Argentina & Chile. Although people don't normally travel to the opposite end of the world to see birds that migrate from their homelands, it is a nice experience to see the places where these birds go. And it's fascinating in a way to share the long migration of the KNOTS and other SHOREBIRDS.

Places to be visited in southern South America referred to in this bulletin include:

PATAGONIAN ARGENTINA: the coastal region with the miles of beaches, and Senor Manana's farm (with the YELLOW CARDINAL), north of the Valdez Peninsula, and TIERRA DEL FUEGO, in far-southern ARGENTINA.

During FONT Argentina tours, in addition to the Yellow Cardinal and Red Knot, other birds and wildlife in the preceding text have been seen, including: 
Magellanic Penguin (including a colony with a million), Southern Giant Petrel, Black-browed Albatross, Manx Shearwater, South American Tern, Burrowing Parrot, Carbonated Finch, and Southern Right Whale, Killer Whale (or Orca), and seals and sea-lions.. 
And that's just some of the nature that we've observed!

Click here for:  UPCOMING FONT TOURS IN ARGENTINA