Cape May National Wildlife Refuge - Shorebirds

Shorebirds

The Refuge's five-mile stretch along the Delaware Bay is a major resting and feeding area for migrating shorebirds and wading birds each spring. The Delaware Bay shoreline has gained international recognition as a major shorebird staging area in North America second only to the Copper River Delta in Alaska. Each year hundreds of thousands of shorebirds-nearly 80 percent of some populations-stop to rest and feed here during their spring migration from Central and South America to their Arctic breeding grounds. The arrival at Cape May of more than twenty shorebird species-primarily red knots, ruddy turnstones, sanderlings and semipalmated sandpipers-coincides with the horseshoe crab spawning season which occurs in May/early June. The crab eggs provide an abundant food supply which these long-distance flyers use to replenish their energy reserves before moving on. (In May virtually the entire North American red knot population gathers along Delaware Bay beaches!)

Because of the Delaware Bay Estuary's value to migrating shorebirds and wading birds, in 1992 it was designated a Wetland of International Importance under the The Convention on Wetlands of International Importance—otherwise known as the Ramsar Convention.