The Delaware shore is a spectacular location in Delaware for migrating birds in their spring finery! In this short video, I go through some of the basics of when, where, and why you want to shoot at this location. Enjoy!

The Spotted Sandpiper didn’t even notice me, walked right up to me in its feverish pitch to feed. The Spotted Sandpiper, not much larger than your basic chicken egg, is fueling up on food smaller than a seed you’d find in a tomato. That’s it on the tip of its bill, a Horseshoe Crab egg. It’s just amazing to me, the scale of life.

For those not familiar with the term LBJ, in the birding world, that stands for Little Brown Job. It’s a description for shorebirds in the winter when we enjoy them on our shores bouncing around like pool balls. When they head north right now to their breeding grounds, they have dressed to the nines. The transformation is stunning, the Dunlin being one that goes from gray and brown all over to what you see here. The first rays of the day find it along the shore, looking for Horseshoe Crab eggs (the rock on the right) as it fuels their flight north. They are a great little bird but as its attitude betrays, it wants to know who’s the LBJ now?

Our fly fishing weekend had been on the calendar since March. Jake has become a fishing machine, vastly surpassing my very limited skills now, so when he said he had two new places to go, we were all in. The two hour drive south of Bozeman was spectacular, the day being gorgeous. After we made the turn down the dirt road, he said, “Last August, we saw four Mountain Goats come down to drink at the river,” pointing at the oppostie hillside. We parked shortly after that comment, got into our chest waders, set up our rods, and were just about to start our two-mile walk when I looked up and spotted goats. Then we saw them seemingly come down. Jake knows I can’t walk and chew gum at the same time, he also knows I never travel without a camera. This is when he spoke up, “Want to grab your camera and get some shots? They’ll come right down to the water.” The fish were calling my name (great day of fishing, thanks Jake!), but hell, I can’t pass up an easy shot. I was already in my waders, so walking up to them was a snap. After I made the clicks, we went to Jake’s fishing hole. He saw me continually look up at the cliff when we were fishing. I think it was a plot to split my concentration, throwing off my fishing game, which was already not quite up to snuff. He was simply not playing fair!