Finally, I Found The Horseshoe Crabs On A Walk On Isolated Pickering Beach Delaware

I was up early 0n Monday morning. I was  driving to Pickering Beach before the sunrise . It was about a 1/2 hour drive from my hotel in Milford,  Delaware.  I  was taking the advice of the pleasant and talkative waitress who served me dinner at Meding’s Seafood on Sunday evening. She told me Pickering Beach would be a great place to see the horseshoe crabs spawning,  which was the reason I was visiting the Delaware Bay.  After leaving Route One I drove through some rural farm country to reach the small community of Pickering Beach.  It has only 100 to 200 residents. .  I parked along a road in a designated parking area,

and walked through the narrow path on the only public access to the isolated beach.

I was the only human on the beach,

I walked north on the beach while watching a beautiful sunrise,

over the bay.

I walked  past a few homes before  entering the unspoiled beach in the Little Creek Wildlife Area.

It didn’t take long for me to find  horseshoe crabs that were overturned but still alive.

Up to now I had seen a few live ones on  my walks on Slaughter Beach. I up righted them and watched  them crawl back toward bay.

Sadly, I  saw a few of them make it to the water only to be once again overturned by a crashing wave. There were many more horseshoe crabs as I walked along the beach. Some still mating,

while other dug into the wet  sand. Many were overturned, kicking their legs in a useless attempt to upright themselves. I tried turning over as many of them but there were too many. This is were their long journey would end.

The horseshoe crabs  weren’t they only critters on the beach. There were hundreds of birds  including  flocks of laughing gulls,

semipalmated sandpipers,

and American   herring gulls. ( I am not an expert on shore birds, I rely on Google images and my Merlin app for identification, so please correct me if I misidentify a bird.)  I believe they were feeding on  horseshoe crab roe.

The reed covered marsh of the Little Creek Wildlife Area was now along the  isolated beach.

The harsh calls of red-winged blackbirds  could be heard in the reeds.

The further I got form the homes on Pickering Beach  the more horseshoe crabs I saw. There were dozens of living ones, some mating or spawning in the sand and some overturned  suffering a slow death, and joining the pile of empty shell on the high tide mark. 

I also found some fish bones on the beach.

There were  even more flocks of birds feeding along the beach.   Large flocks of Canada geese joined the others birds on the shore,

while others swam in   the waters of the bay.

I wasn’t able to identify all of the shore birds  in these large flocks , but I believe this a least sandpiper,

this a semipalmated plover,

and even some mallard ducks.

After about a mile I came to a trail that led me into the marsh in the reeds of Little Creek Wildlife Area.

Here I saw racoon that  ran off when it saw me

 I followed the trail back south and was surrounded by tall reeds.

Hundreds of red -winged blackbirds  fluttered in the reeds. This is a female.

The trail followed the shore of a pond on the other side of the reeds.There wasn’t much to see but the tall reeds for about another 3/4 of a mile.

Some invasive hare’s foot clover

and native cutleaf evening primrose flowers bloomed on the sandy soil of the trail.

There were also a lot of blackberry bushes, some flower,

and others with large ripening blackberries.

There was also a few persimmon trees growing among the reeds in the trail.

Besides the many red winged blackbirds I only saw a few common yellow throats,

and a marsh wren in the reeds.

Great egrets flew overhead.

The   trail ended at an access road into the Little Creek Wildlife Area.

Here I found a canal that the trail actually followed but wasn’t visible because of the high reeds. I saw a muskrat and another raccoon bear  the canal but couldn’t get any photos of the critters.

I followed the access through a hardwood  woodland for about a 1/4 mile,which led to the main road to Pickering Beach.

There some cattail and common reed wetlands along the road,

and a lot of birds too, including a indigo bunting, perched  high in a treetop,

a white eyed vireo,

an eastern wood pee wee,

northern yellow warblers,

and a ruby throated hummingbird. I was surprised with seeing so many different species of birds but later learned that the Little Creek Wildlife Area is a well known birding area.

I walked back to the beach through the maze of reeds,

and, found this cute critter on the way, a tiny diamond back terrapin .

I returned to the beach where I saw more large flocks of birds and another human walking along the unspoiled beach.

Once again I was not positive of the many birds feeding along the sure. They would fly off as I approached. I  believe this is a large flock of sanderlings.

I was able to get some photos of individual birds which were easier to identify, this is,  I believe, a ruddy turnstone.

I am not sure if these are white rumped sandpipers, or sanderlings, but there were hundreds of them. I had hoped to see some red knots. These birds fly 10,000 from South America to their breeding grounds in the Arctic, stopping on the beaches of the Delaware Bay to re-fuel and feast on the horseshoe crab eggs. I may have seen one  in the large flocks of shore birds but I wasn’t able to tell  for sure.

There were also a lot more horseshoe crabs, some living,

but a lot more dead, having lost the battle to upright themselves after being turned over by the unforgiving waves.

There were also a few blue crab shells,

and mussel shells on the beach.

It was a beautiful place to walk and enjoy the sounds of the birds and the waves crashing on  the shore.

I only saw one more person as I neared the homes along the beach, an elderly woman saving the overturned horseshoe crabs by carrying them back to the sea. She told me she spends 6 hours a day saving the crabs and has been doing it for 60 years. I learned a lot about the spawning of the horseshoe crabs and the beaches along the Delaware bay from her. She helped me understand why I may not have seen a lot of horseshoe crabs at Slaughter Beach. She told me there are many volunteers like here on the local beaches who rescue the crabs and also keep the beaches clear of the decaying and rotting crabs.

I walked back to the homes along Pickering Beach,

where I found a lot of seagulls along the shore, probably raiding the discarded food from the residents of the Pickering Beach community. This herring gull was stretching it’s wings,

and this laughing gull wading in the waves crashing on the shore. Here is a link to a gallery on my blog web page with more photos of the birds I saw on my five mile hike on the isolated beach.  Delaware Pickering Beach  birds June 1  2026.

As I walked along the homes on the beach  I wondered who lived in the homes and envied there life on this isolated and beautiful beach.  Whether they were year long or Summer residents they picked a great place to enjoy the ocean.  I was pleased to have finally seen the  spawning of  the ancient horseshoe crabs which has been occuring for over 400 million years. I finished my 5 1/2 mile hike promising myself to return again soon. Here is a link to a gallery on my blog web page with some more photos from  my five mile hike on the isolated beach.  Delaware Pickering Beach   June 1  2026.

I was hungry after my 5 1/2 mile hike. It was late afternoon.  My Google maps navigation map showed  an accident on Route One with major delays.  So I took a detour and found the Magnolia Restaurant in the quiet town of Magnolia. .  Here I hade a vegetable burrito with home fries and a pancake.  I also had another pleasant conversation with the waitress and some customers. It was a quaint little place, the kind I love to find on my travels.

After  my last breakfast I drove through some rural roads back to my hotel where I spent some time editing photos, checking in with my law office and  taking some calls from relatives wishing me a Happy Birthday. Yep, I’m a year older now. The years  fly by now in the Autumn of my life.

Of course, later in the afternoon I got hungry again and found the  Bangkok Thai Bistro where I had hot and sour  mushroom soup and Thai shrimp in peanut sauce. It was okay. I also had an ice cream sandwich at the hotel for dessert. After a few more phone calls, I edited some photos and reflected on another great day on the Delaware Bay.  I was happy to finally see some horseshoe crabs but sad it was my last day our  First State. I would be heading home the next morning, but I was going to get up early and get in one more hike before I left.

“Our last deed, like the young of the land crab, wends its way to the sea of cause and effect as soon as born, and makes a drop there to eternity.” Henry David Thoreau

“On a crowded beach, you see the crowd, not the beach; if you want to experience the beach, find an empty beach!” — Mehmet Murat İldan 

“From our birthday, until we die, Is but the winking of an eye.” — William Butler Yeats