Dawn walks on the Delaware beach yield delightful discoveries as a rising sun illuminates all manner of treasures. Sand dollars, starfish, mermaid’s purses, and an endless variety of shells washed ashore. Schools of dolphins riding the surf, plunging northward along the coastline. 
But chief among them in the late spring are the sight of horseshoe crabs intent on laying their eggs in the sand.
A late May morning walk from Rehoboth to Cape Henlopen offered all manner of these armored tank-like crabs to observe.
These “living fossils,” the closest living relative to trilobites, indeed look prehistoric when encountered on the beach, resolute in their steady march from surf to sand and back again. The males cluster along the surf line, waiting to mate when a female signals her readiness by releasing pheromones. Then the female heads out of the water to spawn, unwavering in her intent to create a nest, laying about 4,000 eggs at a time. 
Through the season, she will lay about 20 clutches of eggs, creating a bonanza for the migrating shorebirds along the Delaware estuary who are awaiting their next meal. Up to a million birds will stopover during egg laying season to fuel up before they head northward, making the region the largest staging area for shorebirds in the Atlantic Flyway.
Unfortunately, the path to the sand can be deadly, as the surf can flip the crabs over, leaving them stranded and helpless on the beach. We spent our morning walk flipping these stranded crabs back over, hoping they’d head back to water and safety. AJust flip ‘em campaign encourages beach walkers to do just this.
Imagine our surprise, when flipping one stranded soul over, to see her do a U-turn away from the surf to head back to the sand. Apparently, despite being beached for who knows how long, she’s driven by instinct to propagate more than self-preservation. She still needed to lay her clutch of eggs before heading back to water.