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Perfect day for peace, love and horseshoe crabs

Sixth annual festival returns to DuPont Nature Center
Volunteers (l-r) Max Cox, 13, Emily Hudson, 15, and Brittany Haywood show off (l-r) Ike the diamondback terrapin, a blue crab and a young horseshoe crab at the touch tank at the DuPont Nature Center's sixth annual Peace, Love & Horseshoe Crab Festival May 16. BY MADDY LAURIA
Maddy Lauria
June 4, 2015
Sheryl Lynch of New Windsor, N.Y., poses for a photo with an adult horseshoe crab at the DuPont Nature Center's sixth annual Peace, Love & Horseshoe Crab Festival May 16. BY MADDY LAURIA
Katonah, N.Y., resident Mike Grittini checks out some shorebirds at the DuPont Nature Center's sixth annual Peace, Love & Horseshoe Crab Festival May 16. BY MADDY LAURIA
Gary Kreamer, of the state's Aquatic Resources Education Center, shares some fun facts about horseshoe crabs. BY MADDY LAURIA
There was nothing but peace and love for horseshoe crabs and other Delaware Bay critters at the DuPont Nature Center's sixth annual Peace, Love & Horseshoe Crab Festival May 16. BY MADDY LAURIA
Madison Smith, 9, checks out a horseshoe crab with Kim Smith of Columbia, Md., at the DuPont Nature Center's sixth annual Peace, Love & Horseshoe Crab Festival May 16. BY MADDY LAURIA
Maya Cosgrove, 10, of Columbia, Md., gets her face painted by Seaford resident Kitty Bronson at the DuPont Nature Center's sixth annual Peace, Love & Horseshoe Crab Festival May 16. BY MADDY LAURIA
Matthew Carrico, 11, of Middletown, left, practices throwing a line with other children at the fishing station at the DuPont Nature Center's sixth annual Peace, Love & Horseshoe Crab Festival May 16. BY MADDY LAURIA

The DuPont Nature Center near Milford celebrated its sixth annual Peace, Love & Horseshoe Crab Festival May 16, with plenty of activities and opportunities to get up-close with some of nature's most interesting critters.

The festival coincides with the mating season of the horseshoe crab, a creature whose ancestry dates back nearly 450 million years. Along with the crabs, thousands of migratory shorebirds stop by for a feast along the Delaware Bay – including the threatened rufa red knot, which travels 18,000 miles during its round trip migration from the southern tip of South America to breeding grounds in the Canadian Arctic.

The annual festival included family-oriented games and crafts, as well as touch tanks for both children and adults to get close to horseshoe crabs, blue crabs, diamondback terrapins and native fish.

For more information about the DuPont Nature Center, call 302-422-1329 or go to http://www.dnrec.delaware.gov/fw/Education/Pages/DNC.aspx.

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