Bang!

Bang!. . Each September, pushers (guides) take gunners through the marsh on small skiffs in search of rail birds. The movement of the boat through the grasses at high tide disturbs the rail birds, which fly up, and exposes them to the gunner. Today the rail birds' habitat is threatened with the lose of wild rice, a key part of the birds' diet due to the inundation of the invasive phragmites and flooding.

Some of the region's visitors came to the Delaware Bay because it offered them an opportunity to partake of a sport that is only possible in a handful of micro-climates across the U.S.-rail bird hunting. At its popularity during the 1920s and 1930s, parties of well-to-do hunters came to the Delaware Bay from nearby cities in search of the elusive rail bird. It was a site to see them arrive in the newest cars, driven by chauffeurs. Pushers were both African American and white.

(Caption):
Walter Camp of Port Norris pushing his client B. Reath, Hampton Meadow, Maurice River, September 22, 1948. Delaware Bay Museum, gift of Richard Camp