Overview

Oystercatcher: Stocky, pigeon-sized shorebird with long, straight, red bill. Black head, breast, and wings. Underparts, rump, and lower back white. Wings have prominent white stripe, white tail has black tip. Red-pink legs and red eye with orange eye ring. Bill flattened vertically.

Oystercatcher: Resident breeder and winter visitor in the UK and Ireland. Resident birds can be seen year round along coastlines. During winter months birds from Norway join residents along the east coasts of England and Scotland. Birds can be found at beaches, mudflats, lakes and ponds, and on estuaries. Increasingly seen inland.

Jean Roche Sound

Oystercatcher 3

• Title: Oystercatcher 3
• Description: Flight calls.
• Recordist: Jean Roche
• Date Imported: "February 21, 2011"
• Location: uk

Oystercatcher 4

• Title: Oystercatcher 4
• Description: Alarm calls.
• Recordist: Jean Roche
• Date Imported: "February 21, 2011"
• Location: uk

Oystercatcher 5

• Title: Oystercatcher 5
• Description: Typical calls.
• Recordist: Jean Roche
• Date Imported: "February 21, 2011"
• Location: uk

Voice Text

"kleep", "klee-eap", "weep", "ke-beep ke-beep ke-beep kwirrrrrr ee-beep ee-beep ee-beep", "kip", "pik"

• The Oystercatcher is the national bird of the Faroe Islands, where it is called tjaldur.
• Despite its name, oysters do not form a significant portion of this bird's diet. The bird still lives up to its name, as it is one of the few wading birds that is capable of opening oysters at all.
• There are three races breeding in western Europe, central Eurasia, Kamchatka, China, and the Western coast of Korea.
• A group of oystercatchers are known as a "parcel" or "stew" of oystercatchers.

• Avocet
• Black Stork

Oystercatchers (Haematopodidae)

ORDER

The sandpipers, plovers, auks, predatory skuas, and oystercatchers are just five of the nineteen families in the taxonomic order CHARADRIIFORMES (pronounced kah-RAH-dree-ih-FOR-meez).

FAMILY TAXONOMY

The Haematopodidae (pronounced hee-muh-toh-POD-uh-dee) family is composed of eleven species of oystercatchers in one genus distributed on coastlines of all continents except for Antarctica (IOC World Bird List, version 2.3).

EUROPE

There are two species of oystercatcher sharing the same genus that have occurred in Europe. These are the Oystercatcher (Eurasian), and the extinct Canary Islands Oystercatcher.

KNOWN FOR

The Oystercatcher, like other members of its family, is mostly known for its distinctive, orange bill used to pry open the shells of oysters and mussels.

PHYSICAL

Stout, medium sized birds, oystercatchers have rather plump bodies with thick necks, rounded heads, and medium length, pointed wings. They have medium length, strong legs and a long, straight, laterally compressed bill.

COLORATION

Oystercatchers are coloured in a combination of black, white, light pink, yellow, and reddish-orange. Plumage of some species is black above with white in the wings and on the underparts, other species have all black plumage. The legs of all species are pale pink, the eyes glaring yellow, and the eye ring and bill reddish-orange.

GEOGRAPHIC HABITAT

In Europe, this family is restricted to coastal areas and along large rivers in the eastern part of the region.

MIGRATION

Populations of oystercatchers that breed in northwestern Europe are mostly resident, whereas populations that breed in Iceland, and northern, southern, and eastern Europe winter in Africa.

HABITS

Oystercatchers are solitary birds only occasionally seen in flocks after breeding. They prefer to forage on rocky coastlines that provide habitat for their main food source; bivalve molluscs. Their strong legs and toes are suited to manoeuvring on and gripping rocky areas favoured by molluscs. Upon finding a mollusc such as an oyster, clams or mussel, they use their specialized bills to open them by inserting the bill to cut muscles that keep the shells tightly closed together.

CONSERVATION

The Oystercatcher is not endangered in Europe. In New Zealand, however, the Chatham Island Oystercatcher has a population size of just a few hundred and is endangered by introduced predators, while the sole species of oystercatcher that has gone extinct was the Canary Islands Oystercatcher.

INTERESTING FACTS

Oystercatchers place bits of broken shells in their nests to help conceal the eggs. Both sexes incubate the eggs and are sexually dimorphic with females being larger than males. This difference in size helps them avoid competition by utilizing different prey items.

Artist

Yury Lisyak