Preening American Oystercatcher

American Oystercatcher Images, Facts and Information:

Haematopus palliatus

  • American Oystercatchers are large shorebirds with black heads, brown backs, white undersides, large red bills, yellow eyes and have pink legs with black toenails.
  • There are only two species of oystercatchers in North America, Black Oystercatchers and American Oystercatchers. The American Oystercatcher has an eastern race along the Atlantic and Gulf coast and the second race on the Pacific coast.
  • American Oystercatcher habitat includes beaches, mudflats, spoil islands, dunes, salt marshes and other coastal habitats. American Oystercatchers don’t go far inland.
  • American Oystercatchers eat mollusks and prefer bivalves, they will occasionally consume fish. Their bill is specially adapted to prying open shells.
  • American Oystercatchers can be either solitary or colonial nesters. They lay 1 to 4 eggs which take 23 to 28 days to hatch. Both sexes incubate and they are monogamous.
  • Northern birds are migratory.
  • A group of oystercatchers is known as a “parcel” of oystercatchers.
  • American Oystercatchers can live up to 17 years.

I hope you enjoy viewing my American Oystercatcher photos.

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