The Oystercatcher and I — A Quiet Morning on St. Joseph Island

We love spending time on the beach, especially when you can find a remote area where the only other animals are wild. Whenever we go to Port Aransas, Texas, we make time to cross the channel and enjoy quiet times at St. Joseph Island. The marine wildlife there goes beyond the seagulls and brown pelicans.

A few years ago, one October, we did just that. We enjoyed being the only humans on a stretch of the beach on that island. In the shade, protected from the Sun, we could enjoy the sounds of marine birds and the ocean waves.

This American Oystercatcher (Haematopus palliatus) was cruising the area in front of me, looking for something to eat. It is hard to miss a bird like this one: a heavy black-and-white shorebird about 16.5 to 19.7 inches (42 to 50 cm) long, with a wingspan of roughly 2 feet 6 inches to 2 feet 10 inches (76 to 86 cm), red-yellow eyes, and that vivid red-orange bill. With nothing rushing us, I had all the time in the world to follow its search and capture an image where it had something in its powerful bill.

That bill is the whole story of the bird. American Oystercatchers live almost entirely on shellfish — oysters, clams, mussels and other bivalves — along with marine worms, crabs, limpets and similar invertebrates they probe out of the sand. They are the only birds on that beach able to open a large clam or oyster on their own, which is why other birds, such as gulls, willets and turnstones, often hang around a foraging oystercatcher hoping to share the meal, or steal it. The Cornell Lab notes that the exchange is not always one-sided: now and then a clam clamps down on the bill and holds the bird until the tide returns.

Because that diet is so specialized, the birds are tied to a narrow band of habitat — saltmarshes, oyster reefs and barrier beaches. They range along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts from roughly New England south through Florida, around the Gulf, and down through the Caribbean and both coasts of Central and South America as far as Chile and Argentina. On the Pacific Coast, they are largely replaced by the all-dark Black Oystercatcher. Here on the Texas coast, the barrier islands are exactly the kind of place they need, and exactly the kind of place people like to drive on, which is part of why the species is listed as a Yellow Alert Tipping Point species.

A fish, a mollusk, or whatever it was did not make a difference. The oystercatcher and I were both satisfied with our captures. If you want to see one for yourself, check a tide chart before you go — as the water falls and the flats are exposed, the birds come back to feed, and you will often hear that piercing whistle long before you see the red bill.

That is the story behind the shots. For more like this, enjoy these related stories: American Oystercatcher, Bird of the Week, Port Aransas, St. Joseph Island, Texas, and Wildlife. Until the next shoot, keep chasing the light and the wonders it reveals.

Posted for I.J. Khanewala’s Birds of the Week Invitation CLXXX.

---

Sources:

• Cornell Lab of Ornithology, All About Birds — American Oystercatcher — https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/American_Oystercatcher/overview
• Audubon Field Guide — American Oystercatcher — https://www.audubon.org/field-guide/bird/american-oystercatcher
• Texas Parks and Wildlife Department — American Oystercatcher (Haematopus palliatus) — https://tpwd.texas.gov/huntwild/wild/species/oystercatcher
• U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service — American Oystercatcher (Haematopus palliatus) — https://www.fws.gov/species/american-oystercatcher-haematopus-palliatus
• Birds of the World — American Oystercatcher, Diet and Foraging — https://birdsoftheworld.org/bow/species/ameoys/cur/foodhabits