American Oystercatcher

We visited the coast of southern Texas in November 2021 during the Covid pandemic and spent some time in Aransas NWR. One of the wonderful activities we did was a Whooping Crane and Coastal Birding Tour with Rockport Birding and Kayak Adventures where we boated across Aransas Bay into the dredged shipping channel between Bludworth Island on the east and the peninsula which forms the eastern barrier for Dunham Bay. On the eastern end of the shipping of the channel where it was quite shallow we saw an American oystercatcher, a wonderfully fun looking bird. It has a long orange beak, yellow eyes with orange orbital rings, faded pink legs, a black head and neck, brown-black upper body and white lower body. 

Illustration from Birds of the World. 

They feed almost exclusively on shellfish and other marine invertebrates, including oysters, mussels, clams, limpets, sea urchins, starfish, crabs and worms. They look for mollusks with a partially opened shell, then jab their bill into the shell and sever the muscle that causes the shell to clamp shut. They also probe the sand for soft-shell or razor clams or carry loose shellfish out of the water and hammer at it. 

Range from Birds of the World. 

It is found on the Atlantic coast of North America from Massachusetts to northern Florida, the gulf coast, the Caribbean, and south to Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina. It is also found on the Pacific coast of California, Mexico, Central America, Peru and Chile.