Spent a pleasant couple of hours yesterday morning on a small island in Auke Bay, observing a pair of black oystercatchers (Haematopus bachmani) at their nest site. I especially enjoyed watching the different behaviors of the female and the male. The female was very vocal, stood and walked tall when in motion, moved around a great deal. The male crept among the rocks, keeping his head low, and sat still for many minutes at a time. The female was the one to settle on the nest, though.
The scrape nest held three eggs, just at the edge of the ryegrass zone, green with black speckles and very hard to see. It was an eloquent case for being very careful when exploring the shore this time of year--and perhaps just avoiding this type of habitat altogether and staying below the tideline...
UPDATE: I have just learned that the tagged bird is actually a male, so the above-described behaviors should be role-reversed... This male was banded and satellite-tagged about four years ago. He has been returning to the same nesting area ever since.
Nice! On a recent trip to Low Island I was able to take pictures of 5 different Black Oystercatcher nests with 1-4 eggs. Seemed pretty amazing considering how small the island is. After seeing the first one, the rest were much easier to find.
Posted by: Matt Goff | 06/08/2011 at 10:14 AM