BLACK OYSTERCATCHER

CHARACTERISTICS: Of some 43 centimetres in length, approximately. The plumage is completely black with yellow eyes and a red-orange ocular ring. The bill and legs are pink. The females have slightly darker stockings and a longer and slimmer bill. The juveniles have an ocular ring and bill of browny-orange colour, pinky-grey legs and feathers with brown fringe.
DIET: Their diet includes molluscs, barnacles, echinoderms, crustaceans, chitons, gastropods and occasionally fish.
REPRODUCTION: Three yellow spotted eggs the size of a chicken’s egg are laid between May and June. They are incubated by both parents and this period takes approximately one month. The clutch is defended by both progenitors as well as by neighbouring oystercatchers (above all from attacks by seagulls).
CURIOSITIES: It feeds on bivalves, for which it cuts the muscle that sustains the two halves of the shell and pierces the prey, or bashes the shell on the rocks or on the hard sand so that it opens. It is a good flier and swimmer, and can go underwater to escape from predators.