FAMILY: OYSTERCATCHERS
Oystercatcher (Eurasian Oystercatcher)
(Haematopus ostralegus)
This is a large black-white bird with a long straight brightly-red beak and red legs.
It nests on coasts of seas and banks of large rivers.
Till the height of summer, performances of their group courtship displays take place. Birds stand beside each other; the beaks are directed to the ground; they together run forward and backward and then form a circle. And they cry in increasing tempo: "kevik…, kevik…, kvik, kvik, kvak, kvirrrr".
The nest is usually just a pit, sometimes lined, for adorning it, with shells of mollusks or with leafs. The clutch is incubated by both parents.
Oystercatchers live for a long time; it was described that one bird lived in the wild for 36 years.
They eat different inhabitants of the seacoast, including mollusks.