WILD ANGLE

PHOTOGRAPHERS CELEBRATE THE BEAUTY OF THE NATURAL WORLD

The Oystercatcher

by Brian Pike Image Malcolm Hunt

Spring in the Yorkshire Dales is marked by the reappearance of two noisy and distinctive birds: the curlew and the oystercatcher. Both are waders that spend the winter feeding on the coast, then head inland to breed when the days are longer and warmer.

Unlike the curlew, the oystercatcher is a relative newcomer to our moors and upland pastures, and it wasn’t until the 1940s that breeding pairs were first sighted in Swaledale, Wensleydale and Wharfedale. Numbers quickly increased, though, and now oystercatchers turn up every spring, regular as clockwork.

Despite their name, oystercatchers seldom if ever dine on oysters – not in this country, anyway. When feeding inland they use their sturdy, reddish-orange bills to probe damp earth for worms and insects. At the coast they use them to prise apart or hammer open cockles and mussels, or to dislodge whelks and limpets from rocks.

Oystercatchers’ striking black and white plumage makes them easy to recognise, and they draw attention to themselves whilst in flight with their distinctive, high-pitched piping calls. From now until late summer you’re liable to hear them passing overhead at pretty much any hour of the day. Accustomed to living by the rhythm of the tides rather than that of sunrise and sunset, these are birds that are just as happy to fly by night as in broad daylight.