KZN South Coast Hibiscus Route

[Richprins]

They are chasing oysters!

[Lisbeth]

Do they really eat oysters, how do they open them

[Errol1]

Lis, as far as I know, Oystercatchers eat limpits, mussels etc. I have no idea how they open the shells.

[Klipspringer]

Their main diet consists of bivalves (mussels), limpets, polychaetes (worms), whelks and crustaceans. The diet of birds living along sandy coasts is not that varied, consisting entirely of sand mussels (Donax serra and D. sordidus). Rocky coasts have a great variety of food for the birds. However they forage exclusively during low tide in the intertidal zones. The principal staple foods for these birds along the rocky coast are limpets (Scutellastra granularis, S. argenvillei, S. longicosta, S. cochlear, Cymbula granatina, C. oculus and Cellana capensis), mussels (Perna perna, Choromytilus meridionalis, Aulacomya atra and Mytilus galloprovincialis), whelks (Burnupena catarrhacta, B. lagenaria) and polychaetes (Pseudonereis variegata, Marphysa depressa).

The African Black Oystercatcher has powerful neck muscles and a long, laterally flattened, chisel-shaped bill that is specifically adapted to jab between the partly open valves of mussels and scissor the flesh out.

https://www.sanbi.org/animal-of-the-wee ... ercatcher/

[Flutterby]

[Lisbeth]

Klippie

[Errol1]

[Klipspringer]

American and Eurasian oystercatchers feed on oysters and are capable of cracking the shells.

[Lisbeth]

So that's where the name came from

[Errol1]

there was another wonderful sunrise here this morning