{"id":15791,"date":"2014-09-08T03:30:52","date_gmt":"2014-09-08T09:30:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/?p=15791"},"modified":"2025-08-24T04:27:58","modified_gmt":"2025-08-24T09:27:58","slug":"birds-of-the-shore-american-oystercatchers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2014\/09\/08\/birds-of-the-shore-american-oystercatchers\/","title":{"rendered":"Birds of the Shore: American Oystercatchers"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"LandingLanding American Oystercatcher<\/span><\/p>\n

On Saturday World Shorebirds’ Day was celebrated globally and this is a continuation of the post I made then<\/a><\/span>. I mentioned that shorebirds were my spark birds, they are what got me so interested in photographing birds.<\/p>\n

Some shorebirds are year round residents at Fort De Soto county beach but most of them are migratory. There were breeding pairs of American Oystercatchers there that I\u00a0could photograph every month of the year and I always enjoyed seeing and hearing<\/a><\/span> them.<\/p>\n

One year I observed and photographed a pair of their chicks from the time they were two days old until the chicks moved on.<\/p>\n

American Oystercatchers are specialized in that their diet consists of bivalves and they do use that flashy orange bill to pry some of them open.<\/p>\n

In North American we have two species of oystercatchers, the Black and the American. One day I hope to head to the west coast and photograph Black Oystercatchers because I think they are lovely and I could cross them off my bird bucket list.<\/p>\n

The very first oystercatchers I ever photographed were at Fort De Soto County Park and once I started aiming my lens at them I couldn’t seem to stop. Not until I moved to Utah anyway.<\/p>\n

I’ve had dreams about them being along the causeway to Antelope Island at times though so at least I still see them in dreams and my images.<\/p>\n

Life is<\/em> good.<\/p>\n

Mia<\/p>\n

Click here<\/span><\/a> to see more of my American Oystercatcher photos plus facts and information about this species.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

American Oystercatchers are specialized in that their diet consists of bivalves and they do use that flashy orange bill to pry some of them open.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":153313,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,27,25,704,2000],"tags":[4004,3974,4039,4077,22,4123,2325,5988,3816,5521,4891,274,4188,3996,4119],"class_list":["post-15791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-american-oystercatchers","category-avian","category-florida","category-fort-de-soto-county-park","category-pinellas-county-florida","tag-adult","tag-american-oystercatcher","tag-beach","tag-gulf-of-mexico","tag-haematopus-palliatus","tag-landing","tag-landing-pose","tag-oystercatcher","tag-oystercatchers","tag-raised-wings","tag-shore","tag-shorebirds-2","tag-shoreline","tag-water","tag-waves"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/american-oystercatcher-adult-wings-mia-mcpherson-2808.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p11Mom-46H","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":35054,"url":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2016\/01\/21\/a-juvenile-american-oystercatcher-on-the-shore-of-the-gulf\/","url_meta":{"origin":15791,"position":0},"title":"Juvenile 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