Part 68

Now wheeling with wonderful impetuosity they pass within a hundred yards of you, and suddenly checking their flight return, not low over the water as before, but high in the air. Again, they form their ranks in a broad front, and, again, as if suddenly alarmed by the report of a distant gun, they close pell-mell, and dip towards the sands or the waters. Shoot one at such a moment and you may expect to kill another; but as this is done, the wary birds, as if suddenly become aware of your intentions, form themselves into a straggling line, and before a minute has elapsed, far beyond reach, and fading on the view, are the remaining oyster catchers.

Voice.--The loud, striking notes of protest, heard as the oyster catcher flies around the intruder on its breeding grounds, are quite unlike any other bird notes; they sound like wheep, wheep, wheeop, and are both vehement and penetrating. John T. Nichols says in his notes: “The oyster catcher has a creeking note, crik, crik, crik, etc., used when the bird takes wing. A more striking cry, cle-ar, suggests the flight calls of the willet and the black-bellied plover.”

Field marks.--A large wader, with black head and dark upper parts, with a big white patch in its long, pointed, black wings and with white under parts, can be nothing but an oyster catcher. No other bird of strong, steady flight can be mistaken for it. One is seldom near enough to recognize its long, red bill.

Winter.--The oyster catcher is resident throughout most of its range, but it retires in winter from the northern portion of its breeding range. Arthur T. Wayne (1910) says:

In the winter the oyster catcher is very gregarious and it is not unusual to see flocks containing from 20 to 75 individuals. The majority of these birds are undoubtedly migrants from points to the northward of South Carolina and not the resident breeding birds, which apparently go together in pairs or small flocks of from 4 to 6 individuals.

DISTRIBUTION

Range.--Atlantic and Gulf coasts of the United States, Central and South America. The American oyster catcher has been subdivided into several races the exact range of which it is not now possible to define. This should be borne in mind in considering the following outline, which undoubtedly includes the ranges of H. p. durnfordi, H. p. prattii, and H. p. pitanay (Murphy). Generally speaking, prattii is assumed to be confined to the Bahama Islands, durnfordi the South Atlantic coast of South America, and pitanay the Pacific coast of South America.

The species is not migratory in a strict sense, although the examples breeding at the north and south extremes of the range probably retire short distances toward the Equator when forced to do so by climatic conditions.

The range may be outlined as follows: North to Texas (Brownsville, Padre Island, Corpus Christi, and Galveston); Louisiana (Isla a Pitre); probably rarely Alabama (Petit Bois Island); and formerly southern New Jersey (Great Egg Harbor). East to formerly southern New Jersey (Great Egg Harbor, and probably Seven-mile Beach); probably rarely Maryland (Ocean City); Virginia (Hog Island, Cobb Island, and Smiths Island); North Carolina (Cape Hatteras, Ocracoke Inlet, and mouth of Cape Fear River); South Carolina (Waverly Mills, Raccoon Key, Bulls Bay, Sullivan Island, and Frogmore); Georgia (Savannah, St. Simon Island, and Cumberland); Florida (St. Johns River, Charlotte Harbor, and probably Cape Sable); the Bahama Islands (Abaco, Andros, Long, Mariguana, and Inagua Islands); probably Porto Rico (Desecheo Island); Venezuela (Aruba, Curaçao, and Cumana); Brazil (Santa Catherina, Cajetuba, Rio de Janeiro, Sapetiba Bay, and Iguape); Uruguay (La Paloma and Montevideo); and Argentina (Lavalle, Cape San Antonio, Mar Chiquita, and mouth of Chubut River). South to Argentina (mouth of Chubut River) and Chile (Ancud). West to Chile (Ancud, Algarrobo, Santiago, Chanaral, and Atacama); Peru (San Nicolas Bay, Independencia Bay, Pisco Bay, Chilca, and San Lorenzo); Ecuador (Gulf of Guayaquil and Santa Elena); Panama (Pearl Island); Yucatan (Cozumel Island and Merida); and Texas (Brownsville).

Casual records.--The American oyster-catcher has on a few occasions been directed north of its normal range. Among these occurrences are: New York, a specimen in New York Harbor, May 28, 1877, one about March 9, 1880, at Ponquogue, and one at Greenport, June 2, 1882; Massachusetts, two in August, 1899, at Chatham, one in April, 1885, at Monomoy Island, two seen September 10, 1924, at Eastham, a pair taken in 1837, at Marshfield, and one in Boston harbor, killed prior to 1814; Maine, reported by Audubon as occurring at Portland but this record is considered doubtful; New Brunswick, a specimen has been reported upon the authority of Boardman (Baird, Brewer, and Ridgway, 1884) as taken at Grand Manan. This last is considered unsatisfactory as being indefinite, while Audubon’s statement that it bred in Labrador is probably an error.

Egg dates.--Virginia: 37 records, April 26 to July 9; 19 records, May 21 to June 19. South Carolina and Georgia: 25 records, March 27 to June 25; 13 records, May 5 to 23. Texas: 8 records, March 29 to May 5.

HAEMATOPUS PALLIATUS FRAZARI Brewster

FRAZAR OYSTER CATCHER

HABITS

It now seems to be generally recognized that this Lower California oyster catcher is a subspecies of palliatus, although William Brewster (1902) originally described it as a full species and named it in honor of the veteran collector, M. Abbott Frazar. Dr. Robert Cushman Murphy (1925) has recently reviewed this group, in which he has designated six subspecies of palliatus, inhabiting various parts of North and South America. To frazari he assigns the following limited range:

Pacific and Gulf coasts of Lower California and adjacent parts of Mexico, including the islands; formerly northward in Ventura County, Calif.; southward along the west coast of Mexico to Tepic and Jalisco, and at least occasionally to Guerrero.

Ridgway lists specimens from Sihutanejo and Acapulco, Guerrero. Contrary to former opinion, however, this race is principally confined to the zone of generally arid shores centering about the peninsula and gulf of Lower California. Its range approaches or meets that of H. p. palliatus on the more tropical coast farther south, probably at a point not far from the Isthmus of Tehuantepec.

He says of the characters of this race:

The subspecific characters of frazari, which include darker coloration of the brown upper parts than in palliatus, heavy mottling on the breast along the junction of white and black plumage, longer wing and tail (?), and smaller bill and feet, are given fully by Ridgway. The latter makes no mention, however, of the practical elimination of the white blotching of the primaries, a character which this oyster catcher shares with other western races. In most specimens the white spots are wholly lacking, but a few show obsolescent white or mottled markings of the conventional pattern on the eighth or ninth from the outermost quill. It is interesting to note that the mottling of the breast, which is so strongly typical of this race, appears to be carried by a genetic factor deeply rooted in the species as a whole. Scarcely any large series of H. p. palliatus, indeed, lacks one or more birds of this type. In its maximum expression, however, when the whole breast, sides, flanks, and under tail coverts are heavily blotched, the character is peculiar to frazari.

W. Leon Dawson (1923) says, in explanation of its disappearance from California:

By reason of its conspicuous coloration, as well as its excessive noisiness, the Frazar oyster catcher has suffered a fatal prominence. Its former appearances on the Channel Islands (as far north as Ventura County) were concluded by an early martyrdom, and the species is rare even in its primitive fortresses on Los Coronados Islands.

Nesting.--Being more permanently resident than even its eastern relative, the Frazar oyster catcher has no migrations, except its late summer wanderings, and remains on its breeding range throughout the year. As to the nesting habits of this bird at Scammons Lagoon, Lower California, Griffing Bancroft (1927) writes:

They climb up on the shell banks which are the back stops of the beaches and there build their nests. The shell banks are usually a yard or two above high-water mark; they are flat and quite narrow and often have fingerlike projections of 50 yards or so on the same level, running toward the east. Typically, all these higher flats are composed of nothing but shell, largely unbroken and of a size which may be judged in the accompanying illustration. Sand and small impurities have been garnered by the wind. The oyster catcher likes to build her nest where she has an unobstructed view in all directions, securing to herself the opportunity of slipping off unobtrusively at the approach of an enemy. But she is a stupid bird and is easily satisfied with a makeshift which seems to her to accomplish her purpose but in reality does not do so at all. So on some of the earthen islands we find her nesting on little mounds, from which, it is true, she can see, but to only a matter of a few feet.

In the Gulf of California the favorite site for an oyster catcher is the end of the rather long spits of cobblestones. These are so nearly level that a sitting bird has an unobstructed view for a hundred yards. There she builds a nest of fine hard material--small pebbles and bits of shell. And as she can not have broken the larger stones that were originally on the site she must have removed them. I use the analogy for Scammons. Instead of breaking the shells with her powerful bill she probably pulls them out of the way until she has a flat circle about 10 inches across. This clearing she lines as neatly as tile work, and on them deposits her eggs, one, two, or three. The breeding season seems quite long, as we found both well-developed young and fresh eggs. I have observed parents with their young long after the latter had taken wing, and so feel sure that the oyster catchers raise but one brood a year.

I have a set of two eggs in my collection, taken by W. W. Brown, jr., May 2, 1912, on San Jose Island; the nest is described as a depression, lined with pebbles, in a crevice on top of a jagged, weatherworn ledge, 40 feet above the surf. There are two sets in the Thayer collection, taken by Mr. Brown near La Paz on March 24 and 26, 1909; one nest was similarly located to mine; “it was out of reach of the surf, but the spray, no doubt, dampened it in rough weather”; the nest from which the other set was taken is described as “a depression in the sand.” The eggs were laid on the bare ground, there being no lining to the nest whatever. It was 80 feet from the surf.

Eggs.--The Frazar oyster catcher lays two or three eggs, sometimes only one. These are practically indistinguishable from those of the American oyster catcher. The measurements of 27 eggs average 57.1 by 38.8 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure =60.9= by 37.8, 59.8 by =41.5=, =50.7= by 40.8, and 60.7 by =36= millimeters.

Plumages.--The plumages and molts from the downy stage to maturity are apparently the same as in the American oyster catcher. Mr. Bancroft (1927) has published some interesting notes on his observations, which suggest that either there are two color phases in these birds or that they interbreed with black oyster catchers (bachmani) and produce hybrids; I am inclined to accept the latter theory, but quote from Mr. Bancroft’s (1927) paper, as follows:

Ninety per cent of the oyster catchers had white bellies, the rest had all their underparts black, with the exception of one, whose belly was streaked black and white. Mr. Chester Lamb wrote me that on Natividad Island there was a much larger percentage of mixed underparts than we found. That there were two phases of one bird instead of two distinct species in the lagoon was apparent to anyone watching them. There was only one case I observed of a black bird paired with another black; all the other blacks had white-bellied mates. The difference between the birds was limited to the abdomens; place a mixed series in a row with the backs up and one could not tell one bird from another. In their conduct, especially when their nests were threatened, there were no differences at all. I feel perfectly safe in saying there were no black oyster catchers (Haematopus bachmani) present. I have seen too many of them, from Monterey to Sitka, not to know by heart every movement they will make and every note they will utter when one trespasses on their home sites. The actions and the cries, and especially the noise, are more unusual and more uniform than those of any bird with which I am acquainted. They fly customarily in a complete half circle from the rocks on one side to those on the other, the birds keeping near each other and almost always close to the water. The noise is incessant, shrill, continuous, and loud beyond belief. The contrast with the birds in Scammons is striking. There, both the white and the black bellied are almost as silent as plover and try to win safety by a prodigious show of indifference. There is little or no excitement while we tramp around the nesting sites. When the parents find we can not be persuaded to follow them away they take up positions 50 to 100 feet from us and there remain motionless, usually as long as we are in the neighborhood. There is another great difference between H. bachmani and the black phase in the south. The former is decidedly darker than the latter, especially on the back, whereas true Haematopus frazari from both ends of the Gulf appear to be the same as those in Scammons.