When you are watching golf from a seaside course on television, you can often hear a shrill piping by birds in the background. It is the sound of oystercatchers displaying on the beach, as they are now doing all around Britain.
These large black-and-white wading birds have a remarkable way of defending their territories on the shingle. If an intruding oystercatcher comes along, the owner of the territory hunches its shoulders, points its long red bill at the ground and starts piping. Then it runs at the intruder. Its mate usually joins it and other oystercatchers get carried away by the excitement and hurry along to join in.
There may soon be six or seven birds in the party (30 have been recorded); they all run along, piping, side by side. Some fly about with their bills still pointing downwards. This is the source of the hullabaloo echoing over the golf course. It is not surprising that the intruder leaves.
Their feeding habits are also fascinating. Despite their name, they do not usually eat oysters but love other seafood. Their beaks are very strong and sharp, and can prise limpets off a rock. They will also just break a hole in a limpet shell with fierce blows.
Above all, they are very skilful at opening mussels. They get their beaks between the two valves of the mussel and cut the muscle that holds them together. But all this poking and hammering soon wears down their beaks and you can sometimes them with a square end.
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They have evolved a remarkable solution for this. Their beaks renew themselves by growing very quickly — three times faster, it has been calculated, than human fingernails.
Most often, you just see them flying by with loud “kleep” calls; sometimes inland, since in recent years they have taken to nesting on the grassy slopes of river valleys. The sitting birds look vulnerable there, but they generally manage to survive, even when clumsy sheep are wandering and nibbling all around them.
Derwent May