haematopus palliatus
Jekyll Island, Georgia – South Beach
Monday, March 24, 2025 – 3:27 pm
Whenever I told someone I was going to the coast to look for lifers, I would explain that I’d never seen, for example, an American Oystercatcher. It felt like a hole in the list
After leaving the visitor center, I paid my $7 toll and drove out to the island. I headed for the south tip of the island, and, after a few wrong attempts to find a place to park that would allow me to access the southern tip of the island, I was on my way. It was about a mile walk to the end of the beach. There were tons of gulls, terns, skimmers, and shorebirds around, and as soon as I turned the corner at the tip, I spotted six Oystercatchers standing with some Laughing Gulls right at the water’s edge. They were silhouetted by the sun, so I walked past them so I could get some decent photos. For the half hour I remained in the area, they didn’t do much other than stand and stare or tuck their bills into their back feathers and sleep.
They were large — very close in size to the Laughing Gulls. with brown backs, white bellies, black heads, huge orange bills, and pink legs. Later in the week, I saw two foraging along a rock jetty and in the nearby sand at Huguenot Memorial Park and others in the distance on Dauphin Island in Alabama.
