Happy American Oyster Family

Well I’ve been derelict in my blogging duty but here I am!

I took a group of Kids out to Matagorda Island and stopped at Cape Carlos Dugout  where there are Reddish Egrets and GBHs nesting. The Oystercatcher family nesting at the south end of the island hatched their chicks last week. When we pulled up the adults were there but no chicks. I scanned the edge of the vegetation but could not find any chicks. I began to watch the adult female open an oyster on the reef about 20 feet from their nest. When she got the meat out she walks toward the nest and 2 chicks came a’running!

She fed each chick a half of the oyster and then flew up and chased a Laughing Gull away who was interested in the Chicks meal. I then started watching the male open 6-8 oysters in about 5 minutes. Then he walks over to the chicks and yaks up one oyter at a time. He caught each oyster in the tip of his bill to feed the chicks. He reminded me of a Pez machine. The Chicks are really cool, they look like little dinosaurs. They have really thick legs. They are about 6-7 inches tall at 1 week old.

We are still seeing whoopers way out in the marsh and the rookeries are on fire!  I will blog the rookery report shortly.

Happy Birding!

Capt. Tommy

This entry was posted on 15. April 2009 at 23:56 and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.