Oyster-catcher Bill

“Haematopus. Oyster-catcher. Bill peculiar - longer than tarsus, twice as long as head, constricted near the base, much compressed, almost like a knife-blade toward end, and truncate, something like a woodpecker’s (it is an efficient instrument for prying open shells of bivalve mollusks), hard, straight or or deflected sideways, highly colored. Nasal groove very short, broad, and shallow; grooving of lower mandible slight; interramal space very short, scarcely a third the length of the long ascending gonys. Nostrils remote from the feathers, linear, close to edge of bill.” Elliot Coues, 1884

Keywords

birds, oyster-catcher, ornithology, bird anatomy, tarsus, North American birds, bird bill, external parts of birds, Haematopus, shore bird bill, shore-birds

Galleries

Bird Anatomy

Source

Elliot Coues Key to North American Birds (Boston, MA: Estes and Lauriat, 1884)

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