American Oystercatcher, Seabrook Harbor, NH, June 2015

Oystercatcher has been somewhat of a nemesis bird for me in NH.  Although they do not nest in NH, they are regular but rare in NH especially as they pass by in route to their nearest nesting site a short distance up the coast at Stratton Island, ME.  Most NH birds are seen either as fly-bys along the coast, or on-shore especially at the mussel beds in Seabrook Harbor.  And even when they do land in NH their locations are very tide dependent, so they are typically not very chaseable.  The closest I’ve been to seeing them in NH was one I missed by a few minutes as a fly by on the coast (though I did see the Sabine’s Gull that day!), and a pair I missed by less than an hour that amazingly showed up inland at the Rochester sewage treatment plant.  The bottom line is that American Oystercatcher is the most common bird I still need for my NH statelist.  Then again maybe it’s tied with Black Vulture for that auspicious title.

So needless to say I was very excited when a post came across the NH listserve one early June morning that a pair of Oystercatchers were spotted in Seabrook Harbor from the Yankee Co-op.  The birder posted the sighting nearly real-time from the field, and since I noticed the e-mail just a couple minutes after it was was posted, this was all within 10 minutes of his sighting.  Five minutes later I was out of the house and heading to Seabrook, which would put me at the harbor within 90 minutes of the sighting.  That was pretty fast, but would it be fast enough?  The mudflats could change significantly in an hour and a half, so I could only hope that the birds might still be around when I arrived.

As I neared the coast I drove over the Blackwater River in Seabrook and saw that the tide was pretty low but rising.  Hopefully the mussel beds were still exposed.  Five minutes later I pulled into the co-op parking lot and the mussels were still above the rising waters, so I was optimistic.  I quickly scanned the mussel beds with my binoculars but there were no Oystercatchers.  I then pulled out my scope to check more closely but again I came up empty.  Suddenly my optimism was waning.  I then expanded my search to the mudflats to the south, and then the mudflats to the north, but still no Oystercatchers.  Then I looked even farther to the north and saw two distant dark dots on the flats.  I zoomed in and there were the pair of Oystercatchers – perhaps a ½ mile off.  Good thing they are big showy birds. 

I kept an eye on them because I knew other birders were on their way.  At times they would disappear behind a small rise in the mudflats and I got a bit worried, but they would soon reappear a short distance away.  Within a few minutes 8 or 9 other birders arrived and all got good looks at the birds.  At one point they flew in a bit closer, and I got this still very distant phone-scoped picture.

This is when they flew in "closer" - imagine how far away they were when I first spotted them

About 40 minutes after I arrived the Oystercatchers started to fly around the flats a bit, likely due to the rising tide.  And a couple minutes later they were gone, about 2 hours after the initial observation.  Sure was great that the initial sighting was posted so quickly.  Interestingly, they never landed in the mussel beds while I was there.

American Oystercatcher was # 355 for me in NH.  I’ve now seen this species in each Atlantic Coast state and each Gulf Coast state except for MS (see my statebird map below).