h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I wouldn't want to try finding these birds on a dark, moonless night.

The magenta legs make a nice contrast with the black bodies.

Hello! I don't think oysters are hard to sneak up on, actually.

In my family, we had a tradition of having oyster stew for New year's Eve every year. We used canned oysters. I was more or less immune to the charms of oysters. The Oyster-Catcher could have had my share of the oysters.

Superb painting as always - I love how you have captured the gloss of the plumage.

Very good to read about this species - I like Oystercatchers, as they are very distinctive birds, and their skill with shellfish and teaching their young is fascinating, but I have only encountered the Eurasian Oystercatcher A87928816 myself.

Clever techniques for keeping the eggs at the optimum temperature in the heat, too - more of a science to incubation than I had realised...

That is terrible that the Canary Island Oystercatcher was the closest relative of the African Black Oystercatcher and is now extinct, but positive that habitat protection has helped to stabilise the population of African Black Oystercatchers for now...

I actually like oysters! Don't eat them more than once every few years, though.

Hi SashaQ! Glad you liked the pic and also that you saw some of the oystercatchers over there! As I have it, they're all rather closely related. Yes, sad about the Canary Island Oystercatcher … actually so many birds on islands have become extinct as a result of people!

In Hawaii, people brought rats with them. In order to control the rats, someone introduced the mongoose, which had little effect on the rats (rats are nocturnal, an d the mongoose is diurnal, but ground-nesting native birds began disappearing.