Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun Any of several shorebirds of the genus Haematopus, having black or black-and-white plumage and a long, heavy orange bill and feeding on mollusks, crustaceans, and other small invertebrates.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A maritime wading bird of the family Hæmatopodidæ: so called from the habit of feeding upon small oysters and other mollusks.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Zoöl.) Any one of several species of wading birds of the genus Hæmatopus having stout legs and bill and mostly black-and-white plumage, which frequent seashores and feed upon oysters and other shellfish. The European species (
Hæmatopus ostralegus ), the common American species (Hæmatopus palliatus ), and the California, or black, oyster catcher (Hæmatopus Bachmani ) are the best known.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun Any of several black or pied coastal wading birds in the genus
Haematopus that have a long red or orange bill and feed onshellfish .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun black-and-white shorebird with stout legs and bill; feed on oysters etc.
- noun black-and-white shorebird with stout legs and bill; feed on oysters etc.
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Being unaware of the bird-name "oystercatcher", I for a moment expected this to be about a human gathering oysters and getting caught by a
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If I'm not mistaken it is an American oystercatcher.
Archive 2009-05-01 AYDIN 2009
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In another experiment, Tinbergen showed that a mother oystercatcher, a shorebird, may make an equally strange choice.
Birdology Sy Montgomery 2010
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The report identified common bird species such as the American oystercatcher, common nighthawk, and northern pintail that are likely to become species of conservation concern as a result of climate change.
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Consider the oystercatcher, a shorebird with black-and-white plumage, a red bill, and brightly colored legs.
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Eurasian oystercatcher (Haematopus ostralegus) III
Management and conservation of marine mammals and seabirds in the Arctic 2009
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If I'm not mistaken it is an American oystercatcher.
American Oystercatcher on Courtney Campbell Causeway AYDIN 2009
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Back in the 1950s, Dutch ethologist Nikolaas Tinbergen conducted now-classic studies of the bird's incubation behavior and discovered something astonishing: When presented with a choice between brooding its own small egg and the giant egg of a much larger bird, the oystercatcher invariably chose to sit on the giant one.
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Okarito Lagoon is the largest estuarine lagoon on the South Island's west coast and is an important habitat for wading birds, including South Island pied oystercatcher Haematopus sp., pied stilt and the migratory bar-tailed godwit Limosa lapponica and knot Calidris sp.
Te Wahipounamu (South-West New Zealand World Heritage Area), New Zealand 2008
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Hang on folks, we're just getting started. oystercatcher
On Thursday, the Legg report will be published along with... 2008
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