Encounters with Tōrea ~ Oystercatchers

November 2022

I’m standing on Onetangi Beach, it’s the beginning of spring and I’m watching four tōrea, three Variable (VOC - tōrea tai) and one South Island pied (SIPO - tōrea tuiwhenua).  Most of the other SIPO have probably flown off on their reverse migration to breed somewhere in Te Waipounamu.
 
As always I’m looking for a band on the leg of an SIPO in the hope…….
 
Twelve years ago I stood on another beach in the Firth of Thames with my other Miranda Shorebird Centre residential course members, waiting for the cannon netting of wrybills (ngutu parore), for us to practice measurement and banding.  We had already had one day of practice on passerines.  A muffled boom…..the net flies out but the clever wrybills have already swirled into the air and landed in another part of the beach….again….and again.
 
“OK lets go for that flock of pied oystercatchers” – the instructors agree amongst themselves and so begins my close encounters with tōrea.
 
A tōrea is not a small bird, although the SIPO is smaller than the VOC, so we are all a bit ‘butterflyee’ in our stomachs before our first lifting, holding and laying on our laps or against our chests.  We notice how still they lie in our hands, how some have brighter red eye rings than others and how they do not fight us as we begin to weigh, measure and band…..

 
I hold an oyster-catcher
in the hand
feather weight
small bones weight
I gently pull out her wing
to measure & assess moult
 
this happens regularly
a couple of feathers
at a time
so she can still fly
…...
  (from “On The Wing” by Sue Fitchett)
 
I notice the startling orange of her bill, the stabbing sharpness of its tip used in the intertidal search for cockles, tuatua, pipis or other shellfish and then the prizing open of the shells.  I’m told to be careful of the tip which is highly sensitive.   Tōrea are constant and hard-working foragers and this whakatauāki recognizes this:- “Haere. Mahi kai mau! Ka whati te tai, ka pao te tōrea” (Go and work and get yourself food! When the tide goes out, tōrea cracks open the cockles).   Foraging requires using both visual and tactile probing cues.  Older birds learn to differentiate between occupied and unoccupied shells by tapping each one sharply two or three times.

There is little genetic different between VOC (tōrea tai) and SIPO (tōrea tuiwhenua) and they can interbreed and show similarities in parenting. They have a high degree of mate and site fidelity.  In Aotearoa pairs have been known to remain together for up to eighteen years.  Tōrea parents incubate, brood and feed chicks until they fledge (in about six weeks)
 
In 2010, at Miranda, my curiosity in regard to tōrea eye colour variation is satisfied when someone tells me their eyes rings change colour (brighter I believe) as they age.  Here, on Onetangi beach, in 2022, i’m not close enough to judge the eye colour of the solitary SIPO, but sadly I see no band.  Still, I’m probably on the wrong beach, ‘my’ tōrea may have been returning to the Firth of Thames for years…..  Anyone for a shorebird viewing trip in late summer 2023?
 
Sue Fitchett
Project Participant
 
n.b.  I am using Te Reo terms from Te Aka Māori Dictionary for VOC and SIPO