Habitat of the Month

Pacific Coastline

Black Oystercatcher

Where land and sea meet, expect to find interesting habitats. Cliffs carved by the force of waves beating against rocks make perfect homes for birds that eat fish and shellfish.

Black oystercatchers are large shorebirds that live along rocky coastlines. They have all-black bodies, yellow eyes, light pink legs, and long orange bills. When you walk on a beach, you can hear them noisily peeping as they look for food along the water's edge. Sometimes their call sounds like a whistle.

Oystercatchers make nests called scrapes in shallow dents along the rocky beach. The parent birds line the nest with small shells and pebbles. When the eggs hatch, both parents care for the chicks until they can fly. Most black oystercatchers live all year round where they nest.

When oil from big ships and garbage spills into the ocean, the black oystercatcher's home is in danger. Keeping the ocean and beach clean is most important to the birds that live along the coast.

Where Do Birds Live? by Claudia McGehee

This Week in Iowa Nature

Migrating painted lady butterflies swarm across fields and roads; they can overwinter in sunny, warm places.

The Iowa Nature Calendar, by Jean Prior and James Sandrock

Gardening in November

Wednesday, November 1

Now for the first times in five months, the poles are down and the fruit is completely harvested -- twelve dozen Enchantments and four dozen Big Beef slicers sitting on the back porch, to be ripened on shelves in the basement. And now as I look out my window in the late afternoon, all I can see in that once abundant spot is the pile of dead pepper plants and tomato plants waiting to be bagged up for the refuse, and a ghostly white row cover along the front of the bed, protecting the radishes and green onions. But I can still remember how it looked in high summer -- tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants pendant on all the vines and bushes.

Carl H. Klaus, My Vegetable Love: A Journal of a Growing Season