Red billed, red eyed bird? (1 Viewer)

Last week at Asbury Park, NJ I saw a shore bird I had never seen before. It was definitely a shore bird, because when I saw it, it had a mussel in its beak. The bird was a smaller gull type of bird, but more black than white, and it had a 3 -4 inch red beak, which was narrow (and looked sharp) and a slight downward curve. But the most interesting thing about this bird was that its eyes were red - and I do not mean that it had a red circle around the eye - the whole eye was red. Just as I was about to take a picture, the other gulls came around and scared it off. I have googled it and looked and not seen anything that looked like this bird. Does anyone have any ideas?

American Oystercatcher springs to mind?


cheers

Oystercatcher?

Best regards,

Ronald

OMG you guys are fabulous - that's the bird! How do you get to know them so well? And is it unusual for that bird to be up here on the NJ coast?

alperte said:

OMG you guys are fabulous - that's the bird! How do you get to know them so well? And is it unusual for that bird to be up here on the NJ coast?

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No, they are usual on the NJ coast.

You gave a perfect description, Alperte; red eyes, 3-4" red beak, more black than white shore bird, plus mussel in its beak. I looked up American Oystercatcher as I'm only familiar with the one we have in Europe, it appeared to be a spitting image as I thought it would be.

Best regards,

Ronald