This fairly common black bird with the bright orange beak and the red rings around its yellow eyes prefers rocky stretches of coastline between Baja California and Alaska's Aleutian Islands, where it can forage in the intertidal zone for limpets, mussels and other mollusks. It forms nests in shallow depressions lined with small rocks and bits of shell. Eggs are very hard and can withstand submersion in a high tide; chicks also dive under waves to escape predators, even though they don't swim. The black oystercatcher is considered a species of Least Concern—in other words, its population is stable. Northern birds are blacker than southern birds, which may appear brownish in color.
Black oystercatchers don't migrate, and in fact individuals don't stray more than a few miles from their birthplace. A group of oystercatchers is known collectively as a parcel.
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