Ardea
Official journal of the Netherlands Ornithologists' Union

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Hulsman K., Zalucki M.P. & Iedema A. (1996) Searching behaviour and diet of Oystercatchers Haematopus ostralegus pairs feeding in their territories. ARDEA 84 (A): 131-139
Search path, searching behaviour and diet of pairs of Oystercatchers feeding in mudflat territories were studied during spring. ~~ ate Nereis, Mya, small unidentified prey, probably Corophium, and a few Macoma, whereas ## primarily ate Macoma. Even when ~ and # foraged in the same site, they often caught different prey. The combination of 'The Search-rate/Detection Model' (Gendron & Staddon 1983) and 'The Harvestable Prey Model' (Zwarts & Wanink 1993) provide the theoretical framework in which to explain these differences in diet. Macoma are thought to be more cryptic than Nereis, Mya and Corophium. Therefore ~~, while searching at a faster rate than their respective mates, caught far fewer cryptic prey, but a greater number of more conspicuous prey than their mates. On the basis of distances moved before and after capturing prey, ## exhibited area restricted searching for Macoma and Corophium. In contrast, ~~ did not exhibit any area-restricted searching. It is suggested that the distribution of Macoma and Corophium available to ## searching slowly was more clumped than that of these two prey species available to ~~ searching more quickly.


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