Who eats African Oystercatcher eggs?

As ornithologists, focused as we are upon birds, we perhaps find it hard to fully acknowledge birds’ eggs as key ‘consumables’ in the food web – a ready source of protein for everything from snakes to deer.

Nest cameras have shown that clutches of ground-nesting waders are taken opportunistically, by grazing sheep for instance, but there are also some species – or individuals – that are specialist egg hunters. See Prickly problems for breeding waders (hedgehogs) and Curlews and foxes in East Anglia (sheep).

In their paper in Wader Study, Itxaso Quintana, Rio Button & Les Underhill describe a single-year study of the predation of African Oystercatcher nests on Robben Island, best known for the prison where Nelson Mandela was held for eighteen years, and for its important seabird colonies. Introductions and eradications on Robben Island have created a far-from-natural food-web that is ever-changing. The situation that Itxaso, Rio and Les found in the 2019/20 breeding season included Kelp Gulls ‘protecting’ African Oystercatcher nests from the attentions of Mole Snakes – something that makes little sense unless set in a historical context, as the authors do in their paper.

What a mess!

Homo sapiens has interfered spectacularly on Robben Island, in the same way as in so many other places, with exploitation of seals, the introduction of an array of large mammal species from the mainland during the apartheid era, and the introduction of rabbits, fallow deer and cats. By 2019/20, the rabbits and almost all of the deer had been removed, encouraging the regeneration of ground cover, and over 90% of the cats had been culled. The remaining threats for African Oystercatcher nests were expected to come mostly from Kelp Gulls, native Mole Snakes and the small number of remaining cats.

Checking out an Oystercatcher’s nest on the shoreline

The 550 African Oystercatchers on Robben Island account for 8% of the species’ population, making this a very important breeding site. This total comprises both nesting pairs and non-breeding birds. African Oystercatchers do not migrate, relying on local shellfish supplies year-round. In 2000, the species was classified as ‘near threatened’ but, thanks to the spread of the invasive Mediterranean Mussel along the South African coast, numbers have recovered. Native shellfish might be in trouble but at least the African Oystercatcher can now be considered to be of ‘least concern’!

The 2019-20 breeding season

Robben island has a coastline which is less than 10 km in length, enabling the authors to monitor 158 nesting attempts of what is thought to have been 133 pairs of African Oystercatchers. A further 300 non-breeding oystercatchers were also present. There were three main study sections, corresponding to the north end of the island (63 nests), the south end of the island (64 nests) and the east side (29 nests). The nest success rates of nests in the north and south were very different, with rates in the east being intermediate.

Below the gull colony in the north of the island, 45 out of 63 African Oystercatcher nests were successful (71%) with one failure associated with Mole Snakes.

Away from the gull colony, in the south of the island, only 14 out of 64 African Oystercatcher nests were successful (22%) with 17 failures associated with Mole Snakes and the reason for most failures unknown.

Breeding Kelp Gulls are spreading across the northern part of Robben Island

There was far more evidence of Mole Snake activity in the south of the island, as can be seen in the map, with individual snakes seemingly ‘patrolling the shoreline just above the spring high tide level, where African Oystercatchers lay their eggs’. In the north, where African Oystercatchers nest on the shoreline immediately below the Kelp Gull colony, snakes were much less conspicuous. You can read more about this in the paper.

Two decades of research

The long-term study of African Oystercatchers on Robben Island started in 2001. Since then, the population has increased fourfold and the number of nests has almost doubled. There have been many changes over this period, as you can read in the paper, but the most significant one for African Oystercatchers is the arrival of Mediterranean Mussels, first noticed in South African waters in 1979 and already colonising the shoreline of Robben Island by 2003. These invasive mussels provide more food than native shellfish and the authors suggest that this has fed through into higher oystercatcher nesting densities.

The beak of an African Penguin is enough to deter Mole Snakes

Over the two decades, there has been a massive change in the populations of potential predators. In the early part of the research period, Mole Snakes were considered relatively unimportant, in terms of predation pressure on African Oystercatchers. Introduced cats, however, then became a major problem, with numbers growing between 2001 and 2005, to such an extent that at least 83% of African Oystercatcher nests were predated in the 2004/05 breeding season. Culls in 2005 and 2006, followed by continued controls, have lowered cat numbers to fewer than ten individuals.

There were no Kelp Gulls breeding on Robben Island until 2000/01, when the first five nests were found. More and more birds now make the short commute to Cape Town, to scavenge, and 2829 gull nests were recorded in 2019/20. Like other large Larus gulls, Kelp Gulls have a reputation as egg thieves. However, on Robben Island, where there are few people disturbing nesting African Oystercatchers, and forcing them to leave their nests, the gulls seem to cause few problems. Instead of being a threat, Kelp Gulls attack Mole Snakes, thereby protecting the eggs of the African Oystercatchers.

For Kelp Gulls, it’s only a short commute to Cape Town, where they scavenge for food

Four other species have benefited from reduced cat numbers. As hoped, numbers of Hartlaub’s Gulls and Swift Terns have both increased, while Mole Snakes have experienced higher survival because the eggs of these two species are available in the austral autumn and winter. African Penguins have benefited too, as a consequence of reduced cat predation, and their sharp beaks can deal with Mole Snakes.

What next?

Hatched Oystercatcher chick and another one on the way

The current situation seems to suit all of the species considered here. Removing introduced herbivores has provided more suitable habitat for snakes, and nesting numbers of key seabirds and African Oystercatchers have all increased since most cats were culled.

Robben Island is not a natural ecological system, however. Major perturbations have happened over decades, with introductions, extirpations, culls and the arrival of invasive species. For the moment. the authors see no reason for Kelp Gulls and/or Mole Snakes to be controlled, in order to support African Oystercatcher numbers or protect important seabird populations.

Cold searching the area above the tide-line to locate nests of African Oystercatchers (Mole Snakes do the same)

One thing that seems almost certain is that the situation will change again: the local Mediterranean Mussel population could collapse, for example due to disease; a pollution incident in the busy sea lanes into the port of Cape Town could suddenly impact birds and/or their food supplies; the grinding effects of climate change, particularly the risk of increased storminess, could slowly upset the equilibrium; diseases such as avian influenza, currently affecting Cape Cormorants, could spread further; or the cat population could explode again. Robben Island looks like a fascinating place in which to study complicated predator-prey interactions; here’s hoping that long-term monitoring will continue.

Paper

The full paper is available in Wader Study, the journal of the International Wader Study Group.

African Oystercatchers on Robben Island, South Africa: The 2019/2020 breeding season in its two decadal context.
Itxaso Quintana, Rio Button & Les G. Underhill. Wader Study.

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WaderTales blogs are written by Graham Appleton (@GrahamFAppleton) to celebrate waders and wader research. Many of the articles are based on published papers, with the aim of making shorebird science available to a broader audience.