Crabs are reputedly the Beach Stone-curlew’s favorite food. As these pictures show this Beach Stone-curlew is indeed a master crab hunter.
First corner the crab.
Make sure it doesn’t run for its hole!
A cunning trick to let the crab think it has the curlew by the beak! But the curlew quickly begins disarming the crab by removing its legs.
The Beach Stone-curlew is now in control.
But not home and dry yet. Some further evasion is needed to secure the crab from other hungry beachgoers.
This bird is one of the very few remaining Beach Stone-curlews inhabiting New South Wales beaches. It is based at the mouth of an intermittent coastal lagoon in the Northern Rivers area.
Having navigated its way past two dogs illegally on the beach,this Beach Stone-curlew wandered down to the surf to forage, emerging with this shellfish.
The Beach Stone-curlew then left the surf and headed back to the lagoon.
At the lagoon the Bush Stone-curlew washed this bivalve shellfish several times and seemed to make a half-hearted attempt to crack the shell on a rock.
Not having made any progress on opening the shell, this Beach Stone-curlew headed back to surf some 50 metres away where it abandoned its catch on the beach.
This sort of behaviour has been described as stress related. Certainly this bird has chosen a busy spot to live with people, bicycles, swimmers and illegal dogs to contend with. The whole episode took twelve minutes, the bird looked purposeful in every step, and it successfully navigated around dogs and people on the way.