This species is endemic to the West Coast of North America where it ranges from Alaska to Southern California and Baja, Mexico where it occasionally hybridizes with the American Oystercatcher. On the West Coast of South America it is replaced by the similar Blackish Oystercatcher (Haematopus ater). There is an assemblage of all dark Oystercatchers in the Old World, but they all have red eyes, not yellow as in the American forms.
Digiscoped with Panasonic DMC-LZ5 | Nikon FieldScope III | 30XWA | hand-held (no adapter)