The photo featured on the back cover of this issue was taken on 26 May 2005 on the south side of San Nicolas Island, Ventura County, California. Its subject appears to be a rather dark American Oystercatcher (Haematopus palliatus). A large shorebird of sandy beaches, tidal mudflats and rocky shores, along the Pacific coast this species ranges from central Chile to central Baja California. In central Baja California it is replaced by the Black Oystercatcher (H. bachmani), a bird of rocky shorelines that ranges north to the Aleutian Islands. For a 300-mile stretch along the Baja California peninsula the two species interbreed, forming a stable hybrid zone (Jehl 1985). Any pied oystercatcher observed north of the international border had probably wandered north from Baja California and has to be examined closely. Of the 35 documented sightings of “American” Oystercatchers in southern California, 11 have proved to be of hybrids (Cole and McCaskie 2004).