Norfolk bird surveyors find Britain’s oldest known oystercatchers

Oystercatchers migrate each year to the Wash – ‘the single most important coastal wetland in the UK for migrating and overwintering’, says Jim Scott of the RSPB. Photograph: Nigel Pye/Alamy

If your ears are assaulted by the shrill piping calls of an excitable bird on the east coast of England, fear not: it’s probably an oystercatcher experiencing a midlife crisis.

Two of the handsome black and white birds with bright red-orange bills have been found to be the oldest known oystercatchers ever recorded in Britain, clocking up at least 41 and 43 years on the mudflats of the Wash.