Black Skimmer

Black Skimmer - IUCN Conservation Status: Least Concern

It takes less than a month for a black skimmer to learn to fly!

This is what it looks like inside a flock of black skimmers. Let’s unpack what we are looking at. This seabird is mostly black, with a white head. It has a unique beak. The base of the beak is orange and the rest black. Its top bill, also called the “upper mandible”, is significantly shorter than the bottom bill, or “lower mandible”. However, this is only true for adult black skimmers. In fact, black skimmers are born with their upper and lower mandibles the same length. During this time, the skimmers get fed via regurgitation from their parents. Sometimes, food scraps fall on the ground, and the young black skimmers can use their beak to pick up the food.

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It takes less than a month for the black skimmers to learn to fly. Once they are able to fly, they can start to hunt on their own, and the parent’s regurgitation meals end. Black skimmer beaks now adapt to a new behavior, fishing. The bottom mandible will grow to be significantly longer than the top mandible. As the name would suggest, the skimmer will fly close to water, hanging its lower mandible into the water, and keeping its smaller upper mandible out of the water. Then when it feels a fish, it will snap the bill closed.

Photo of a black skimmer fishing with its lower mandible submerged

Although black skimmers hunt by feel, they also have a unique ocular package. Unlike almost every other species of bird, black skimmers have vertically slit pupils, similar to a cat. Their vertical pupils are thought to reduce the glare off the water and white sands.

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These birds will stand together to rest and sleep. In fact, that was the situation moments before I took this photo. When they stand in a group to rest, the birds on the outside of the flock will tuck their heads into their wing that is on the outside of the flock. This leaves one eye exposed to keep an eye out for threats. On the day I shot this photo, it was early morning and no one else was around. I noticed the flock of black skimmers resting on the soft white sands of Ft De Soto beach (near St. Petersburg, Florida).

I slowly walked towards the birds. Once I got about 50 feet from the flock, I laid down on my stomach and slowly proceeded to crawl. Over the next 20 minutes, I inched closer to the flock, until I was just a few feet away. At this point, I’m so close the skimmers can hear my camera shutter, but they did not seem to be bothered. I laid there with the skimmers for about ten minutes. So not to spook the flock, I was moving and breathing slowly and quietly. Then a rogue bird swooped in on the flock of skimmers. This scared everyone, including me. The skimmers immediately took off, and in the panic of the moment I was able to capture this photo of what it feels like to be inside of a flock of black skimmers.

This species of birds has vertically slit pupils

Check out another cool bird from Ft. De Soto:

Laughing Gull

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