Black Skimmer
Cape May NJ
2008

Cape May is a city and seaside resort at the tip of southern New Jersey’s Cape May Peninsula. It’s known for its grand Victorian houses such as the Emlen Physick Estate, now a museum with a preserved interior from the era. Shops and restaurants line the Washington Street Mall, 3 pedestrianized blocks of Washington Street. The Cape May Lighthouse provides views across the Delaware Bay and Atlantic Ocean.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_skimmer

The black skimmer is a tern-like seabird, one of three similar birds species in the skimmer genus Rynchops in the gull family Laridae. It breeds in North and South America.


A long-winged bird with stark black-and-white plumage, the Black Skimmer has a unique grace as it forages in flight. Skimmers feed by opening the bill and dropping the long, narrow lower mandible into the water, skimming along until they feel a fish. Then they relax the neck, quickly closing their jaws and whipping the fish out of the water. Because they feed by essentially by touch, they can even forage at night. The world’s three species of skimmers are the only birds on earth that feed in this manner.

Look for Black Skimmers on barrier islands and ocean beaches. Like terns, skimmers nest and rest in predictable spots, making them easy to locate by asking a local birder or angler. A spotting scope is useful to enjoy skimmers at a distance without disturbing their colonies. When foraging, skimmers often pay little attention to people, sometimes flying within a few feet of bathers and boats.

The distinctive Black Skimmer has many folk names in North America, where it has been called scissor-bill, shearwater, seadog, flood gull, stormgull, razorbill, and cutwater.

Although the Black Skimmer is active throughout the day, it is largely crepuscular (active in the dawn and dusk) and even nocturnal. Its use of touch to catch fish lets it be successful in low light or darkness.

Possibly the best description of the Black Skimmer's bounding, head-down foraging style came from the great seabird biologist R. C. Murphy in 1936. He said they look like “unworldly… aerial beagles hot on the scent of aerial rabbits.”