Skimmers Take Flight

Florida 2013 continued

As folks strolled or jogged up and down the beach at Sheppard Park, the black skimmers seemed to be particularly disturbed. The other birds, including these royal terns in the foreground, watched as the skimmers took to the air over and over again. For me this was an opportunity to get some shots of these odd birds in the air.

I have remarked on their unusually long and narrow wings but have not read anything specific about why they are built that way. My assumption is it aids in their low-to-the-water flight, perhaps allowing for more lift with a necessarily foreshortened down stroke as they fly just inches above the water.

While the body length of a skimmer averages around 18 inches, its wingspan averages 46 inches, or nearly four feet!

In any case they are nearly as gangly looking in the air as on the beach, but to watch them fly in such close formations mere feet above the ground is a beautiful sight.

Up in the air they'd go, flying down the beach, only to circle around and land pretty much where they'd started.

I didn't mind. I had fun shooting them on the wing, learning to trust the camera to focus on a subject.

I really like this image, with the wave rolling in behind the birds. So much movement and energy.

 Without question, dawn on the beach is one of my favorite things about Florida.

Next: A surprise at the zoo

Black Skimmer Surprise

Florida 2013 continued

Every trip down to Florida I try to make it to the beach at least once before sunrise. Sheppard Park is a busy place during the day, and so morning is an opportunity to spend some time by the ocean without the oiled and bikini-clad crowds. In the area of the park, it is also the only time of day you'll see anything other than a few gulls, as the other birds just don't tolerate all those people.

A few years ago I had gotten some shots of black skimmers. But it was before I really understood what I needed to do to get decent images of birds, and many were blurred and dim. I was really hoping there would be skimmers so I could get some better images.

When we arrived there were no skimmers in sight. I didn't even seen any terns, just a rag-tag group of gulls. I'm not excited about gulls, don't know them well and can ID only a few on sight. I snapped some half-hearted shots as I walked north up the beach. There were a few sanderlings and a ruddy turnstone, but they were not what I was looking for.

After a while I walked back down the beach and stood near the water for a few minutes. When I turned around to look back to the north I was stunned to see a small flock of skimmers had landed next to me!

Hello, Lady, we hear you're looking for black skimmers. Well, here we are!

I was so excited! I've never been this close to these peculiar birds before. I knelt down in the wet sand and started shooting.

Their feet look so small compared to the length of their bodies, but much of that length is beak and wings, which protrude several inches past their tail.

Such an oddity, the black skimmer is. First, there's that enormous and lopsided orange and black beak. Because their eyes are situated up in the their black caps, they look eyeless from a distance. Short but long-bodied, with bright orange legs and small black toes to match the beak, they look like they're wearing a clown suit.

I noticed, looking at this cropped image, that their nostrils are way down at the bottom edge of their top bill. Hmmm....

 

 This bird is clearly an immature, presumably from last summer's brood.

This was an incidental capture as I was focused on another bird, but this shows how thin the beak is. There's a reason for that....

Black skimmers feed by flying low over water near shore with the elongated and very narrow lower bill slicing through the shallows. When it hits something the bird brings its head down rapidly, snapping upper bill to lower, so that its whole beak is pointed straight down and in the water. Must be why its nostrils are on the sides of its beak--it would get water up its nose otherwise! Their long wings probably allow them to get enough lift with just half a stroke, since they fly so close to the water.

Photo from my 2010 post--I didn't see any skimmers feeding this time 'round.

I spent quite a while watching them as they are not a bird we see here in Southeast Michigan, and I think they are just amazing.





Unlike the gulls and terns and other shore birds the skimmers seemed ill at ease with people walking by on the beach--and there were a lot of people out enjoying the morning. The flock would just get settled, then someone would come along and they'd take to the air again. This made for some nice shots of them in flight--but that's for next time!

Black Skimmers--The Oddest Bird on the Beach

I have entirely too many things I want to share with ya'll. The rest of my February trip to Florida. My last trip to Florida. A walk along the Platte River in northern Michigan from a few weekends ago. Pictures of chorus frogs in a pond in the rec area nearby. What's a girl to do?!? Start with something unusual, I suppose, and there are not many birds more unusual than the black skimmer.



The skimmer is an unusual bird for many reasons. According to Sibley, they hunt primarily at dusk and dawn, and often at night, when the small fish they prey on are nearer the surface. Their eyes are small but have large pupils for better night vision, and much like other nocturnal creatures have vertically-slanted pupils that help shut out bright sunlight.



Below you can see how much longer the lower bill is than the upper.



They hunt by feel, flying low and dipping their long lower bill into the water, waiting for something to bump into it.



This is kind of blown up too much, but it shows the knife-like bill of the skimmer, streamlined I supposed for slicing through the water.



After the sun came up and the sky brightened, I was able to capture a nice series of shots of a skimmer flying by.







There was some beautiful light out there that morning, so expect to see more posts from this day.