As Samuel A. Grime’s An Album of Southern Birds with text by Alexander Sprunt, Jr. put it: The Black Skimmer, amazing beaks, colonial nesting, clumsiness at rest and delicate grace aloft, these add up to the Black Skimmer, that sea dog of coastal fishermen, whose yelping cry is often heard at night.

When I was much younger my family – my parents and 3 brothers would make a yearly summer trip to Port Aransas, Texas to fish and swim in the Gulf of Mexico and do some bird watching. Most of the birding was done by my father and me. Port Aransas is alive with birds of all kinds. The Aransas Wildlife Reserve is near by and can be reached by boat to see the endangered whooping crane. There are many species of gulls, herons, terns, sandpipers, brown and white pelicans and an occasional Man-o-war bird. There is also the beautiful black skimmer.

In the evening and the sun beginning to set, we would take our beach chairs and other beach gear down to the edge of the water of the gulf and set there and watched everything going on at sunset including going swimming. Many times groups of 5-7- black skimmers would fly by in perfect formation, wings nor bodies not touching with their large red tipped lower mandible making furrows in the shallow water nodding to seize small fish with a sudden snap. Their intricate maneuver resembled a ballet in black and white. At rest it has black crown and back with a white face and under parts. Its red legs and bill shape are distinctive.
When not hunting for small fish, they fly in small groups making graceful high dives up and then down again.

They are a coastal bird from New York to Mexico and a few in Southern California.
Written by Jack Kidd: For more information go to birdwatchingforyou.com