This is the largest of the Skimmer family with a length of 2 feet, a wingspan around 5 feet.
They will travel along the southern US coast, however their primary range is throughout South America.
Skimmers are the ‘speedsters’ of the shore birds making them one the hardest birds to photograph.
Slowly I’m actually learning patience. Once in a while I’ll add something new to this web site. I was pretty busy shooting this spring now I need to tackle the PC as a leftie 😂😂
These shots were taken after the Black Skimmers third pass. If you’re lucky a Skimmer will be catching enough fish to create a routine on where they skim the surface.
Watching for a pattern is probably one of the few things that can help get a shot. That pattern, usually twists and turns. In this case he flew along the marsh edge, turned away from us through an opening, and suddenly came right by. Basically left to right, with a twist.
From our point of view it meant catching the bird coming in from the right at maximum focal length, then as he disappeared pull back to almost the minimum length. The next return path was that close.
The good news was once the Skimmer was past us we had a few minutes before the next try. It was a big marsh he was working. Time to plan, and laugh. Which we did plenty of, well mostly laugh.
Black Skimmers, a very worthy opponent 😁.
All it takes is a brief sighting and everything else stops. Photographing a Skimmer fishing is not easy, maybe one of the most difficult shots to get.
When working the surface their flight can seem erratic. They do see the small minnows just below the water and chase them. But they also have a pattern to covering the wider marsh areas.
This bird was hunting a very large salt marsh, even at high speeds the full circle could take over five minutes. All you can do is wait for the next pass (if he doesn’t get distracted and change flight).
This Skimmer circled and fished the same general path for at least a half hour. Each time we could grab a few bursts, then wait.
This single bird was here hunting the same area, about the same time, two days in a row. Being a Skimmer we missed as many shots as we got. But that’s the fun of it.
A day before these shots the only skimmers we saw were in the dark sunset. We did get good photos but it’s not the same as having them fly and fish around you.
When we saw them Ellen moved a little to my right and up the mangroves, I stayed on the spot with many small hammocks. Two different looks for our images. No need for duplicates when you can avoid it.
Of course none of that counted when the birds skimmed right in front of us.
Below the bird caught a small fish just as I shot.
Finding Black Skimmers is a great opportunity. However later on you will have hundreds of images (and we do) to review.
Black Skimmers in a Florida Mangrove swamp.
The only way you could possibly photograph a Black Skimmer at this hour would be last light like this.
Timing could not have been better.
Black Skimmer over a Florida salt marsh after sunset.
It’s always great to catch one of these rocket ships in flight.
Two flying together !
That doesn’t happen very often.
This is also a decent shot to view their unique bill.
Caught a ‘Twofer’.
Since it’s a Black Skimmer at full speed I would have been happy with just him. The Gull watching is a bonus.
This was a pretty confident bird.
There were at least 10 Alligator heads making an obstacle course for the Skimmer.
Black Skimmer, American Alligator.
