Spread his wings, did a quick turn, I thought for sure he was about to take off.
For all I know he could still be in that same spot. I gave up waiting.

Double-crested Cormorant.
I have been publishing all that many true shore birds lately. Even the Pelicans have been the White fresh water variety.
For me the Brown Pelicans are the best reason to head to the beach.
This species will take between 3 – 5 years to reach breeding age, and change their colors. I think this one is fairly young based on the head coloring. Certainly don’t take that as a fact though LOL.
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.