Black Skimmer - BirdForum Opus

Adult, breeding plumage
Photo © by bobsofpa
Fort Island Gulf Beach, Crystal River, Florida, 25 March 2009

Rynchops niger

Identification:

18" (46 cm)

• Black above
• White below
• Red legs
• Bill red with black tip like a blade. Lower mandible much longer, than the upper
  

Immature mottled upper appearance, with shorter bill.

Juvenile
Photo © by Celso Paris
Peruíbe, Sao Paulo, Brazil, November 2019

Distribution

Breeds along Atlantic and Gulf coasts from Massachusetts and Long Island to Florida and Texas. Winters north to southern California and Virginia. Also in American tropics.

Taxonomy

Subspecies

Juvenile
Photo © by STEFFRO1
Huntington Beach State Park, South Carolina, 29 August 2013

There are 3 subspecies^[1]:

• R. n. niger :

• Coastal US and Mexico; winters to Panama

• R. n. cinerascens:

• Coasts and rivers of northern South America to Bolivia and north-western Argentina

• R. n. intercedens:

• Eastern Brazil to Paraguay, Uruguay and north-eastern Argentina

Habitat

Breeds chiefly on sandbars and beaches; feeds in shallow bays, inlets, and estuaries.

Behaviour

Tight flocks can be seen simultaneously wheeling in one direction and then another.

Diet

Typical feeding behavior
Photo © by Nick Richter
San Diego Creek, Irvine, California, 21 May 2004

They are mainly surface skimmers (hence the name) tip of the lower mandible cuts through the water. They will also wade in shallow water, jabbing at the fish.

Breeding

3 or 4 brown-blotched buff eggs on bare sand, usually among shell fragments and scattered grass clumps.

They are particularly attracted to the newly-dredged sand-fill areas, which may contain colonies of up to 200 pairs. These sites will be abandoned as soon as too much grass appears.

Vocalisation

Short barking notes.

References

1. Clements, J. F., T. S. Schulenberg, M. J. Iliff, S. M. Billerman, T. A. Fredericks, B. L. Sullivan, and C. L. Wood. 2019. The eBird/Clements Checklist of Birds of the World: v2019. Downloaded from http://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist/download/
2. Gochfeld, M. and J. Burger (1994). Black Skimmer (Rynchops niger), version 2.0. In The Birds of North America (A. F. Poole and F. B. Gill, Editors). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bna.108
3. Lefevre, K. L. (2018). Black Skimmer (Rynchops niger), version 1.0. In Neotropical Birds Online (T. S. Schulenberg, Editor). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/nb.blkski.01
4. Zusi, R.L. & Garcia, E.F.J. (2020). Black Skimmer (Rynchops niger). In: del Hoyo, J., Elliott, A., Sargatal, J., Christie, D.A. & de Juana, E. (eds.). Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona. (retrieved from https://www.hbw.com/node/54056 on 5 February 2020).

• List of references

Recommended Citation

• BirdForum Opus contributors. (2024) Black Skimmer. In: BirdForum, the forum for wild birds and birding. Retrieved 20 April 2024 from https://www.birdforum.net/opus/Black_Skimmer

External Links

• Arthur Grosset's Birds

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