BEACH BIRD

Carving their lives into sand and surf, black skimmers survive against the odds on Florida's crowded shores

- 

A life in the sand

Sporting its dapper monochrome plumage, a black (or American) skimmer calls to its colony-mates on a busy Florida beach. A member of the tern family and one of just three skimmer species worldwide, the bird inhabits coastal and riverine habitats from the central United States to Argentina. With his wife, Julia, Roland spent several weeks in the Sunshine State, trying to understand how these quirky birds survive in a very human landscape.

Catch of the day

Carving their lives into sand and surf, black skimmers survive against the odds on Florida’s crowded shores "Usually in birds, the upper mandible is longest," says Roland. "In skimmers, it is shorter – an adaptation that allows for their hunting technique of 'skimming' the water (see right). While hunting does take place in daylight hours, it is much more common at night, likely because the birds' main prey – fish, shrimps, molluscs and insects – venture into the shallows under cover of darkness.

On the hunt

Skimmers are named after their distinctive hunting technique. “They fly low over the shallows, the tips of their lower mandibles just below the surface,” says Roland. “They continually ‘draw lines’ across the water until they strike a fish, which is then snared in the beak.”

Close quarters