Black Skimmer

About the Black Skimmer

The Black Skimmer is one of the strangest and most elegant birds on the Texas coast - a big, tern-like bird, black above and white below, with a huge red-and-black bill whose lower mandible is noticeably longer than the upper. No other bird in the world has that bill, and it exists for one job.

Skimmers feed by flying low and fast just above calm water with the lower mandible slicing the surface; when it touches a fish the bill snaps shut in a fraction of a second. They feed most at dusk and at night when small fish rise, and rest by day in tight flocks on sandbars, all facing the wind, often with their bills flat on the sand. Their call is a soft dog-like yap.

In Texas the Black Skimmer is a year-round bird of the coast, nesting in colonies on open beaches, spoil islands, and even parking lots and rooftops. Beach nesting has made it vulnerable to disturbance, and its Texas numbers have been declining - a reason the roped-off colonies at Port Aransas and Padre Island matter.