Black Skimmer (Rynchops niger)
The Pantanal
Brazil
South America
The black skimmer was photographed resting on a sandbar along the Cuiaba River. There were about six of them there when this image was taken. Within minutes more skimmers were circling above getting ready to land.
The black skimmer (Rynchops niger) is a tern-like seabird, one of three very similar birds species in the skimmer family. It breeds in North and South America. Northern populations winter in the warmer waters of the Caribbean and the tropical and subtropical Pacific coasts, but the South American races make only shorter movements in response to annual floods which extend their feeding areas in the river shallows.
Skimmers have a light graceful flight, with steady beats of their long wings. They feed usually in large flocks, flying low over the water surface with the lower mandible skimming the water (in order of importance) for small fish, insects, crustaceans and molluscs caught by touch by day or especially at night.
The black skimmer breeds in loose groups on sandbanks and sandy beaches in the Americas, the three to seven heavily dark-blotched buff or bluish eggs being incubated by both the male and female. The chicks leave the nest as soon as they hatch and lie inconspicuously in the nest depression or "scrape" where they are shaded from high temperatures by the parents. They may dig their own depressions in the sand at times. Parents feed the young almost exclusively during the day with almost no feeding occurring at night, due to the entire population of adults sometimes departing the colony to forage.
Black Skimmer (Rynchops niger)
The Pantanal
Brazil
South America
The black skimmer was photographed resting on a sandbar along the Cuiaba River. There were about six of them there when this image was taken. Within minutes more skimmers were circling above getting ready to land.
The black skimmer (Rynchops niger) is a tern-like seabird, one of three very similar birds species in the skimmer family. It breeds in North and South America. Northern populations winter in the warmer waters of the Caribbean and the tropical and subtropical Pacific coasts, but the South American races make only shorter movements in response to annual floods which extend their feeding areas in the river shallows.
Skimmers have a light graceful flight, with steady beats of their long wings. They feed usually in large flocks, flying low over the water surface with the lower mandible skimming the water (in order of importance) for small fish, insects, crustaceans and molluscs caught by touch by day or especially at night.
The black skimmer breeds in loose groups on sandbanks and sandy beaches in the Americas, the three to seven heavily dark-blotched buff or bluish eggs being incubated by both the male and female. The chicks leave the nest as soon as they hatch and lie inconspicuously in the nest depression or "scrape" where they are shaded from high temperatures by the parents. They may dig their own depressions in the sand at times. Parents feed the young almost exclusively during the day with almost no feeding occurring at night, due to the entire population of adults sometimes departing the colony to forage.