And here we are, the first day of August. The entire Intrigued staff are very aware today is the official start of Haunt Stress Season. Our annual Haunted Trail event (link here) is now less than two months away and simply based on the number of half-done projects scattered about the headquarters, there is going to be a lot of sleepless nights between now and event opening. I am going to hop on the Mothership and get a couple of pending race recap posts out that I don’t want on the top of the list while trying to finish up the new props (one of the posts is going to be painful enough all by itself). While I lighten the top of my queue, Brad is going to bring you a new field find from South Carolina.
Take it away Brad…
During a typical Illinois winter, Jan and I like to escape the weather for a week or so in February. Last year we went to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina (not very far from North Carolina). This year we visited Hilton Head Island on the other end of South Carolina, right next to Georgia. After a long morning at Sea Pines Forest Preserve, we wanted to see birds at the seashore. One of the Top Ten lists for birders in the area suggested Fish Haul Beach, so that’s where we headed.
As we left the parking lot and walked through the dunes, I could see what looked like a bunch of ants way out at the edge of the water. Being a typical landlubber, I had completely forgotten about the tides. When it’s high tide, no problem, there’s a narrow beach and no tidal flat to walk on. But at only a few minutes before a very low tide, the flats are a couple hundred yards deep (beach to waterline) depending on location.
Tide’s out. Let’s go see what’s out there.
Naturally, I began to stroll in that direction. Jan started strolling as well, but in a completely different direction on the tidal flat, there was so much area to cover! There’s always that little bit of a funky smell when the tide is all the way out. The sand was wet but very firm and easy to walk on; much easier than the really dry powdery sand above the high tide line. These little clear tubes were sticking up all over the place. They sort of looked like a forest of plastic drinking straws. Remember grade school milk cartons and those little plastic straws? That’s just what they looked like, but a bit shorter. I tried to be careful not to step on them, but quickly realized that was a losing proposition, and trod as carefully as I could through the forest of inch-long (25mm for the rest of the world) clear tubes. I still don’t know what was hiding under the sand, maybe there’s a future story when I find out.
A lady was scraping mussels (or clams or oysters) off a rocky pile as I passed by. She didn’t even look up; they must be very used to tourists with large cameras strolling by at low tide. The mussels (or whatever they were) must have been particularly good that day.
As I got closer to the ants, I could see they were actually medium-sized black and white birds with a bit of orange/red highlight color. From that distance I still couldn’t tell which end was which. Before I could get close enough for a decent identification photo, the bunch of them took flight. My shoulders fell when I thought I missed my chance at a +1 bird.
Hit the jump and maybe they will fly back!
I watched them fly out over the water, make a sweeping left-hand turn, fly back to the waterline, and land nearly exactly where they had been about one minute before. Emboldened, I kept walking towards them. I had never seen a bird like this before, but remembered descriptions of a black and white shorebird with a completely different name. Either way, it was going to be a +1 for us.
The “ants” were Black Skimmers (Rynchops niger). I didn’t realize until later how lucky I was to see them at all. The vast majority of their territory covers most of South America, east of the Andes. They exist along a very thin band of the Southeast United States, and not much further north in February than we were.
Now that I’m roughly 100 feet away from the Skimmers, they did it all over again. Thinking I had missed a second chance, I just watched them go. Again, they flew straight out over the water, made a broad sweeping turn to the left and landed right back where they started. I kept inching forward until I could single out a bird. I eventually noticed a few Laughing Gulls interspersed with the Skimmers. The gulls would stay put when the Skimmers took flight. Maybe that’s how the Skimmers marked where to land; look for the gulls.
Black Skimmers mostly forage when winds are light and seas are calm. These crow-sized birds will eat anything under 5 inches in length, including, but not limited to (Intrigued Legal made me put that in there): crustaceans, shrimp, blue crab, smelt, bluefish, herring, mullet, etc. Nothing about photographers. In tidal areas, they often forage in sync with the tides. That was probably what I interrupted when I walked near them, though I don’t think I really messed with their feeding routine. About every three minutes they would all take flight, make a big circle and land right back where they started. Too bad I didn’t get to see any “skimming” feeding habits; that would have made for some great photos of them dipping their long bills in the water while flying off with a meal.
Courting males will often present a fish as a present to the object of their affection, a fresh one I hope. (Gentleman readers may want to rethink gift giving strategies.) A male will heartily defend its nesting territory, as well as its female partner, by issuing soft barking calls. Skimmers will nest in shallow “scrapes” right on sandy or shell-covered ground. They often nest in colonies, with the sheer numbers of birds providing an extra bit of security from predators, of which there are many.
A mated pair will raise 1-5 eggs per brood. Incubation lasts from 21-25 days. Parents must feed the chicks until they are 3-4 weeks old before they can fend for themselves. The young are born with both halves of their bill being the same length. By the time they fledge, the lower mandible is already longer than the top.
Black Skimmers will live their entire lives in coastal areas, preferring sandy beaches, though a few colonies can be found inland on large lakes. Unfortunately, both locations are precisely where humans like to build vacation resorts. The oldest recorded Black Skimmer was identified in California and was at least 23 years old based on its ID band.
Sadly, Black Skimmer populations are in decline, down over 85% from 1966. The main threat to them is the loss of beach habitat from vacationers, meaning they like the same types of beach habitats as people heading to the beach on vacation. They also nest very close to the water’s edge and feed from the surface of the water, so they are susceptible to anything that fouls either environment.
Thank you for reading.
If you want to see more Black Skimmer photos, please visit here.
Credits
Thanks again to Jan and Allyson (with Associate editor Elfie below) for proofreading and editing. Thanks to Jan for some of the photos in this article.
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