Black Skimmer

Topsail Inlet was shallow. Night and the tide were falling. I jogged the Phalarope off-and-on just outside the breaker-line, watching for a high wave. We squared away before the advancing crest, took the break on the bar and shot over in a turmoil of foam into a perfect little harbor under the southern sand point.

I went forward to hang the riding light on the jib toppinglift. Down wind came a chorus of barks followed by the "dogs" — a flock of about twenty BLACK SKIMMERS. The company divided and swung past the sloop on both sides — aerial cavalry on the march with red bills taking glints from the glowing western sky. At intervals troop after troop passed; even when night hid them from view I could still hear them going by — literally in hundreds and their weird cries accentuated the remoteness of time and place. Resting against the furled mainsail, with pipe alight, it was easy to believe their dark forms were the reincarnation of the buccaneers who once sailed the Carolina seas, crying thru the dark for those far off days when they lived, fought and stole.

Skimmers are unique among our birds in the knife-shape of bill. The upper mandible is movable and shorter than the lower. They feed by "skimming" just over the water with the lower mandible thrust into the sea, scooping small fish and other marine life into the throat. Awing they are almost as graceful as Terns but on shore extremely awkward. They nest in colonies often on sand bars so low that eggs and young are often destroyed by high water. An intruder on the nesting grounds is met by a wild attack of protesting birds. They dart and drive about his head snapping their red dagger-bills fearsomely but never coming too close. All the excitement and yelling is only bluff. The eggs are white and usually four, handsomely marked with browns and lavender and the female attends to most of the domestic duties. Bills of young are normal and they pick up food in the shallows soon after hatching. Hard parts of food are regurgitated in the shape of white balls (quite in the Owl manner!).