Odd Black Skimmer Behavior

On April 30, 2008 I was photographing Black Skimmer (Rynchops niger) on the north beach of Fort De Soto when one of the birds started exhibiting a behavior that I had not seen in Black Skimmers before.

There are times when the male Black Skimmer passes a fish, leaf or twig to the female skimmer before copulation but in this case there weren’t any other Black Skimmers within 20 to 25 feet and they weren’t paying attention to this bird at all. It was breeding season.

The Black Skimmer had a Mangrove seed pod in its bill and it was twirling the seed pod with its bill, at times the seed pod even went over the top of the bill but unfortunately I didn’t get any images of that. The images below are posted in sequential order.

Black Skimmer twirling a mangrove seed pod

Black Skimmer playing with a mangrove seed pod?

Black Skimmer with a mangrove seed pod

Playful Black Skimmer

Black Skimmer with a mangrove seed pod in mid air

Black Skimmer and a seed pod

Black Skimmer grasping a seedpod with its bill

Black Skimmer twisting a seed pod in its bill

Black Skimmer manipulating a mangrove pod with its bill

Black Skimmer stops playing with a seed pod

I never saw this behavior exhibited by a Black Skimmer after this event. I researched Black Skimmer behavior on BNA (Birds of North America) and there is no mention of Black Skimmers twirling objects with their bills.

The seed pod twirling was fascinating and since that time I have been curious about it. If anyone has any idea why this bird twirled the mangrove seed pod around, I’d love to hear from you.

Life is good.

Mia

Click here to see more of my Black Skimmer photos plus facts and information about this species.

• I am out of town so I scheduled this post ahead of time, please feel free to share.