Recognize this oversized orange bill and graceful black silhouette? This is a black skimmer (patient 25-3918).

Black skimmers can be a challenging species to care for in a wildlife rehabilitation setting, as they can develop a wide range of secondary issues while in captivity. For example, they have long, fragile primary flight feathers which can quickly become tattered and damaged. This may affect their flight ability and delay their release date.

Additionally, black skimmers are specialized piscivores that usually catch live prey themselves. They hunt by touch, not by sight, dipping their long lower bill into the water while they skim just over the surface. Once they feel a fish, they snap their beak shut and eat the prey in flight. This can make feeding them in captivity a challenge, as they don’t recognize pre-caught fish as food right away.

Thankfully, this black skimmer only needed to be kept overnight. Though it was tangled in fishing tackle, the patient was not wounded and was in great physical condition. Not all animals entangled in fishing line are quite so lucky.

The black skimmer was healthy enough to be released the next morning at Lighthouse Beach on Sanibel. Every patient release directly benefits local populations of that species, especially when they are a threatened species like black skimmers. Black skimmers are in decline largely due to the development of their coastal habitats. As ground nesters, they rely heavily on sandy beaches for their survival, and risk their eggs being disturbed by dogs, beachgoers, vehicles, and rising sea levels.

If you have the chance to see a black skimmer in the wild, observe from a distance, and note that there may be a nest in the area. Their eggs are a pale cream color, with flecks that keep them camouflaged in the sand. Chicks are covered in a tan down and will begin to develop their beautiful black plumage at around 1 month old.