The black skimmer is a rare find in the Chesapeake region

Come summer, the elegant black skimmer migrates to the Chesapeake Bay area for its breeding season. Like many beach goers, the bird prefers large coastal beaches like the ones near Ocean City, Maryland, but will still form its colonies on the smaller shores or islands of the Chesapeake Bay. However, real estate in both areas is so hard to come by these days that only a handful of breeding pairs can be found on both the coast and the Bay.

But that doesn’t mean they’re gone for good.

After black skimmers mate, they dig small holes in the sand that serve as nests for their eggs. The lack of undisturbed beaches—both up north and in South Carolina and Florida where they migrate from—is the primary reason that these birds are in decline. The smallest disturbance to a nesting colony can cause adults to scurry off, which pauses critical incubation time. When eggs aren’t consistently incubated, the babies can die. Sometimes black skimmers simply can’t find safe nesting ground and the adults or the juveniles fall victim to predators.

When set up for success, the black skimmer is a skilled forager that survives mostly on fish. The bird forages by flying low (or “skimming”) along the surface of the water and plowing their bill through the water to feel for fish. Their lower bill, which is 2-3 centimeters longer than the upper, is perfectly designed for this skimming technique. When black skimmers make contact with prey, they snap their bill shut and fly back to the beach to eat or feed their young.

There are a handful of places where you might be able to find a black skimmer on the Chesapeake Bay proper. One of them is on a barge by the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel South Island that is managed by the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources (DWR). According to DWR, black skimmers have also nested on Clump Island and the southern end of Tangier Island within the last five years.

Poplar Island in Maryland is another place the bird might just pop up. Extensive restoration over the years has brought the island in the middle of the Bay from just two acres to almost 2,000. All kinds of shorebirds have been using the island for habitat. However, black skimmers are far less common than species such as terns, gulls and egrets.

Still, projects that produce more beach habitat like what’s been done at Poplar Island is exactly what’s needed to welcome back rare shorebirds such as black skimmers. To save this graceful bird we need to continue conserving shorelines while restoring land that’s been lost to erosion.

Not just for the black skimmer but for all the other shorebirds that count on the Chesapeake Bay for habitat!

To learn more about the birds that visit the Chesapeake Bay, visit our Field Guide.