It was thirteen years ago today when I took this photo of an adult Black Skimmer flying over the Gulf of Mexico in Pinellas County, Florida.
Black Skimmers forage by skimming their bills in the waves just off shore and snap up fish when their sensitive bills locate them.
Whenever I view this photo of a lone Black Skimmer in flight on a foggy Gulf shore I feel a wave of joy and peaceful feelings wash over me.
On a hazy, windy day in May of 2008 I was able to sand crawl on my belly close enough to some Black Skimmers to watch and photograph them courting.
My own technique for photographing this Black Skimmer skimming the Gulf and other skimmers that day was to sit down in the water right where the waves crested and moved on shore.
I haven't seen Black Skimmers in over six years now but in my mind I can still hear them calling when I look at my images of a group of them in flight.
The first day of September signals to me that cooler weather is arriving so I took a look back at some of the images I have taken in September from 2008 on.
On an extremely hot April day I was out on Egmont Key for a Florida Master Naturalist class and from a distance I thought I saw some Black Skimmers and Least Terns resting on a beach but they turned out to be decoys.
Six years ago this morning I was photographing birds at Fort De Soto County Park and I wanted to share a few images and memories of that day.
The reason Utah got uglier is that today Crow hunting killing season begins for the first time in the state so the day is already off on a bad start.
Both versions of this frame of the sunrise Black Skimmers bring back memories from the morning I created this photo of them in their pre-dawn flight.
Black Skimmers are beautiful and unmistakable, with their long orange/red black tipped bill, white underparts, blackish upper parts and distinctive barking call.
It is really cruddy here in Utah this morning so I thought I would go back in time to a warmer, sunnier day via the magic of some Black Skimmer images I created five years ago today.
I photographed these Black Skimmers in flight at the north beach of Fort De Soto County Park in Florida one cool January morning.
Black Skimmers are known by several nicknames which include scissorbills, knifebill and cut-water for how their bills slice through the water when they are hunting and how their bills snap shut on prey.
When I did my post the other day on "Missing Fort De Soto" I found this Black Skimmer image in my archives while looking for photos to put in that post and wanted to share it.
I love winter, I love seeing snow on the mountains and feeling the crispness in the air but I am getting tired of gray cloudy days and heavy fog so I thought I would post a few bird images from warmer and sunnier days that I took while I lived in Florida.
I took this photo in Florida in 2008 as the adult Black Skimmer flew by whilst giving me "the eye". Isn't the color of the Gulf of Mexico behind the bird simply delicious?
Four years ago today Hurricane Ike was out in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico and the waves that it generated made a strong splash at Fort De Soto County Park.
Several people have remarked on how much they like the resting Black Skimmer juvenile image that was in my rotating banner at the top of this blog so I thought I would post it to show the whole bird.
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.
I could always tell when a flock of Black Skimmers were flying in to Fort De Soto's north beach when I was photographing there because I could usually hear their soft, nasal barking yips or yeps before I saw them.
I often forget that by backing up my zoom, swapping my long lens for a wide angle lens or backing up physically I can get the "whole picture".
My friends say when my images have such a low angle that I must have been "Down 'n dirty". Well I know for sure I was dirty, I had sand everywhere!