Black Skimmers having summer beach party in Port Arthur

Daragh Castillo posted on her Facebook page that Mary Meaux with the Port Arthur News had taken a photo of some black skimmers in Port Arthur.  Since I had never seen black skimmers, I took a ride down there and found these guys.  There were about 30 of them, but it was hard to get them all in the photo.  In fact, it was hard to get a picture at all -- they were so wary.

As soon as my head popped over the bushes, the call went out and they took flight. A white bird, not a black skimmer, was doing the watch-out duties and kept flying over my head and squawking -- just in case any of the black skimmers needed to know where the enemy was.

The photo below shows why they are called "skimmers" -- they fly just inches off the top of the water and all they have to do is open their beaks. The beak easily scoops up what they are after in the water.

Both pictures were taken on a sand bar beach on Pleasure Island just to the right about 200 feet where the bridge road drops out on Hwy 82.