Figure 170. The Black Skimmer’s status in California has changed dramatically since 1972 and 1973, when the CBRC reviewed its records. This adult was photographed on 7 June 2000 at the mouth of the Tijuana River, San Diego County (Larry Sansone).

 

Figure 233. This adult Black Skimmer was photographed on 17 August 2002 at the Martinez Regional Shoreline, Contra Costa County. The band visible on this bird’s right tarsus indicated that it originated at the Bolsa Chica colony in Orange County, where it was banded on 7 August 1998 (N. Am. Birds 56:482; Scott Hein).

 

 

 

 

 

BLACK SKIMMER Rynchops niger Linnaeus, 1758

Accepted: 33 (100%)	Treated in Appendix H: no
Not accepted: 0	CBRC review: 1972 and 1973 records
Not submitted/reviewed: NA	Large color image: see Figures

This instantly recognizable species breeds widely across South America and locally along the Atlantic coast of North and Middle America, as far north as Massachusetts. The species occurs casually well inland, including scattered records from around the Southwest. California’s first Black Skimmer was found on 8 September 1962 at the mouth of the Santa Ana River in Orange County (McCaskie and Suffel 1971). In July 1968, five skimmers appeared at the Whitewater River delta at the north end of the Salton Sea (McCaskie and Suffel 1971, LACM 76788), and by 1972 the species was nesting there (McCaskie et al. 1974). The Committee reviewed Black Skimmer records in 1972 and 1973, but soon abandoned the effort as it became apparent that the species had successfully colonized the state.

The Salton Sea breeding population first topped 100 pairs in 1977 (Garrett and Dunn 1981). The number of pairs has since fluctuated between zero and 500, a high degree of variability apparently related to changes in the availability of nesting habitat (rising waters have flooded some areas) and in the level of human disturbance (Molina 1996). In San Diego County, Black Skimmers nest at south San Diego Bay (since 1976, recently 300–400 pairs) and at Batiquitos Lagoon (since 1995, recently 8–26 pairs) (Unitt 2004). In Orange County, several hundred pairs nest at Seal Beach, Bolsa Chica, and Upper Newport Bay (Collins and Garrett 1996). The species has bred as far north as San Francisco Bay (Layne et al. 1996) and the Tulare Lake basin, Kings County (Morlan and Erickson 1988). Birds banded as chicks at Bolsa Chica were later found nesting at Seal Beach and San Diego (Collins and Garrett 1996) and at Isla Montague at the mouth of the Colorado River in Baja California (Peresbarbosa and Mellink 1994). In addition, an adult was present from 12 July to 17 August 2002 at Martinez Regional Shoreline in Contra Costa County that had been banded at Bolsa Chica on 7 August 1998 (Figure 233; NAB 56:482). In winter, skimmers raised at Bolsa Chica have been recorded north to Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara County, and Princeton Harbor, San Mateo County, and as far south as Bahía San Quintín in western Baja California (Gazzaniga 1996). Two birds present from 17 to 23 August 2005 in Eureka, Humboldt County (NAB 59:144), furnished the northernmost record for California and the Pacific coast.