Unlimited edition. 18 x 24 inch, museum-quality poster on matte paper.

No creature better represents the tidal waterways of my mid-Atlantic childhood than the black skimmer. Stand on any Eastern Shore dock as a summer day’s light fades, and you’re almost sure to see a group of these remarkable birds plowing the water’s surface. The conspicuous orange-red bill is unique among North American birds because the lower mandible is longer than the upper. Why? Writing in his seminal Handbook of Birds of Eastern North America (1895), ornithologist Frank Chapman described the black skimmer’s hunting technique as follows: “Opening the mouth, the bladelike lower mandible is dropped just beneath the surface of the water; then, flying rapidly, [the birds] may be said to literally ‘plow the main’ in search of their food of small aquatic animals.” When that long lower mandible strikes something, the skimmer’s head drops such that the upper bill closes on the potential prey item. Because they feed by touch, they often hunt at night. In Wanderer On My Native Shore (1983), his guide to Atlantic Coast ecology, my father writes, “In the evening, the wind dies, and skimmers sail across the calm surface of darkened coves or beneath the blinking lights of channel markers and snap up young menhaden and silversides swept by on the incoming moon tides.” If you’re quiet enough, there on the dock as the sun falls behind the horizon, you can hear the skimmers’ bills cutting through the water as they pass.

Note: These archival poster prints feature rich, appealing colors. I encourage customers to take care in handling them until they are framed/protected for display; the darker colors on the matte paper can be scratched. They ship rolled, so customers need to flatten them before framing (or have their framer do so).

Charitable Sales Model: Whenever one of these poster prints is purchased, a charitable contribution equal to 10% of the print’s cost (or $3.60) is made to a nonprofit working to tackle environmental or social challenges. Read more about my charitable sales model here.