Final Frame: Seeing Double

A photographer catches a mirror image of a black skimmer slicing through South Carolina waters

NWF Staff
PhotoZone
May 28, 2014

MIRRORED BY ITS REFLECTION, a black skimmer fishes in the still waters off South Carolina’s Huntington Beach State Park. The calm conditions and good lighting were optimal for photography, noted Skip Vetter, who made the image on a late-August afternoon.

To catch fish, the skimmer flies low over the water with its bill open and its lower, longer mandible slicing the surface. When the mandible comes in contact with a fish, the seabird instantly closes its upper bill to snatch the prey.

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