Ingrid and I promised each other a quiet evening at home tonight.  We’ve been busy with work (her’s not mine), home improvement projects, visitors and road trips.  We are both a little worn down and looked forward to steak on the grill and a little Red Sox vs. Yankees Baseball.

Then about 3:00 pm a report of Black Skimmers on an off shore island (Eastern Egg Rock) came in.

Black Skimmers are a ridiculous looking bird, with a unique bill that lets them “skim” over the water, scooping up fish without swimming or diving.  We’ve seen them numerous times along the Gulf Coast . . . but they rarely are seen north of Cape Cod.

Suddenly we didn’t feel so tired.

Ingrid, found a tourist boat going out to Eastern Egg Rock in the evening to see Atlantic Puffins and there were two seats free.  

So three hours later we are scanning the island for Skimmers.  The rest of the boat was looking for Puffins (didn’t see many) but we had more important matters to attend to.

After a few minutes I spotted them sitting on a rock and Ingrid pointed the Black Skimmers out to the Audubon naturalist that was acting as the guide that evening.  The surprise birds made up for the lack of Puffins and everyone on board returned to shore happy.