Beach families revisited

In the middle of July, I thought it might be a good idea to visit again with the Long Island beach colony of terns and skimmers that we came across a few weeks before. You could guess there was a bird colony from far away:


As we expected, the tern chicks were much bigger - looking more like actual terns than feathery meatballs they were before. This is a 5-wk old chick:


And for reference, this was a similar chick at 2 weeks old:


But now the Common Tern families were joined by Black Skimmer families:


Skimmer chicks are pretty ugly, I have to say...


I am still amazed by the skimmer's bills!


Looking head on, it looks as thin as a razor:


How do you land a date with a skimmer girl? You bring her a fish, of course!


Is it just me, or is the fish in this tern's beak looks really surprised?


A few other beach visitors were also to be found nearby: