Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Aruba, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Cayman Islands, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Martinique, Mexico, Montserrat, Netherlands Antilles, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, St Vincent and The Grenadines, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, Turks and Caicos Islands, Uruguay (B), USA (B), Venezuela.
Black Skimmer (Rynchops niger) [XC268641]
by Paul Marvin from Cape Lookout, Carteret County, North Carolina, United States (flight call)
Black Skimmer (Rynchops niger) [XC540248]
by id from Departamento de Paysand\u00fa, Uruguay (alarm call, flight call, song)
Subspecies
Forms superspecies with African Skimmer (Rynchops flavirostris) and Indian Skimmer (Rynchops albicollis) with some authorities suggesting that all might be conspecific, but good evidence apparently lacking.
Subspecies cinerascens and intercedens formerly considered to constitute two further species, on account of white, as opposed to dusky, on wing linings and tail, and amount of white edging on secondaries; however, variability of these characters is more consistent with subspecific differentiation. Dubious subspecies intermedia (western South America) normally included within cinerascens. Proposed subspecies melanura is synonymous with cinerascens.
The following 3 subspecies are recognised:
niger Linnaeus, 1758 - Coasts of USA (southern California; Massachusetts to Texas) and Mexico (Sonora to Nayarit; Tamaulipas to Yucatán Peninsula). Winters from California and North Carolina south to both coasts of Panama.
cinerascens von Spix, 1825 - Coasts of Colombia to mouth of R Amazon and western Ecuador (Gulf of Guayaquil), and large river systems (especially Orinoco and Amazon) south to Bolivia and north-western Argentina. Winters on coasts, from Ecuador to southern Chile, and from Panama to Trinidad and north-central Brazil.
intercedens Saunders, H, 1895 - Large rivers of eastern Brazil (west to Maranhío and eastern Mato Grosso), eastern Paraguay, Uruguay and north-eastern Argentina (south to Bahía Blanca). Winters mainly on coast.
BirdLife International Species Factsheet