Snail Kite Meetup

February 18, 2018

When Cindy invited me to join her to play in Florida, all I had to do is meet up with her.  She had all the fun lined up. One of the tours we did was the Kissimmee Swamp Tours to look for snail kites. This turned out to be a fabulous trip.  The airboats are driven by a a person who is a good boat operator and who knows how to find wildlife. And, although the boat, holds six people, we were the only two on it so each had a seat, and an unimpeded camera view, to the action. 

Sandhill cranes share a pasture with cows a few miles before our destination

Ready to leave

We started seeing snail kites before we were out of sight of the landing

We traveled though land that was either a plant-filled lake or mix that is both land and water

And had to stop frequently to see another snail kite

We found this purple gallinule, who had spent the winter here, drinking from a tiny puddle in an almost dry area of the lake..

How the snail kite carries its snail

This one was with two other kites in the same tree and was maybe being a little harrassed

I think this is a male - they are supposed to be slate colored

This bird shows the thin, very hooked bill needed to extract the snails from their shells

We saw several other species and caught this great blue heron feeding its chick

A female kite hovering

A second purple gallinule foraging

I think this is another male, but females were most abundant

Snail kite in flight

I found the cattle egrets spent the winter here also - none was getting its breeding plumage yet

Another view

Female working on nest - we found three but none seemed to have eggs yet

Kingfisher from underneath - it was flying at the same speed and trajectory  as the airboat

Ring-billed gulls were waiting at the take-out

We were focused on finding all the snail kites we could to get the best possible pictures.  This will also be a great place to enjoy alligators in a few weeks.  If you would like to reserve a trip, click here.