Snail Kite Rostrhamus
sociabilis (aka Everglade Kite) |
||||
![]() |
Brazil
The Snail Kite has a very distinctive hooked bill. The male, as in photo 1, looks almost all slaty black although it has white at the base of the tail which also has a white band near the tip (see photo 5). Its legs and cere are red-orange and the iris is red. This distinguishes the Snail Kite from the Slender-billed Kite (Rostrhamus hamatus) which has a pale yellow iris, no white on the tail and tends to be found in more swampy forested habitat. |
|||
![]() |
The second and last photos
shows a female (or possibly an immature. Immature males take 4
years to reach full adult plumage.) The female is brown above and
heavily streaked below with a pale supercilium and
yellow to orange cere.
Snail Kites feed almost exclusively on Apple Snails which they snatch from shallow water with their feet then fly to a perch where they extract the snail from its shell with their specially adapted bill. |
|||
![]() |
The
Apple Snail is also the main food of the Limpkin (Aramus guarauna) so anything
that affects the snails such as draining of wetland or the
introduction of non-native fish such as the Tilapia can do
enormous harm to several species further up the food
chain.
See the Opus page on this species at Birdforum. |
|||
![]() |
||||
![]() |
||||
![]() |
||||
|
If you do not see a menu on the left, you may have arrived at this page from another site. Please click Home to get to my main page. |