Six species of kites have been seen in the US, but none is common in my home turf in the northeast US. (Quick question..how many of the US kites can you name? See the answer below). I have been fortunate to see all six of these raptors on my travels, but naturally would like to see them within the US too. Despite multiple trips to Florida though, I have missed seeing Snail Kite, one of the Florida specialty birds that is often found by birders visiting the Everglades area. Snail Kites possess an extremely curved bill that is highly adapted for feeding on apple snails. The profusion of apple snails in southern Florida has been to the benefit of Snail Kites and Limpkins, who both feed on them. This week I decided to take an overnight trip near Ft. Myers in southern Florida in search of some species that are not being seen in the Tampa-St. Pete area, with Snail Kite as one of the main target species. The birding gods were smiling on us because while driving to Harns Marsh, a location that was recommended for several species, a raptor perched beside a roadside canal turned out to be an immature Snail Kite. I call that a good omen.
My first US Snail Kite, found alongside a roadside canal while driving on a busy road. As you can imagine, a quick U-turn was called for. Look at the curvature and length of that bill!
When we arrived at Harns Marsh the following morning we observed not one, not two, but three Snail Kites hunting in a large marsh, including one adult bird. They put on a great show in the early morning light, and could easily be confused with Northern Harriers due to their overall dark plumage, large white rump patch, and their behavior of flying (almost sailing) low over the marsh in search of prey. At one point all three birds were perched in the same small isolated tree in the middle of the marsh. Wow!
An adult Snail Kite hunting for its next meal.
One of two immature Snail Kites hunting in Harns Marsh.
The rest of the southern excursion went extremely well, with 21 new species added for this trip, including a number of additional ‘good’ birds, such as numerous Limpkins with their boisterous calls, two American Bitterns, Purple Gallinule, Crested Caracara, Black-bellied Whistling-Duck, and Red-cockaded Woodpecker. Interestingly, of all these rare-ish birds that I’ve seen here in the past two weeks, the only one that was flagged as unusual in eBird was Stilt Sandpiper. Go figure. That’s Florida birding.
Answer to the kite quiz: the six North American kites are Mississippi, Snail, White-tailed, Swallow-tailed, Double-toothed, and Hook-billed. Give yourself a gold star if you got all six of them, and a silver star if you got at least four.