Title: Snail Kite (Rostrhamus sociabilis)
Artist:
Chris Augusta
Image size: 8 1/2 " x 10 1/2 "
Media: pastel
Date: 2003
Collection of the artist
As its name indicates, this bird eats snails.
It prefers freshwater snails of the genus Pomacea,
and hunts for them over vegetation-dotted, open-water patches,
or along the edges of shallow lakes, ponds, and ephemeral
wetlands, or along the banks of shallow rivers and other
waterways. When it finds a snail it hovers just above the
water and grabs it with its talons at or just below surface.
It rarely even gets its belly feathers wet. Back at its
feeding perch, the bird snips the meat free of its shell
in a process that takes up to seven minutes. The birds will
switch prey species following drought conditions and when
weather is cold enough to make snails scarce. It is known
to steal food from Limpkins (Aramus guarauna) in
Belize, take freshwater crabs (Dilocarcinus dentatus)
in Venezuela,and Marisa snails (M. cornuarietis)
in Colombia.
The artist
notes: "The Snail Kite
has one of the most specialized diets of any bird of prey.
I'd often see them perched near ponds in the savannahs of
Belize, areas increasingly at risk from agricultural expansion,
population growth, pollution, and development projects."
In
Florida, about half of the range of this Endangered Species
has been lost since the early 1900s.
