Snail Kite (Rostrhamus sociabilis)

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.

Snail Kite, near Humaitá, Amazonas, Brazil, March 2003 - click for larger image

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.

There are illustrations in HBW, Volume 2, Pages 74 and 114; Hilty & Brown, Plate 4; and Sick, Plate 7

Snail Kite, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, August 2004 - click for larger image

Female Snail Kite, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, August 2004 - click for larger image

Back to Index

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.