Kite – Jeremy Meyer Photography

Lake Okeechobee

I have been on vacation for a while in Florida and one of my main target birds this year was Snail Kite. I saw a couple last year while I was here, but very brief views and no photos. I tried several of the known locations for them right away but was unsuccessful. I finally found a female at Torry Island, in Bella Grade on the south side of Lake Okeechobee. I was talking to a local woman about a Painted x Indigo Bunting, when it flew up from the marshy area. I saw the general area where it landed, so I walked over to and climbed the observation tower to scan for it. After a few minutes, I finally found it sitting really low to the water, but it was at least 200 yards away. Of course, it was on the south side of me, sitting in terrible light. After a few minutes, it flew down to a stump in the water and then again quickly flew and grabbed a snail. It took the snail and flew to another perch and started eating it. This was a really slow process and since it was further away, I gave up watching after 40 minutes or so. This area was also hosting a beautiful male Vermilion Flycatcher and two Tropical Kingbirds. Both of those birds were life birds for me, so I focused on them for a little while. I came back to the observation tower after, and the Snail Kite was still in the same spot and hadn’t moved. I guess I didn’t miss anything to fun. Below are the photos from that day. Enjoy!

Lake Tohopekaliga

A couple weeks later, we took an airboat tour on Lake Tohopekaliga, with Boggy Creek Airboat Adventures. I didn’t bring my equipment with me, as I thought it just going to be a fun boat ride. Well, that was a huge mistake! We saw 6 Snail Kites, which like most birds in Florida are extremely tame. We got within 75′ of a female sitting on a post hunting, in a large, loud airboat! The captain turned off the boat and explained to the others what bird it was and that it’s endangered. I couldn’t believe it, best view I ever had and no camera, unbelievable! After the tour, I talked with our boat captain, and he suggested I do a private tour just for the Snail Kites. So that’s what we did. I booked it for the following day, early in the morning, to get the best possible light. It was amazing and well worth it, if you are interested in getting up close and personal to them. On the private tour we saw 8, including two males, one of which posed beautifully for me. I highly suggest doing one if you’re down ever down that way. Photos below are from the private airboat tour. Enjoy!

Snail Kite information

I’ve included a few links with more information about them.

Everglade snail kite | FWC (myfwc.com)

Snail Kite | Audubon Florida

Snail Kite Overview, All About Birds, Cornell Lab of Ornithology

I spent a few days in Crex Meadows at the end of June. I went up to try for the White-tailed Kite that had been seen, along with some of the northern butterflies that I won’t get in the Milwaukee area. I attempted to find the kite first. I didn’t see it on my first pass around the pump house, where it was hanging out in a group of tamaracks. I saw some storms headed my way in the distance, so I went looking for butterflies, before the sun disappeared. Once it started raining, I thought I would swing back through and see if it was out yet. I got back over by the tamaracks and to my surprise, there it was! It was sitting lower, about halfway up in a tree and was facing the rain with it’s wings spread out. I sat there for about an hour, waiting out the rain. When it finally stopped, it went up to the top of the tree and was drying off and preening. Then the kite flew across the road and started hunting, hovering over the bog. It went down and came up with something, which looked like a small rodent of some type. It took its catch out to a very small bush in the bog and ate it. Then it flew back across the street to the tamaracks. It always returned to the same one, on the west side of them, that appeared to be broken off at the top. This time it stayed there for about 30 minutes and then flew across the street to hunt again. Within minutes, it caught something and repeated exactly what it did last time. When it flew back over to the tamaracks this time, I took off and went to look for butterflies. I had watched it for several hours and it that was good enough for me. It seemed very comfortable and ate at least two rodents in the time I was there.

I came back the next day and actually kept an eBird list for the day, even though the majority of it was spent chasing butterflies. I ended up with 95 species for the entire day, across about 15 miles of the wildlife area. The White-tailed Kite was in the same tree, every time I looked for it. I was even able to point it out to several other people who didn’t even know about it. I thought that was pretty cool. I spent many hours on Main Dike Rd that day, because the butterflies were insane! I ended up with 39 species of butterfly as well! I will include a link to the butterfly sighting, that shows what species I saw, for those of you that are interested in them. Pictures below are from the couple days I spent up there. Enjoy!

Sighting for June 29 — wisconsinbutterflies.org