Spirit of the Swamp Airboat Tours

Wood Stork, Snowy Egret, Snail Kite and More!

Chris Smith from the UK and his family took an airboat ride with us last week… and he sent some beautiful photographs that I’ll be sharing with you over the next couple of days. 

Today’s photos are of the endangered Snail Kite and Wood Stork.  The Wood Stork favors marshes and swamps – perfect habitat for an airboat ride!  You won’t believe all of the beautiful birds you’ll be able to photograph while on an airboat tour!

Click on the photos below for a larger view!

Although the Snail Kite is endangered, we see quite a few of them on our airboat tours in Lake Toho… in fact these rare birds have a protected nesting site that is one of the only areas of its kind in the world.   We see the Snail Kite being observed and monitored by biologists and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission almost weekly and take care to avoid the marked nesting areas.

While on our airboat tours, we’ve seen snail kites with bands on their legs and we’ve even spotted one snail kite with a transmitter on its back!  That’s right a transmitter… which even has a small antenna sticking up; I wonder how it flies with that on its back, or even how the biologists managed to affix it to the back of the bird!

These birds are raptors, like eagles or ospreys, and have a keen sense of vision and a curved beak which is perfect for eating snails out of their shells and our passengers find them fascinating.  Here’s a cool photo of a snail kite with a snail in its talons:

Definitely spring is in the air… besides the beautiful smell of Florida orange blossoms.  On our airboat tours we’re seeing all the critters in the swamps and marshes pairing up.  I suppose they also have a case of spring fever – we’ve seen more gators in pairs than we ever have before (mating season is just around the corner).  I guess the bull (male) gators are looking for a relationship at this stage of the game.

We’ve also seen the endangered snail kites with twigs and branches in their beaks flying into the cattails to build their nests.  According to one biologist, the snail kites are a little late in nesting this year, but several have already laid their eggs and a few hatchlings have been spotted.

The Sandhill Cranes are in twos as well – did you know that they mate for life?  And the Osceola Turkeys are just magnificent as the Toms (males) strut their stuff for the ladies (hens).  Yes, spring is in the air in the Central Florida Everglades and it’s a great time to take an airboat ride!