Snail garden
View allAll Photos Tagged snail
(Rostrhamus sociabilis) It looks like we won't be able to visit the US for some time yet and we're missing our trips to Florida! I thought I would post a few more pics from our last trip in Oct 2019.
Lots of small snail on the Oak leaves yesterday. I didn't notice the damage to this one until I was processing the image.
Imagine this small harbor in Michigan's Upper Peninsula about 140 years ago. There would have been lumberjacks cutting hundred-year old White Cedar trees, stone cutters fashioning blocks of dolomite from the cliffs, with crews bringing the logs and stone to the bustling town of Fayette at this shoreline. That would have been the beehive of activity, building the company town of Fayette, with furnaces to produce charcoal that fired the furnaces for extracting iron from the ore taken from nearby mines.
Today, Fayette is a "ghost town" that has been restored and maintained as a Michigan State Historical Park.
Snail Kite ~ (Rostrhamus sociabilis)
A Snail Kite in flight with nesting material.
Thanks for visiting!
Historically, snail kites were found from the Everglades to just southeast of Tallahassee, but wetland drainage and development eliminated or altered its shallow freshwater foraging habitat
Generally, the species is somewhat nomadic, moving from wetland to wetland in search of snails, but they are regularly seen in the marshes associated with lakes Kissimmee, Okeechobee and Tohopekaliga, at the Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge, water conservation areas (Everglades), and even along stretches of the Tamiami Trail.
The Florida snail kite is aptly named - it feeds almost exclusively on apple snails and, in the United States, is found only in Florida.
The species was listed as endangered in 1967. Today, the population is considered to be stable, but extremely vulnerable to the stresses of habitat loss, prolonged droughts and anything that affects the availability of apple snails, its primary food.
Snail kites breed from December to August and lay an average of three eggs in bulky nests built in a variety of wetland trees, shrubs and emergent vegetation. During the nesting season, the birds are usually found singly or in pairs; in winter, they often roost together in communal groups.
Lucky observers will witness the snail kite in action, as it searches for its prey by flying low over shallow freshwater marshes scattered with shrubs and trees. When it spots a snail, it swoops down, extends its legs into the water and briefly hovers while it grasps the snail with its talons. While still in flight or after landing on a nearby perch, the kite uses its thin, hooked bill to pull the snail from its shell.
I found this Male perched in a Sable Palm along the shore of Lake Kissimmee, at Joe Overstreet Landing.
Taken at the bottom of the beautiful spiral staircase at Heal's Department Store on Tottenham Court Road in London.
The snail couldn’t run from me & I put it on this pomegranate to take a few pics with my phone. I then let the snail go in my yard & sliced up the pomegranate.
Our garden is filled with these little snails at the moment - you can see their trails everywhere, but they find shady spots to hide in the daytime. This one was overturned on the path... I set him upright after taking the picture, before he suffered too much in the sunshine :).
I played with Nik Efex again with this one, using the analog plug in. I've been going through a LOT of vintage photographs recently, so this effect looks pretty normal to me at the moment!
Many thanks for looking - it's always appreciated :).
Grove snail (Cepaea nemoralis) climbing a curb.
Wstężyk gajowy (Cepaea nemoralis) wspinający się na krawężnik.
Snail Kite ~ (Rostrhamus sociabilis)
A male Snail Kite comes in for a landing with a nice size Apple Snail. If you look below you can see the red snail eggs on the branch sticking up from the water.
Thanks for visiting!
France to put an end to the lockdown on Monday May 11th : don't you see that I'm champing at the bit ?
Zerene Stacker 120 subs. Two speed lights - snoot to the right and reflector bowl with grid about 30 degrees off-axis to left. The shell is 2.25 inches in greatest dimension.
We found this beautiful shell several years ago in Myakka State Park, which consists mostly of a freshwater marsh. My semi-educated guess is that this is an Apple Snail shell. The Florida apple snail is 2-3 inches in size, consistent with this specimen of 2.25 inches. There are four exotic species that are highly invasive, and are now widespread throughout freshwater ecosystems in Florida. They were introduced in the 1980s through the aquarium trade.
Snail Kite - Sani Lodge, Sucumbios, Ecuador
Bird Species (# 566) that I photographed and placed on my Flickr Photostream. Overall goal is 1000.
eBird Report and listing details - macaulaylibrary.org/asset/614858774