| Prior to my trip to Panama in August, 2003, I had only seen Snail Kite once before, in Florida's Everglades, where the bird is rare and extremely endangered. So I was delighted when, on a boat trip in Lago Gatún (the freshwater lake surrounding the Panama Canal), I found hundreds of this species, enjoying a protected environment and an abundance of apple snails. The individual pictured below allowed us to float by at close range, as I struggled to keep my camera steady. |
| In his 1965 work, The Birds of the Republic of Panamá, Part 1, Alexander Wetmore, in his species account for what was then known as "Everglade Kite", refers to the species as "rare", and only known from a specimen collected in San Blas. Wetmore did bird the Canal area extensively, and his failure to even mention sight reports of the species suggests that the bird truly was rare at the time. The subsequent colonization of the area in only 40 years, to the point of abundance, is a wonderful, hopeful sign of recovery for a species that is otherwise in decline. |
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