The Snail Kite is named because its diet consists almost entirely of Apple Snails. They glide low and slow over marshes, and drop to pick up a snail with one foot from the surfaces of water or plants. They are believed to turn to alternative food sources only when Apple Snails become scarce, such as during drought.
Going to do a series of northeast us bird appreciation posts so....
Chimney Swifts!
You'd usually find unique birds in a forest, but towns and cities are these guys' forests! They dart around the tops of buildings so high in the sky and chittering so energetically!! They fly like little boomerangs! You hear their noise and look up and they are there!!
Swooping and gliding and flapping and chirping.... the life of a tiny little arrow in the sky....
This is an intriguing bird for you: the killdeer. It's a robin-sized plover that lives away from the shore. I believe I was at a tennis court in Manassas, Virginia, when I took these pictures.
And here's another instance of distinctive behavior (final image): the killdeer will feign injury—the so-called broken-wing distraction display—to lure predators away from the nest or young. The bird is on the nest in first image; see four eggs in the second image.
Three images by Richard Koenig: taken late 1980s or early 1990s.
The Birdwatcher is a Dirt Shark that resides in Motleyville in Skylanders: Swap Force. As his name suggests, he is an expert at birdwatching. He informed the Skylanders about the Evilized Whiskers that landed nearby.