I've spent the last couple of days photographing Snail Kites from my boat with a group of other photographers. Today we witnessed a flight display that I had seen many times before, but I did not understand it's purpose. Many times I have seen the Male Snail Kites flap their wings in an exaggerated way, sort of like a human's arms when swimming the breast stroke. This is followed by a rearing up so that the bird is flying almost straight up. Then the kite turns over and dives almost straight down. This is often done repeatedly. One of the photographers on my boat was well known raptor photographer Ned Harris. Ned informed me that this behavior is very likely a courtship display. Thanks Ned for teaching me something new about the Snail Kites. The image you see here is from the diving down part of the courtship display.
Osceola county, FL - 1D3, 500mm+1.4xTC, hand held from boat, 1/2000, F7.1, ISO 800, manual exposure (EV metered on green vegetation @ 0.







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