2/18/2024 0 Comments All about birds mississippi kiteOthers are acrobatic hunters, even briefly hanging upside down to capture a snail in an awkward spot. Some kites search for snails from the air, passing low over the treetops. They often have favored perches for cracking, leaving behind telltale piles of shells under the tree. In this manner, a kite can consume many snails in a short period of time. They then insert the hooked tip of the bill (on the upper mandible) into the shell, cracking it open. They take the snail with the bill, then pass it to the left foot, holding it tightly to the perch, usually a tree limb. To locate snails, the kites jump from limb to limb inside a tree canopy. Hook-billed Kites eat mostly tree snails, along with smaller amounts of insects, aquatic snails, crabs, frogs, and salamanders. From Mexico to Argentina, Hook-billed Kites occur in lowland rainforest, especially edges near water or clearings, but also in dry coastal forest, thorn forest, and up into the lower temperate zone of the Andes, even over 10,000 feet elevation in Bolivia and Colombia. The kites often stay close to the river, but sometimes perch in drier mesquite habitats. Tree species here include Montezuma bald cypress, Sabal palm, Texas wild olive, live oak, tenaza, guajillo, tepeguaje, Rio Grande ash, Mexican leadtree, southern hackberry, black willow, retama, anacua, Texas ebony, granjeno, cedar elm, Wright’s catclaw, and honey mesquite. In their very small range in southern Texas, they are restricted to a 100-mile stretch along the Rio Grande where habitat is still intact and snails often abundant. They are nomadic, moving into areas to feed on booming snail populations, and then moving on when drought or other factors cause snails to become scarce. Across their large range in the Americas, Hook-billed Kites occur mainly along wooded streams and in lowland rainforest.
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