Snail Kite

A generalist can remain somewhat detached from their environment, but can never fully exploit a specific opportunity. The specialist, on the other hand, can dominate their niche, but in doing so they become inextricably connected to it. The snail kite is an extreme avian specialist. They feed almost exclusively on apple snails, their sharp bills curved perfectly to extract the mollusks from their shells. This adult male, perched stoically in the afternoon downpour, depends on the tropical rain soaking his head feathers to fill the marsh beneath him. It is the shallow marsh that creates an ideal habitat for the baseball-sized snails that are his primary food source, while also sustaining the rainforest. It is the forest that returns the rain to the sky through the respiration of the trees, enables the water cycle, and stops the Panama Canal’s water source, Gatun Lake, from filling with run-off. The rain sustains the rainforest, and the rainforest sustains the rain, which sustains the marsh, snails, lake, canal, snail kites, and people—intricate, connected, interdependent, and beautiful.