I Love Limpkins!

I don’t know why, but these unique and crazy birds are just cool to me. With that said, I’ve not photographed them for a decade. Not for the lack of trying, they just aren’t common until you find the location where they are common and then they are everywhere. This morning, they were EVERYWHERE!

So I come up to the group and they’re shooting the last of the White Pelicans lifting off the water (remember, that was the goal for the morning). I then notice this Limpkin flying in with something big in its bill. It’s got a snail, a big ass snail too boot. I get over to where it landed to catch this lovely scene. In my mind, I was just excited to get glass on a Limpkin again.

Then it flew off to a bank and at first, went behind some scrub giving up no shot. So it went from bad to worse, typical wildlife photography scenario. Then, it flew out to this floating debris mat and performed. It was great! It whacked the snail, yanked on it until finally the animal was pulled out of the shell.

The light, not so hot. The shutter speed, not as fast as I would have liked to freeze some of the motion. But it ended up being a ton of fun for just five minutes. We went out for White Pelicans and I ended up photographing 11 species in less than an hour and some images are just down right cool. I’ll take a morning like that anytime! Am I heading back to this locale for more? Hell yeah, I’ll bring our FL Base Camp here, it’s a killer spot. Where’s here? That’s for me to know and to tell you next month

Photo captured by D3x, 600VR on Lexar UDMA digital film