March is traditionally kite flying season so I guess it’s appropriate that I’m returning to Florida next March to photograph Snail Kites! I love Florida Snail Kites and photographing them from an airboat piloted by an extraordinary captain who knows the birds and knows how to keep perfect pace with them while we photograph them is an absolutely magical thing to do. This endangered Everglades bird has been brought back from the verge of extinction both through the efforts of conservationists and through its own amazing very recent evolution. When the Florida Snail Kite’s diet, the Apple Snail began to disappear and a larger, Brazilian Apple Snail invaded the waters where these Kites live, an extraordinary thing happened. The bills of these birds, whose diet is almost exclusively Apple Snails, began to change within a decade or so to adapt to the larger Apple Snail so they could easily extract the snail from its shell. These birds are a remarkable example of survival of the fittest.