Limpkin with Apple Snail, Ritch Grissom Memorial Wetlands, FL

Ritch Grissom Memorial Wetlands in Viera Florida is a fairly reliable place to see Limpkin…a rare and local bird…highly specialized on a diet of Apple Snails. You only find Limpkin in healthy fresh water marsh where the snails live. I watch this Limpkin successfully find and devour 20 snails in as many minutes. That bill is specially designed to find the snail in the mud, and then hook the snail out of its shell for eating. You find the empty Apple Snail shells along the edge of the marsh, and you know a Limpkin has been working the area. This photo was taken on a darkish day at Viera, and pushed the limits of the Sony camera. Still!

Sony HX400V at 588mm equivalent field of view. Shutter preferred. 1/500th @ ISO 3200 @ f5.6. Processed in Lightroom on my Surface Pro 3 tablet.