I have been photographing Snail Kites (North America's rarest bird of prey) regularly for about 5 years now, and I have seen and photographed pretty much all of their many interesting behaviors. I have tens of thousands of keeper Snail Kite images. Today I photographed a rare behavior for the first time. I have seen this behavior a couple of times, but not close enough to photograph it. During the Snail Kites courtship prior to nesting, the male will sometimes remove a snail from it's shell and then give the snail to the female. I have seen this when the male is perched and the female comes to him and gets the snail and I have also seen the male bring the snail to the perched female. Today I photographed a mid air presentation of the snail. The male did a courtship flight with the snail in his bill and then the female flew up to him and he presented the snail to her in mid air. This behavior is very rare and almost never witnessed. As far as I know, this is the only occurance that has been photographed. I hope you like it. It made my day. 
I have also included a few other images that were made in the last week or so with the new Mark IV. Thanks for looking.
1. Mid Air Snail Exchange
2. Eastern Meadowlark Singing.
3. Portrait of a Male Double-crested Cormorant in Breeding Plumage.
4. Barred Owl Flight
5. Great Blue Heron Nesting Courtship
6. Great Egret Flight on Shadowed BG
7. Portrait of a Male Snail Kite
