Aramus guarauna                                              Photo Travis Blunden ©

Limpkins are large, rather odd-looking marsh birds, with an extremely loud raucous voice. They look like a cross between an ibis and a crane and are said to get their name from their unsteady, limping gait. Limpkins feed mainly on Apple snails, which they find in shallow water and on floating vegetation. Favorite feeding spots are frequently marked with piles of empty snail shells.

If you look closely, you will see that the limpkins large, strong bill curves to the right and has a gap near the tip. The upper tip of the bill is knife-sharp, and the bird uses its bill like a paring knife to cut the attaching muscle of the Apple snails.

Though these birds can be quite tolerant of human activity, in Florida you are more likely to hear a limpkin rather than see one. Their loud, wild, wailing cries are mainly heard at night, and are often used for classic ‘wild animal’ sound effects. The call of the limpkin was used as the cry of the hippogriff in the movie “Harry Potter and the prisoner of Azkaban”

Florida is the northernmost part of the Limpkins geographical range – these birds are found through the Caribbean and Central America, south to Argentina.

Click here to see a limpkin feeding and calling:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtiH81l-9AI

top of page | back to birds