Swamp Angels: A Family of Limpkins

By William Martin and Carolyn Aidman

Swamp Angels: A Family of Limpkins is the true story of one family of limpkins. These rare and fascinating birds live along fresh water in Florida and the tropics. They feed on snails and are famous for their strange and wonderful calls. The limpkin family - Waylon, Olympia, Angelina and Luigi - are at the center of the story and action. An intimate photographic journal illustrates the life history of this limpkin family.
The story begins with the arrival of South American apple snails, followed by the limpkins, to a swampy lake in Florida. The adult limpkins found each other in the darkness through eerie and astonishing calls, and a month later the chicks hatched. Both parents together raised the five charming babies. The story tells about the disappearance of three chicks and follows the two surviving young birds as they grow up and start families. As the story is told, there are also comparisons among the natural histories of snails, limpkins and humans.
Swamp Angels can be read aloud while enjoying the photographs and the writing style is meant to make the story enjoyable for both young readers and adults. The story, and the appendix, Mo Science, are at the fourth grade reading level. The appendix contains additional science, curious things about limpkins, snails and humans, as well as questions to encourage thinking and imagination. The manuscript was reviewed for scientific accuracy by biologist and limpkin expert Dana Bryan, PhD.

• Language: English
• Publisher: William Martin
• Release date: Mar 13, 2020
• ISBN: 9780463631188

William Martin

The book Swamp Angels: A Family of Limpkins started with the photographs. I live in North Florida on a lake next to a huge woods. The lake is filled with weeds and wildlife: turtles, fish, alligators, frogs, snakes, mud puppies. Some times there are eagles, ospreys, anhingas, beavers, otters, deers, raccoons, turkeys, foxes, armadillos, wild hogs. For about 5 years I took many rolls of film with my first good camera, a Canon A 2e with a Canon telephoto lens. It took gorgeous photos. I am an inexperienced amateur, and often the light was dim, or I wiggled the camera, or the canoe rocked, or the critters came right at me and the telephoto would not focus. I did see wonderful things following wildlife around the lake but many photos were not sharp. Most of the pictures were taken with Fuji 600 film and look great on a well printed page. Very warm colors.So my dear friend Carolyn Aidman was looking at the photos about the limpkin family, placed in chronological order. She said that it would make a good children's book. I said fine, but only if she would be my partner. Many years pass. Voila. We both have done some writing and editing but this was very hard in every way. We both have always loved nature, and I was a biology major for two years, but neither of us has a deep knowledge of science. We got great help from limpkin expert Dana Bryan PHD, who lives in my town of Tallahassee. He reviewed the manuscript for scientific accuracy and also added more interesting facts about limpkins.It is a wonderful world.William Martin

Book preview

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