COMMON NAME: Crested Caracara
SCIENTIFIC NAME: Polyborus plancus
IDENTIFYING CHARACTERISTICS
The crested caracara is also known as the southern caracara, common caracara, and Mexican eagle. In scientific classification, the caracaras are grouped with falcons, although they share few, if any, of their visible physical and behavioral characteristics.
The adult is very distinct. It has a large, compressed, and strongly hooked bill. Its legs are long, its talons thin and blunt. Its wings are long, ample, and somewhat blunt; its flight, direct, purposeful, raven-like with noisy wing beats. It rarely soars. On the pampas it flies to groves of trees to roost.
Its voice is a harsh, grating call of alarm or protest -- “trak-trak-trak” -- sometimes a shriek. During the breeding season it takes a conspicuous perch and utters a “quick-quick-quick-quick-querrr.” The first syllables are uttered rapidly, but the last is drawn out and at the same time the head is tossed far back so that the crown nearly touches the shoulders. It is this call that gives the bird its name, caracara. Most other caracaras have a similar performance.
In South America there is wide overlap with the chimango (Milvago chimango) and slight overlap in the mountains with caracaras of the Phalcoboenus genus, and there may be confusion among the immatures. It can be distinguished from the chimango by its larger size, more robust build and heavier, more direct flight. Adults can be distinguished from those of Phalcoboenus by the very different plumage pattern and by the streaked plumage and black crown.
RANGE
Found in central and southern Florida, southern Texas, southern Arizona south to Tierra del Fuego, Cuba, Isle of Pines, and the Falkland Islands. Although it is usually seen at low elevations, in the Andes it has been seen at up to 8,000 or 9,000 feet. In North America it is strictly tropical or sub-tropical, but frequents colder areas in the southern continent.
HABITAT
It prefers open or semi-open country, either arid or well watered.
NESTING
The nest is a large informal structure of sticks, often unlined, but sometimes lined with dry dung and trash including bones and pieces of dried skin. The eggs lay in a deep cup lined with a felted mass of pellets ejected by the parents. The nests are often re-used. They are placed in dense branches of trees, cacti or among palm fronds. In the treeless pampas it will nest on the ground, sometimes on an island in a marsh. It will also nest under overhanging rocks in treeless deserts. When the nest is visited the parents may hover or sit about, giving harsh, grating calls. The male serves as a lookout, on a conspicuous perch near the nest, but often leaves when danger approaches.
The caracara lays two or three eggs between November and February. The incubation period is about 28 days, the young remaining in the nest for another 8-12 weeks. Both members of the pair participate in all phases of nest life, including incubation.
FEEDING HABITS
The caracara’s feeding habits can be described as extremely opportunistic. It exists both as a scavenger and as a predator. It will eat all sorts of animal matter and all classes of vertebrates, insects, and worms.
Its long legs and flat claws enable it to walk, run around, or scratch for food, almost like a chicken. It uses its feet to turn over branches or cakes of dried cow droppings in search of beetles and to scratch for insects, caterpillars and worms rather like a hen. At dusk, it has been seen walking carefully in water three or four inches deep, peering under the leaves of floating plants, presumably in search of frogs. It comes to dead livestock with vultures, although when the carcase is quite old it is mostly interested in insects. When eating small dead mammals or birds, it holds them down with one foot and pulls them to pieces with its coarse bill.
Very partial to dead or dying fish, it also has been known to bring many small mud turtles to its nest, carrying them in the bill. It digs out turtle eggs, apparently after watching them lay. It also takes dung beetles, hard-shelled worms and other large invertebrates. It pirates food from weaker individuals of its own species, and also robs pelicans of fish. It even on occasion forces vultures to disgorge their prey by piratical attacks. It carries food in the bill, sometimes in the feet; and has been known to harass other birds up to the size of a hawk until the latter drops its food.
Information courtesy of The Hawk Conservancy Trust, http://www.hawk-conservancy.org/