Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, but we will continue
to talk about it anyways. Today’s topic are the falcons, including the great
peregrine, and its’ cousin, the prairie falcon, but right now we will approach
the falcons from the other end of the spectrum – the crested caracara.
What is a caracara? It is a genus of birds in the falcon
family and order; right now, there are two species of these birds – the northern
and southern caracaras; both are crested, which is why the term ‘crested
caracara’ is somewhat outdated and is not used too much anymore, especially by
the scientists. Both of the bird species have crests; the southern caracara
lives only in South America, while its’ northern counterpart is found from the
northern South America to Central America, to parts of southern U.S. There was
a third species of those birds, the so-called Guadalupe caracara, but it died
out around 1900, so let us not talk about it for now.
Behavioristically… the caracaras are like the anti-falcons:
they fly only when they have a clear designated goal before them, and
otherwise, they prefer to spend their time on food. They are carnivores, of
course, but whereas the falcons usually prefer to feed on other birds, (the
hawks have a more mixed diet), the caracara has a much wider diet, and the northern
species even eats fruits on occasion; the southern caracara – not so much. More
usually, though, the northern caracara is a scavenger rather than a hunter, (and
much ado had been made about the peregrine not
eating carrion, as a rule), which makes it rather vulture-like in behavior.
This brings us back to the king vulture. Why? Because a
certain William Bartram, an American naturalist, (1739-1832) has written and
depicted about a bird of prey that – on the illustration – resembles a king
vulture, save for a differently colored tail, but in text is more like the
northern caracara instead, and here lies the conundrum. If we accept the possibility
that the bird is a king vulture, then we have to accept that Mr. Bartram hadn’t
talked about the northern caracara at all, and that doesn’t add up, because as
far as scavengers go, the king vulture is a tropical bird, one that doesn’t
come up to the U.S. at all, (unlike the American black and the turkey vultures,
let alone the California condor), whereas the northern caracara does. And-?
And nothing; the paragraph above was aimed to show how
convoluted and tangled the avian I.D. can be, even in the modern times, what
with the modern technology and all, and back then, when everything depended
primarily on the human eye – even moreso. In addition, that before we return to
the fact that the caracaras are some of the least falcon-like falcons that have
existed, (since the late Pleistocene epoch). Anything else?
Yes. Aside from caracara the genus, there is also caracara
the family, which contains five genera of birds of prey that belong to the
falcon group, and all of which are called caracaras; the term ‘crested caracara’
applies to only 2 living and several extinct species of the caracara genus, but
as far as species go, many of South American birds of prey that aren’t eagles
or vultures are called caracaras – about 10 species in total, and while they
look somewhat similar to each other, they have plenty of differences too. That
said, the separation of the black caracara and the red-throated one into two
separate genera happened fairly recently, so there is that.
This brings us briefly back to the vultures. Do you remember
when we have discussed the American black vulture, and briefly mentioned the cinereous
vulture and the red-headed one, because they were also both called black
vultures in the past? Well, the red-headed vulture was also called the king
vulture in the past, but now this term is applied only to the American species
instead, because of reasons…
Ah well, for now this is it. See you all soon instead!
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