Rio Grande Valley Wildlife

By STEVE SINCLAIR

The caracara was a king among paupers. It was striking, elegant and a welcomed discovery.

Since, caracaras have become one of my favorite raptors.

They are also one of, if not the most, unusual raptor in the Rio Grande Valley.

For one thing, they will either predate or eat carrion. For another, they have longer legs than other area raptors and spend a good deal of their time on the ground. Thirdly, they have the most intriguing sound of all raptors. They tilt their head back and make a strange rattling sound. That noise is how they got their name.

Although they slightly resemble a bald eagle, they are actually falcons. But they also have bare faces like that of vultures, which allows them to stay relatively clean as they eat carrion.

Caracaras are found in the Valley, Coastal Bend, Hill Country, southern Arizona and a small pocket of Florida in the United States. They are also found throughout Mexico, Central America and northern part of South America.

Caracaras construct stick nests in trees, yuccas, cactus or on the ground. Females lay two to three eggs. Incubation lasts 28 to 32 days. Fledging takes three months, but young birds will often stay with their parents for extended periods.

Diets consist of just about anything they can swallow — fish, eggs, insects, worms, eggs, crabs, reptiles, amphibians, small mammals and, of course, carrion.

Caracaras are also thiefs. Several times I’ve seen them steal fish from ospreys and compete with turkey and black vultures for carrion.

For the most part, you don’t think of birds of prey as flocking birds, but a friend told me she once saw 12 caracaras dining on a feral hog carcass in the eastern part of Cameron County.

Despite loss of habitat, the caracara population in the United States appears stable.