As knowledgeable hawk counter, David Brown has seen a variety of raptors—and fantasized about much more. “You’re all the time dreaming about a few of the uncommon stuff that may present up,” Brown says.
On the damp, gloomy morning of November 19, although, he would have fortunately taken a Pink-tailed Hawk. There have been hardly any birds migrating previous Delaware’s Ashland Nature Center, the place Brown spends the autumn monitoring hawk actions to gather long-term inhabitants knowledge; he tallied solely eight individual raptors in additional than 4 hours of commentary.
That made it all of the extra shocking when he obtained a uncommon fowl alert late that morning in a gaggle chat. At an industrial park close to the port in close by Wilmington, Lauren Morgens, captain of the duplicate tall ship Kalmar Nyckel and an avid birder, had photographed a Yellow-headed Caracara, a gangly raptor native to open marshes and grasslands throughout a lot of South America. It was the primary East Coast sighting of the species north of Florida and certainly one of solely a handful of information within the historical past of america.
“This fowl flew by, and I knew instantly what it was within the first millisecond,” Morgens instructed the Birding Community E-Bulletin. “And the second millisecond, I assumed ‘that’s completely unattainable.’”
Brown says he shortly made the “govt resolution” to close down the hawk depend for the day, and inside an hour, he joined the gang of giddy observers scattered throughout the transport yard. On the middle of the fray stood a medium-sized, cream-colored raptor with a darkish mantle, an extended black-and-white tail, and a pinkish face. Regardless of being hundreds of miles north of its anticipated vary, the caracara appeared proper at house. It even appeared desirous to discover the native delicacies, working throughout the roof of a Philly cheesesteak meat producer on its robust grey legs.
Even Brown—ever the dreamer—was floored. “Yellow-headed Caracara by no means crossed my thoughts as one thing I’d come throughout,” he says. “Earlier than seeing this fowl, I wouldn’t have recognized what the sphere marks had been or what they seemed like.”
Brown isn’t alone. Till very just lately, the species was a seeming impossibility for North American birders. Carefully associated to the bigger Crested Caracara of the southern United States and extra distantly linked to falcons, the Yellow-headed Caracara is called a extra southerly species, a resident widespread from Panama to Uruguay. There’s a good purpose the omnivore is omitted from each North American discipline information: Previous to 2022, it had by no means been confirmed north of Guatemala. (Earlier sightings occurred in California and North Carolina, however these birds had been deemed escapees from captivity.)
Prior to now few years, nevertheless, the species appears to have been gripped by newfound wanderlust. The wave started when a single observer photographed a brown-spangled immature caracara close to Miami in November 2022—an eye-opening document, however one largely dismissed as a one-off curiosity. However then got here a sighting from California. And Texas. And several other extra from Florida. And now, Delaware. Right now, it feels that the following caracara may seem at anyplace, at any time.
Right now, it feels that the following caracara may seem at anyplace, at any time.
This inflow could appear to have occurred virtually in a single day, however the spate of sightings continues a decades-long northward vary enlargement happening properly south of the Rio Grande, says Audubon discipline editor Kenn Kaufman. For the reason that Nineteen Seventies, he notes, Yellow-headed Caracaras have slowly crept up throughout Central America from their historic vary in Panama, increasing a whole bunch of miles north into Nicaragua and Honduras. Newer information in southern Mexico, Jamaica, and the Dominican Republic point out that the birds proceed to wander.
What’s behind the enlargement? Kaufman suspects a typical trigger: newfound entry to acceptable habitat. “Yellow-headed Caracara is an open-country species, and I’m positive the clearing of forests in Central America had one thing to do with its unfold,” he says. Such habitat alteration has proved a boon to different species just like the White-tailed Kite, which has flourished as woodlands have been transformed into agricultural lands throughout the Americas.
Wherever caracaras roam, they shouldn’t have hassle discovering lots to eat. The species has a remarkably various weight-reduction plan. Smaller birds, fish, bugs, road-killed crocodiles, horse dung, rubbish—if it could match within the fowl’s invoice, it’s most likely dinner. Yellow-headed Caracaras are as snug snacking on fruit and corn—an uncommon conduct amongst raptors—as they’re perching on cattle and capybaras to feed on ticks, and even choosing flesh from an open wound on a cow’s again. With such egalitarian tastes, caracaras are well-equipped to persist wherever they discover themselves.
Ought to tendencies proceed, it appears believable that Yellow-headed Caracaras could someday grow to be considerably extra common guests to the southern United States. Within the close to time period, although, sighting of the species will doubtless stay uncommon. Thankfully for hopeful observers, a number of of the caracaras have confirmed fairly snug of their new houses: People in Texas and Florida have every caught round for properly over a 12 months and continued to be sighted into late 2025.
The Delaware fowl was much less persistent, vanishing after just a few days. Nonetheless, the document is a reminder that the long-necked, broad-winged, wedge-tailed raptor may materialize wherever. Hopeful birders could wish to focus their efforts round transport ports and coastal areas, which appear to be magnets for the wanderers—maybe a sign that some could also be hitching rides on northbound ships. However with the unpredictability of the push, any patch of open area or sky simply would possibly do.
Hawk counter Brown has discovered that lesson. “I wouldn’t have excessive hopes to get one,” he says. “However it’s actually on the listing of potentialities.”
