This Roaming Raptor Has Been Surprising U.S. Birders—and More Could Be on the Way

As knowledgeable hawk counter, David Brown has seen quite a lot of raptors—and fantasized about much more. “You’re all the time dreaming about among the uncommon stuff that may present up,” Brown says.

On the damp, gloomy morning of November 19, although, he would have fortunately taken a Crimson-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 information; he tallied solely eight individual raptors in additional than 4 hours of statement.

That made it all of the extra stunning when he obtained a uncommon hen alert late that morning in a bunch 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 one in every of solely a handful of data within the historical past of the US.

“This hen flew by, and I knew instantly what it was within the first millisecond,” Morgens advised the Birding Community E-Bulletin. “And the second millisecond, I assumed ‘that’s completely inconceivable.’”

Brown says he shortly made the “government choice” to close down the hawk depend for the day, and inside an hour, he joined the group of giddy observers scattered throughout the delivery 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 1000’s of miles north of its anticipated vary, the caracara appeared proper at house. It even appeared wanting to discover the native delicacies, operating throughout the roof of a Philly cheesesteak meat producer on its sturdy 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 hen, I wouldn’t have recognized what the sphere marks had been or what they appeared like.”

Brown isn’t alone. Till very not too long ago, the species was a seeming impossibility for North American birders. Intently associated to the bigger Crested Caracara of the southern United States and extra distantly linked to falcons, the Yellow-headed Caracara is named a extra southerly species, a resident widespread from Panama to Uruguay. There’s a good cause 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, nonetheless, 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 a number of other extra from Florida. And now, Delaware. Right this moment, it feels that the subsequent caracara might seem at anywhere, 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 growth happening properly south of the Rio Grande, says Audubon discipline editor Kenn Kaufman. Because the Seventies, he notes, Yellow-headed Caracaras have slowly crept up throughout Central America from their historic vary in Panama, increasing a whole lot of miles north into Nicaragua and Honduras. More moderen data in southern Mexico, Jamaica, and the Dominican Republic point out that the birds proceed to wander.

What’s behind the growth? Kaufman suspects a standard trigger: newfound entry to acceptable habitat. “Yellow-headed Caracara is an open-country species, and I’m certain 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 bother discovering loads to eat. The species has a remarkably numerous food plan. Smaller birds, fish, bugs, road-killed crocodiles, horse dung, rubbish—if it could possibly match within the hen’s invoice, it’s most likely dinner. Yellow-headed Caracaras are as comfy snacking on fruit and corn—an uncommon habits 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 change into considerably extra common guests to the southern United States. Within the close to time period, although, sighting of the species will doubtless stay uncommon. Luckily for hopeful observers, a number of of the caracaras have confirmed fairly comfy 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 hen was much less persistent, vanishing after only some days. Nonetheless, the document is a reminder that the long-necked, broad-winged, wedge-tailed raptor might materialize wherever. Hopeful birders could need to focus their efforts round delivery 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 house or sky simply would possibly do.

Hawk counter Brown has discovered that lesson. “I wouldn’t have excessive hopes to get one,” he says. “But it surely’s definitely on the checklist of potentialities.”