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

As an expert hawk counter, David Brown has seen a whole lot of raptors—and fantasized about much more. “You’re all the time dreaming about a few of the uncommon stuff which 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 acquired a uncommon hen 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 one among solely a handful of information within the historical past of the USA.

“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 unattainable.’”

Brown says he shortly made the “govt determination” to close down the hawk depend for the day, and inside an hour, he joined the group of giddy observers scattered throughout the transport yard. On the heart 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, working 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 have been or what they seemed like.”

Brown isn’t alone. Till very just lately, 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 called a extra southerly species, a resident frequent from Panama to Uruguay. There’s a good cause the omnivore is omitted from each North American area 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 have been deemed escapees from captivity.)

Up 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 file, 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. At this time, it feels that the following caracara may seem at anywhere, at any time.

This inflow might appear to have occurred virtually in a single day, however the spate of sightings continues a decades-long northward vary enlargement going down properly south of the Rio Grande, says Audubon area 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 tons of 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 appropriate 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 a lot 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 hen’s invoice, it’s in all probability 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 selecting 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 might 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 seemingly 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 yr and continued to be sighted into late 2025.

The Delaware hen was much less persistent, vanishing after only some days. Nonetheless, the file is a reminder that the long-necked, broad-winged, wedge-tailed raptor may materialize wherever. Hopeful birders might need 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 prospects.”