Howdy, friends. This week I thought we would take a break from our tour of the barbets to check in on another bird. Our bird is the black caracara, a member of the falcon family native to riparian landscapes in South America. Specifically, (deep breath), it can be found in the Amazon river basin in Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela. It generally sticks to lowlands, not being found above altitudes of around 900 m (2,950 ft).
The black caracara is an opportunistic feeder, and will eat just about anything it comes across. In addition expected prey like frogs, lizards, nuts and fruits, it will also eat vegetation, insects, eggs and nestlings of other birds, and carrion. That last would explain its vulture-adjacent countenance. It needs a head clean of feathers so that nothing sticks to it when it’s getting all up in a dead animal. As a result of this wide-ranging diet, caracaras are known to attack the nests of other birds rather than relying on guile to secure such prey, and show no fear of humans when scavenging near them. Their strategy with fish shows a little more finesse, they will walk along rocks or vegetation near running water, hoping to find a narrow and/or shallow chokepoint where fish will get caught up and make easier prey. Finally, and I’m glad I was able to include a picture, our bird this week has a mutualistic relationship with a number of larger animals, on which it perches to feed on insects infesting the larger host. I originally wrote that this relationship is symbiotic, but further nerd-ery resulted in my learning that mutualistic relationships are a subset of symbiotic ones. Apparently symbiotic relationships encompass relationships where both animals benefit, ones where one benefits and the other neither benefits nor is harmed, and ones where one benefits and the other is harmed, which is parasitism.
Black caracaras live alone or in small family groups of three to five individuals. They prefer to live in gallery forests (forests along bodies of water) and open savanna. They tend to be found near water and/or human settlements, both of which provide good opportunities to snag a meal. They are also found in something called “degraded forest,” which is new to me. Unfortunately, its exactly what it sounds like, forest that have been degraded due to human activity such as mining, settlement expansion, and chopping down trees or other resource extraction. Reproductive behavior hasn’t been observed aside from a single instance of a nest made of twigs built 25m (82 ft) up in a tree.
The black caracara is considered “of least concern” by the IUCN on account of its gargantuan native range. Its population is said to be stable despite environmental pressures in its habitat, it is considered “common within its range,” although as usual, these assessments strike me as pretty informal. New birds are back! Have a good weekend, everybody. Be kind to yourselves and others.
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