Crested Caracara

Carancho

Polyborus plancus

Length: 540mm (male), 600mm (female). Sexes alike. Bill light bluish; cere, naked skin in face and lores orange; iris chestnut brown; forehead, crown and nape dark brown; nape feathers are long forming a crest; sides of head and cheeks ochraceous yellow; chin and throat whitish; neck ochraceous yellow finely barred with undulating dark brown stripes; breast and upper back dark brown barred with yellowish to whitish buff; scapulars brown with buffy bands; lower back, rump and uppertail coverts whitish barred with brown; rectrices whitish with broad dark brown terminal band and narrow transversal brown banding. Flanks and abdomen dark brown; undertail coverts whitish with brown barring. Lesser and median wing coverts dark brown; greater coverts brown with whitish buff barring in the outer vexillum; secondaries dark brown with thin buffy brown bands; primaries whitish with thin dark brown bands and dark brown tips; underwing coverts and axillaries dark brown. Legs orange.

Juveniles: brown cap; sides of head and foreneck brownish buff; overall coloration is a lighter and duller brown than in adults and in the breast they show broad brownish buff streaking on a brown background; the bill is grey, cere and naked part of head pink; legs grey.

In the coastal region of the province of Chubut, from Punta Tombo to Puerto Melo and Bahía Bustamante, there are populations with a marked tendency to have colour mutations. Individuals partially or entirely white or whitish are a common sight. It would be interesting to establish whether this phenomenon is due to albinism or to a possible adaptation to marine coastland environments, islets and nearby islands where there are abundant colonies of white sea birds as well as a whitish or alkaline landscape.

Habitat and behaviour: easily identified, it is one of the best-known and commonest birds; it occurs in all types of environments, in pairs or sometimes quite numerous groups of 25 or more individuals when they gather in the feeding grounds.

Frequently seen on sides of roads, it perches on fence and telephone posts; it walks and runs lithely; food consists mainly of dead animals although it is a bold opportunistic hunter that preys on birds and mammals as well as lizards, insects and their larvae.

Nest is built with twigs lined with grasses, wool, skins, hairs and feathers; it is placed in the uppermost branches of trees, scrubs or slopes; clutch size: up to four buffy eggs profusely spotted brown and reddish.

Range: broadly distributed, in Argentina the race Polyborus plancus plancus is found from Formosa, Misiones and Corrientes to Tierra del Fuego including Islas Malvinas, all over South and Central America and even in southern North America.

In the northwest of Argentina, part of Bolivia and Brazil the race Polyborus plancus brasiliensis is found.

Illustrated Handbook of the Birds of Patagonia

Kindness: Kovacs Family