Caracara

My son called me out to the porch late this afternoon to see this bird which he has been seeing lately. He had told me he thought it was an eagle. Well when I saw it I tried taking a picture but my phone's camera is not too good and the bird was on the other side of the street at least one hundred feet away. Luckily my son's cousin was there, he has an iphone and the picture was taken with that. It is still not a great picture and actually the only one of a few he took that has sharp enough features.

Once I had the picture I did a Google search and it turns out it is a crested caracara or Mexican eagle. It seems there habitat extends from the Mexico USA border to very far south in South America. It is a threatened species even though it is not endangered. Seems they have no problem being near humans, but it is strange that this one has found its habitat in a city center. Of course it is a predator and probably finds a lot of prey around here. It is a very nice looking bird.

I had never seen one of these before and I actually thought it might be some kind of small eagle. In reality it is a falcon. And that is another new one for me, I knew we had hawks around here but I thought falcons were not to be found in this area. Well you learn something new every day.