FAMILY FALCONIDAE 2/1 



CARACARA PLANCUS (Miller): Caracara; Carancho 



Falco Plancus J. F. Miller, Var. Subj. Nat. Hist., pt. 3, 1777, pi. 17. (Tierra 

 del Fuego.) 



A long-legged, strong-bodied hawk, with black crest and red bare 

 side of head, that in flight appears dark underneath, with prominent 

 white patches on throat, base of tail, and near the tips of the wings. 



Description. — Length, 490 to 520 mm. Adult, crown, with slightly 

 elongated crest, black ; a dull white band across upper hind neck that 

 merges below on upper back with an area of fuscous-black barred with 

 white ; wings, lower back, rump, breast, upper abdomen, tibia, sides, 

 under wing coverts, and end of tail brownish black to black; a 

 prominent white patch, somewhat broken by grayish brown bars and 

 edgings, across the middle of the flight feathers ; f oreneck white ; 

 upper breast buffy white, barred and spotted with brownish black; 

 lower abdomen and under and upper tail coverts white ; basal three- 

 fourths of tail white, with many narrow grayish brown bars. 



Immature, lower foreneck, and upper breast buff, lined with buffy 

 brown ; breast and upper abdomen dark brown, streaked indistinctly 

 with buffy white; upper back brown tipped and streaked with dull 

 white, with narrow shaft lines of fuscous brown. 



Iris dull orange ; cere and bare skin on side of head dull red ; line 

 of culmen, cutting edge, distal third of maxilla, and tip of mandible 

 dull white; base of both mandibles bluish gray; tarsus and toes 

 yellow ; claws black. 



The caraiKho is a forceful bird, alert, with direct, strong flight 

 performed with steadily beating wings. It is both a scavenger and 

 a predator, seen often in pairs, frequently alone, always using care to 

 avoid too close human approach, whether at rest on some tree that 

 gives it outlook, walking on open ground, or in flight toward some 

 distant point. 



Dead fish in a drying pool, an injured bird unable to escape, the 

 bodies of lizards and rats killed by autos along a highway, small 

 chickens and ducks that stray too far afield, turtles, rabbits, other 

 small mammals, all are food to this aberrant falcon. It also comes to 

 larger carrion and about slaughterhouses for waste, but usually it is 

 wary. Farmers are inclined to shoot the carancho on sight, par- 

 ticularly where sheep are herded, as the birds are relentless in their 

 attacks on newborn lambs. 



The bulky open nest, made of sticks, weed stems, dried rushes, 

 and like materials, is placed in a tree in some secluded area. The two 



