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I Saw a Crested Caracara

Mark another bird off the list

Julia A. Keirns
2 min readJan 22, 2023
Photo by Joshua J. Cotten on Unsplash

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The state of Texas has the largest population of Crested Caracaras in the whole country of the United States. We started seeing these black and white birds and it took us a while to get a photo of them clear enough that we could look them up online. The first photo above is not one of mine.

Crested caracara
Crested caracara. Photo copyright Julia A. Keirns.

They are large birds of prey and are seen hanging around with hawks on the telephone poles along the roads.

Crested caracara
Crested caracara. Photo copyright Julia A. Keirns.

I finally got these photos today and from them I was able to identify the birds as Crested Caracaras. The speed limit on most of the roads is 75. I am not the best at catching a photo of something that fast, but I think these turned out okay-ish.

Crested caracara
Crested caracara. Photo copyright Julia A. Keirns.

These birds are resident in Texas year-round and begin breeding in January. That must be why we are seeing a lot more of them now.

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Julia A. Keirns
Julia A. Keirns

Written by Julia A. Keirns

Currently living in an RV full time and traveling across North America. The goal is simply to write about it. Editor of Fiction Shorts, the Challenged, and ROD.

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