Northern Caracara

Crested CaraCara

The crested caracara, also sometimes called the northern caracara, is a raptor that lives primarily in Mexico, Central America, and northern portions of South America. The northern part of their range extends up into Texas, southern Arizona and parts of southern Florida. These birds where photographed on our trip to south Texas back in 2010.
The crested caracara is a member of the Falcondae, or falcon, family, but they are very different then the rest of the falcons that we see here in North America. When we think of falcons we think of birds that are built for speed, many of which hunt other birds in flight. The crested caracara acts much more like a vulture. You are much more likely to see carcara soaring up in the sky in search of carrion then you are to see one chasing down prey. The reason why the two birds pictured above look differently is because the top photo is a mature adult caracara while the second photo is an immature bird.

Javelina - Martin Refuge

What turned out to be probably our favorite location during our Texas trip, and probably the most productive, was a small private refuge near Mission Texas called the Javelina. The Javelina is about 300 acres of native Texas scrub habitat. It is owned by the Martin family and is the original home of private nature photography in the Rio Grande Valley.

Seven photo blinds are positioned through out the property with a dirt road winding between them. Three of the blinds are set up to get morning sun, three are more for the afternoon and one is all purpose. We started out in the raptor blind, pictured above in the morning.

As we got settled into the blind Patty Raney, photographer and our Certified Interpretive Guide for the day deposited chunks of meat and body parts that she had obtained from some of the local taxidermists. Soon after Patty left us the raptors started to come in to feast.

Northern caracara made up the bulk of the raptors that visited the area to feed. We did see and photograph caracara at other parks that we visited but none were as close up and personal as at the Javelina. Most were adults like the one two photos up but there were also some juveniles, like the one pictured above, mixed in.

Although the caracara had numbers the obvious bosses of the area were the Harris hawks. When they flew in to feed the caracara were quick to get out of their way. Harris hawks often nest and hunt in social units consisting of multiple birds. There was one unit consisting of 3 adults and one juvenile that appeared to rule this territory. When a group of about 8 turkey vultures begin to circle over head it was probably the presence of the Harris hawks that deterred them from coming in to feed.

After lunch we moved to an afternoon blind to photograph song birds and Texas specialties. These blinds are built sunken into the ground so that you can photograph the smaller birds at eye level. With a watering hole located near each blind and seed and meal worms supplied by Patty we were ready to get some good shots of some of the Texas specialty birds.

It did not take long before the birds came to check out the food. The first birds in were northern cardinals. Even though we snapped a few pics we were not all that excited because cardinals are pretty common in Minnesota. However the next bird that came into view where a species that has never, at least to my knowledge, been seen in Minnesota. Green jays are not known for being inhibited and as such they took over a lot of the feed for most of the time that we were there.

At our first afternoon blind the northern cardinals kept chasing away the smaller pyrrhuloxia from where the food was located in front of the blind. Since I was a lot more interested in getting pictures of pyrrhuloxia, a life bird for me, then of northern cardinals we decided to try a different afternoon blind. The second blind worked much better.

That afternoon we photographed great kiskadee, long-billed thrasher, white-tipped doves, common ground dove, plain chacalaca, pyrruloxia, green jays and olive sparrows, pictured above, all of which were life birds on that trip.

King Ranch

One of the big excursions that we planned during our Texas vacation was a day long birding tour of the world famous King Ranch located outside of Kingsville. Since our tour was scheduled to begin early in the morning we drove up to Kingsville the day before and spent the night at a local hotel. It was a good thing that we decided to stay close because it took us a little while to find the ranch visitors center where we had to meet for the tour.

The history of the King Ranch began back in the mid 1830's with young Richard King. At the age of 11 Richard was indentured to a New York City jeweler by his destitute family. The jeweler was a cruel man and so young Richard ran off, stowing away on a ship that was heading south. He spent the rest of his youth working the steam boat lines in Alabama and Florida where he eventually made his way up to becoming a steamboat captain. He then moved to Texas where he started his own steam boat business ferrying goods up and down the Rio Grand. In the mid 19th century, on a visit to Corpus Christi, he traveled the Wild Horse Desert and came across Santa Gertrudis Creek and realizing the possibilities purchased 15,500 acres to begin the King Ranch.

The King Ranch continued to prosper and grow even after the death of Richard King in 1885. King's descendants continued to manage the ranch. In 1934 King's daughter Alice King Kleberg consolidated the King holdings into a corporation and made her children the stockholders. The 1930's also brought a long term lease with Humble Oil, now ExxonMobile, for oil and gas rights on the 1.15 million acres of King property. With the oil and gas revenue the King ranch was able to expand it's holdings purchasing land in other states and countries. Much of this land is used to breed and raise their world famous quarter horses and Santa Gertrudis cattle. The Santa Gertrudis are a crossbreed between Brahman bulls, from India, and British Shorthorn and they are the first American breed of beef cattle.

All of the ranch history was interesting but we were at the King Ranch to check out the birds. The ranch does offer a history tour, which our guide told us is actually quite a bit more popular, as well as their nature tours. Portions of the ranch were tilled for agricultural use this made for perfect habitat for birds such as horned larks or Sprague's pipit.

Most of the rest of the ranch was open pastured used for horse or cattle grazing. In this habitat we found quite a variety of different types of sparrows including the olive sparrow, south Texas is the only place in the US where you can typically find the olive sparrow.

Not all of the birds that we saw were unusual. In many of the wooded areas around the ranch we spotted some of the birds that we have back at home. This included the northern cardinal which are common in Minnesota all year round, although our guide claimed that cardinals in Texas are a brighter red then cardinals elsewhere.

One of our target birds for our Texas trip was the northern caracara. On our past trip to Texas, in 2005, we only saw caracara from a distance and we were not able to get any good pics. This trip, with luck and planning, we spotted carcara at several different locations that we visited including this adult that we photographed at the King Ranch.

Caracara are considered members of the falcon family. They are opportunistic feeders eating mainly carrion. They will however, occasionally eat small rodents like this wood rat that we saw feasting on seeds that had fallen from one of the many bird feeders around the ranch.