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Mountain Caracara | Daptrius megalopterus
Bergcaracara | Caracara cordillerano | Carcará-da-montanha
The Mountain Caracara is a black-and-white caracara of the puna and high Andes of Peru and Bolivia, with a bare orange-red face. It spends much time walking on the ground, foraging in pairs or small groups in grassland, fields and around bogs. In the north of its range it is replaced by Carunculated Caracara.
Voice
Usually silent. Sometimes a hoarse, grating call, mainly in disputes over food or at the nest.
No recording with a suitable Creative Commons licence is available for this species yet.
Identification
47–55 cm, with long legs and broad wings. The adult is glossy black above, on the head, throat and breast, with a plain black breast without white streaks. The belly, thighs, rump and undertail coverts are white, as are the underwing coverts and the tail tip. The face is bare and orange-red. The bill is pale grey to bluish, and the legs are yellow to orange. In flight the white underwing, white rump and a pale patch at the base of the primaries stand out. The sexes are alike. Juveniles are dark brown, with a pale rump and a duller, greyish to yellowish face.
Confusion species
Carunculated Caracara Daptrius carunculatus lives further north and has white streaks on the black breast and wattles on the throat; intermediate birds occur in the border area of Ecuador and Peru, and juveniles are hardly separable. Crested Caracara Caracara plancus is brown with a black cap, a white neck and a barred breast, and usually lives lower. Black-chested Buzzard-Eagle Geranoaetus melanoleucus has a short tail and grey upperparts and does not walk on the ground.
Habitat
Puna grassland, bofedales and bogs, rocky slopes, fields and pastures in the high Andes, mainly between about 3000 and 4800 m, locally lower in dry valleys and on the western slope. It forages on foot: insects, worms, small vertebrates and carrion; it turns over dung and clods and readily follows ploughs. The nest is a stick nest on a rock ledge or in a steep cliff.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of the Andes and the west coast.
Range and movements
Absent from Colombia. In Ecuador only rare in the far south, where it sometimes interbreeds with Carunculated Caracara. In Peru throughout the Andes from north to south, on both slopes and on the altiplano. In Bolivia in the Andes and on the altiplano. Absent from the Galápagos. Outside the guide area in the Andes of Chile and Argentina.
How and when to look
On the puna of Peru and Bolivia it can often be seen from the road, walking in grassland and fields or around bofedales. In northern Peru check for the plain black breast to separate it from Carunculated Caracara.
Conservation status
Least Concern. Common in suitable open high country; the species benefits locally from pastures and fields, but is sometimes persecuted.
Scientific name
Daptrius megalopterus | (Meyen, 1834)
Meyen described the species in 1834 as Aquila megaloptera; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Daptrius was introduced in 1816 by Vieillot. The genus name comes from Greek daptēs, 'eater, devourer', from daptō, 'to devour'. The species name comes from Greek megas, 'large', and pteron, 'wing'. The specimen the first description was based on came from Andes, Chile.