A Most Remarkable Creature

Before reading this book, I had heard just enough of this bird to maybe recognize one in a brief clip on a nature film- “Oh, is that a caracara?” This book kept catching my eye off the library shelf, so finally I brought it home to read. It was fascinating. It’s mostly about the striated caracara, a bird of prey that lives on the Falkland Islands. Caracaras are falcons, but unlike any other falcon- they look and behave more like crows, they have social lives, they are intelligent and curious and eat almost anything. The opposite of peregrine falcons, which are supreme specialists, caracaras are broad generalists, and the author surmises that this is why they are so inquisitive, to the point of being considered pests by locals where they live (dubbed “flying monkeys” by some, considered “an embarassment” to the falcon clan by others). Think of raccoons, coyotes, pigeons- annoying and debased in the eyes of many, yet they are very successful and persistent. In this case though, the birds are quite rare. The caracara lives only in small areas of its South American range, its population numbers are small. The author delves deep into its history, looking at geological impacts and other things that might explain both its rarity and its uncommon behavior. I had no idea that some falconers have trained caracaras- but they had to use completely different methods, the birds are more like parrots than hawks in their mentality. While I found the little tidbits of direct observation and personal anecdotes most interesting (the author traveled all over South America to find different kinds of caracara), a lot of this book quotes Darwin and William Henry Hudson (somebody I apparently need to start reading). I admit in many cases I’ve found books that draw heavily on others’ works tiresome- I’d much rather read the original source material- but in this case I hadn’t read anything about the bird in question before, so it was all new to me and I found it delightfully intriguing. It was familiar to find quoted parts of David Quammen’s book, but that only helped me understand better the evolutionary aspects that made the caracara what it is today. The author also discusses the carcara’s future- how will it survive climate change, its home areas are shrinking, might it do well living in other parts of the world, in city environs especially, but would it be meddling in nature to introduce it to new places, etc. I would love to learn more about this bird, if I can find any other books about it.

Edit add: one of the best parts of the book are later chapters where the author travels to remote areas of Guyana to find the red-throated caracara. Travel is mostly via river and they catch many large fish for eating- including one arowana, which must be thrown back because they’re protected by law. He tells how the local people still regret not being able to eat them anymore- because they were endangered from being considered such succulent food- but no mention of impacts from the pet trade. Probably the area was so remote nobody caught arowanas for selling into captivity, they were just eaten.

Borrowed from the public library.