Caracara plancus CHERIWAY
Status: Accidental in summer.
Documentation: Photograph: 11 Nov 2012 Genoa, Nance Co, first seen 14 Jul (Brogie 2013).
Taxonomy: The caracaras of North, Central, and South America, traditionally considered a single species C. plancus with four or five subspecies, was treated as three species by Dove and Banks (1999) and Banks et al (2000): southern C. plancus, northern C. cheriway, and the extinct Guadalupe form C. lutosus. Northern C. cheriway had included putative subspecies cheriway, pallidus, auduboni, and ammophilus, but these four were synonymized as C. cheriway by Dove and Banks (1999). More recently, however, Chesser et al (2021) merged northern and southern caracaras (but not C. lutosus) as a single species Crested Caracara C. plancus with two subspecies, southern C. p. plancus and northern C. p. cheriway. The specific epithet for the reconstituted species is plancus, which has precedence over cheriway.
The Nebraska record is presumed plancus.
Record: A major surprise was the rather curious saga of a bird picked up near Genoa, Nance Co 14 Jul 2012, “retained”, then transferred to Fontenelle Forest’s Raptor Recovery 11 Nov, where it was photographed (Brogie 2013). The bird had an eye missing and was emaciated when received.
A convincing report of one seen twice feeding on roadkill in Seward Co 20-21 Aug 2011 was, however, not accepted by the NOURC (Brogie 2012). Probably of significance related to this report was the sighting of one in Washington Co, Kansas, 3 Aug 2011, about 120 miles south of Seward Co, Nebraska (Buss 2011).
Comments: There is little vagrancy northward onto the Great Plains; sightings may increase, however, as the species is apparently increasing its range into southeastern Oklahoma from Texas (Morrison and Dwyer 2020). Great Plains records north of Oklahoma are one each in Jul for North and South Dakota, one for Iowa in Sep, and four in Colorado, in Apr, Jun-Jul, Aug, and Sep (eBird.org, accessed Nov 2023). Most dispersal is by juveniles and immatures in Jul-Oct (Wheeler 2003); six of the seven northerly Great Plains records cited above are for Jun-Sep; the lone accepted Nebraska record is for Jul as well.
Images
Abbreviations
NOURC: Nebraska Ornithologists’ Union Records Committee
Literature Cited
Banks, R.C., C. Cicero, J.L. Dunn, A.W. Kratter, H. Ouellet, P.C. Rasmussen, J.V. Remsen, Jr., J.A. Rising, and D.F. Stotz. 2000. Forty-Second Supplement to the American Ornithologists’ Union Check-List of North American Birds. Auk 117: 847-858.
Brogie, M.A. 2012. 2011 (23rd) Report of the NOU Records Committee. NBR 80: 112-122
Brogie, M.A. 2013. 2012 (24th) Report of the NOU Records Committee. NBR: 81: 120-130.
Buss, W. 2011. A Crested Caracara Visits Kansas (published 3 Aug). Warren’s Blog, accessed 24 May 2018.
Chesser, R.T., S.M. Billerman, K.J. Burns, C. Cicero, J.L. Dunn, B. E. Hernandez-Banos, A.W. Kratter, I.J. Lovette, N.A. Mason, P.C. Rasmussen, J.V. Remsen Jr., D.F. Stotz, and K. Winker. 2021. Sixty-second Supplement to the American Ornithological Society’s Check-list of North American Birds. Ornithology 138: https://doi.org/10.1093/ornithology/ukab037
Dove, C.J., and R.C. Banks. 1999. A taxonomic study of Crested Caracaras (Falconidae). Wilson Bulletin 111: 330-339.
Morrison, J.L. and J.F. Dwyer. 2020. Crested Caracara (Caracara cheriway), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (A. F. Poole, Editor). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.crecar1.01.
Wheeler, B.K. 2003. Raptors of Western North America. Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, USA.
Recommended Citation
Silcock, W.R., and J.G. Jorgensen. 2023. Northern Crested Caracara (Caracara plancus). In Birds of Nebraska — Online. www.BirdsofNebraska.org
Birds of Nebraska – Online
Updated 2 Nov 2023