Caracara plancus CHERIWAY
Status: Rare casual in summer and fall.
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.
Two subspecies are recognized (AviList 2025), plancus of southern North America and parts of South America, and cheriway of South America; only plancus occurs north of Mexico.
The Nebraska records are presumed plancus.
Records: There are two documented records.
13 Jul 2012 Genoa, Nance Co (to recovery; Brogie 2013)
6-15 Dec 2025 Garden Co (T. Brown, K. Brown; Brogie 2016).
A major surprise was the first record; it was a 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.
Nebraska’s second was an immature first seen as a flyover in southeastern Garden Co 6 Dec and reported through 15 Dec by several observers; it was foraging on carrion in agricultural fields around Highway 92 and Road 207.
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).
There has traditionally been little vagrancy northward onto the Great Plains, although sightings may be increasing as the species is apparently increasing its range into southeastern Oklahoma from Texas (Morrison and Dwyer 2023). There are several northerly records across the US: Great Plains records north of Oklahoma prior to winter 2025-2026 were Jul for North Dakota, Jul and Aug for South Dakota, Iowa in Sep, Kansas in Aug, and eastern Colorado in Jul (eBird.org, accessed Nov 2025). Most dispersal is by juveniles and immatures in Jul-Oct (Wheeler 2003); all records prior to winter 2025-2026 on the Great Plains cited here fit this pattern of timing, including the Nebraska record. However, an unprecedented winter northward push occurred in 2025-2026, with records for Dec in Nebraska, Jan in Kansas, and Feb in Michigan, Virginia, and Maryland (eBird.org, accessed Mar 2026).
Images
Abbreviations
NOURC: Nebraska Ornithologists’ Union Records Committee
Literature Cited
AviList Core Team, 2025. AviList: The Global Avian Checklist, v2025. https://doi.org/10.2173/avilist.v2025.
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.
Brogie, M.A. 2026. 2025 (37th) Report of the NOU Records Committee. NBR 94: 69-75.
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. 2023. Crested Caracara (Caracara plancus), version 1.1. In Birds of the World (N. D. Sly, Editor). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.y00678.01.1.
Wheeler, B.K. 2003. Raptors of Western North America. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, USA.
Recommended Citation
Silcock, W.R., and J.G. Jorgensen. 2026. Northern Crested Caracara (Caracara plancus). In Birds of Nebraska — Online. www.BirdsofNebraska.org
Birds of Nebraska – Online
Updated 28 Aug 2026