A worldwide community photographing and learning about wildlife
Milvago chimachima
The yellow-headed caracara is 41–46 cm in length and weighs 325 g on average. Like many other birds of prey, the female is larger than the male, weighing 310–360 g against the male's 280–330 g. Apart from the difference in size, there is no significant sexual dimorphism in this species. It is broad-winged and long-tailed, somewhat resembling a small Buteo. The adult has a buff head, with a black streak behind the eye, and buff underparts. The upper plumage is brown with distinctive pale patches on the flight feathers of the wings, and the tail is barred cream and brown. The head and underparts of immature birds have dense brown mottling.
At the Beach of the Caribbean Sea, near Chuspa, Miranda, Venezuela.
This gorgeous bird flew onto the branch straight from the beach. Its head was still wet from fishing, and I guess so was his body because it look scrawnier then I expected. It observed me a bit and then flew off.
2 Comments
Oh Wow ForestDragon you are right!!! It just did not quite fit and I did not have my Venezuelan birds App with me. This is the one!
I will be posting some other series soon. I will add those links to this page as soon as I have them posted.
Thanks a lot.
I believe this marvelous bird may be a species of Caracara. The physical appearance doesn't seem to quite match an Osprey to me.
I am leaning towards the Yellow-headed Caracara, Milvago chimachima, due to the white head and underneath. The head on your bird is a bit dirty and ruffled so it is hard to see the markings. Check out these links and see what you think:
http://neotropical.birds.cornell.edu/por...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow-hea...
http://www.arkive.org/yellow-headed-cara...