Northern Crested caracara

Description:

The crested caracara is a tropical vulture like member of the falcon family. This individual carcara has been living in Northern California, near the Oregon border for almost 5 years. This individual has been documented as far north as Brookings Oregon, although there is a record of an individual in British Columbia, Canada Sightings of this bird are sporadic, due to the mountainous and heavily forested terrain in this section of Redwood National Park. He seems to prefer a local gravel operation as his base, although has also been reported near the river mouth. Still it seems that he resides primarily in this area and is not responsible for sightings near Lake Berryessa near Sacramento, near San Francisco(whic could be the Lake B bird) or south near Santa Barbara. Global warming, natural evolutionary shift, or some other reason driving this species up the California coast

Habitat:

On a light pole near the highway, near a gravel pit, watching a newly hayed field

Notes:

Having gone down in part to spot him, then headed further south, we were excited to see him at the edge of the highway on our way home. We watched for over 30 minutes snapping about 50 shots and half expecting him to fly. I think he was content to sit there until the equipt that was baling and wrapping bales had completed for the evening