Birders on P.E.I. are thrilled by a crested caracara that has taken up residence on the Island this summer time.
The hen was first sighted in mid-July at East Point within the far northeast. More just lately, it is been spending time in Mount Vernon, across the space the place Cindy Esau lives.
“It’s fairly thrilling once you step out your entrance door and it is there, or the neighbour calls and says it is within the yard,” Esau mentioned.
“You can get not very removed from it and simply watch it. It’s fairly superb.”
Caracaras are a part of the falcon household however they behave extra like vultures, scavenging no matter meals they’ll. They generally even eat fruit, which might clarify why this one has additionally been seen spending time in a blueberry discipline.
The hen is each photogenic — with its naked, crimson face, black crown, and white neck — and straightforward to {photograph}. Esau, who belongs to birding teams on each e mail and Facebook, has loved sharing the information with different birders.
“It would not appear to be scared of individuals,” she mentioned.
Many methods hen might have been pushed to P.E.I.
Caracaras are usually equatorial birds, and the closest resident inhabitants is in Texas, mentioned Prof. Joseph Nocera, an ornithologist on the University of New Brunswick.
Birds similar to these, removed from their home vary, are referred to as vagrants, Nocera mentioned. It is probably going a climate occasion — or mixture of climate occasions — that introduced it to P.E.I.
“As everyone knows, this 12 months’s climate has been a bit loopy,” Nocera mentioned.
“There have been fires and floods and warmth waves and smoke warnings. So all of that mixed, throw in a bit El Niño and a little bit of local weather change, and it is in all probability no shock that this hen bought pushed out of its pure vary. How it ended up in P.E.I. could be simply luck.”
Nocera mentioned sightings of caracaras have turn into extra widespread within the Maritimes, with one popping up each few years.
A caracara noticed in Maine this spring was probably the identical hen, he mentioned.
“If you return within the literature, you do not are likely to see these reportings a number of a long time in the past,” he mentioned. “This appears to be occurring an increasing number of.”
Migration not ‘certainly one of their robust factors’
Caracaras like to hang around with turkey vultures, and these have expanded their vary northward in recent a long time and turn into widespread within the Maritimes.
It is feasible some caracaras are following them, even when they haven’t established populations north of Texas.
While this caracara has probably been tremendous on the Island in recent weeks, Nocera mentioned its future isn’t promising.
“In the summer time in P.E.I., it in all probability is discovering satisfactory meals. Things will begin to get fairly tough for it fairly quickly,” he mentioned.
“Migration is not thought of certainly one of their robust factors. So I’m unsure whether or not this hen would discover its manner home within the fall.”
While there aren’t any statistics available for the survival charges of vagrants similar to this one, Nocera mentioned the percentages of this hen determining how one can get again to a hotter local weather earlier than winter comes are low.
