Crested Caracara — In its Habitat

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I’m posting a couple of images today of a Crested Caracara. This is a young bird. By the looks of its plumage it is probably entering its third year.

I was driving down a rural dirt road when I saw the Caracara at a distance of several hundred meters. The bird perched atop a dead mesquite at road’s edge.

There’s always an element of judgment involved when it comes to photographing a bird in this situation. Caracaras are highly intelligent and wary. They generally do not like to be approached closely. The question is: how close is too close? At what point to I risk spooking the bird as I approach it?

I decided to stop at a fair distance from the Caracara in order to make some images. I braked to a halt about 50 meters from the bird and made this first image.

I very much like this image even though I was relatively far from my subject. It’s nice, sometimes, to show wildlife in its element even if the image isn’t a closeup. I also like how the sun illuminated the Caracara against a dark background, consisting of mountains and an overcast sky.

I was correct in my surmise about the Caracara’s wariness. It took flight the instant that I began to move forward from my original position. It didn’t fly far — it landed on a second dead mesquite about 300-400 meters from its original perch.

I knew that making a second image of the Caracara would prove to be more difficult than making the first image. The Caracara was on to me and would be less likely to tolerate a second approach. I advanced extremely cautiously and made a second series of images from a distance of about 100 meters. I contented myself with producing a landscape that had the Caracara as a small, albeit integral, element.

As it turns out, I like the second image every bit as much — or even more — than I like the first one. Yes, the Caracara is very small in the image, but the photo says something about what southern Arizona’s desert looks like. It conveys the starkness and dramatic aspect of the setting far better than would a closeup.

The bird is small in the frame, but I’m happy with the results.

Images made with a Canon R5, Canon EF 400mm f4 DO II lens+Canon EF 1.4x telextender, M setting (auto ISO), ISO 500 (first image), 400 (second image), f5.6 @ 1/4000.

birding birds crested-caracara nature photography