TomKal foto

Southern crested caracara, White-throated caracara, Chimango caracara
Quite an unusual exterior compared to my previous photography experience. A few minutes of driving in a taxi from Ushuaia, in order to see not even dozens but hundreds of caracaras in three species, on the outskirts of a garbage dump. The most popular species was the southern crested caracara. It was the biggest and the strongest of all. The second most numerous species was the chimango caracara. The least numerous species was the white-throated caracara. It was scarce and least active. Of all the three species mentioned above I did not manage to record the sound of the latter. Southern crested caracaras often made a sound, tilting their heads and necks to the back.  I had no problems with recording their sounds. On several occasions I had a few birds in the frame, against the background of a beautiful hill, located near the garbage dump. We waited for them to fly to and from the dump. That’s how the pictures presented here were taken. The second attempt to photograph caracaras was facilitated by chicken legs bought by us. It was not necessary, as it turned out later. Caracaras did not wait even a minute for us to step back, and they started to compete for food. There were so many of them that we had to be patient and take our time to be able to take pictures. Such a cluster of caracaras is an amazing view. In the background we could also see quite a large group of kelp gulls, occasionally accompanied by a great skua. The presence of people working on machines did not distract them much. Below I present the characteristic features of the above mentioned species:
Southern crested caracara          – weighs up to 1,5 kg, with a wingspan of about 125 cm,
White-throated caracara            – weighs about 1 kg, with a wingspan of about 115 cm
Chimango caracara                        – weighs about 0,3 kg, with a wingspan to 100 cm,