NIPIGON — For the first time in nearly a century-and-a-half, a Crested Caracara was spotted in Northwestern Ontario.
Hailing from South America and the southern United States, the bird of prey, which can have a four-foot wingspan and is generally 19 to 22 inches long, has only been spotted in Canada a handful of times.
“It's been 133 years since one's been seen around Thunder Bay, so it may be 100 years before another one is seen,” said Brian Ratcliff, a wildlife biologist.
“It was very cool and I almost missed it,” said Susan Fagan, a bird watcher who photographed the elusive raptor.
Following a reported sighting in Thunder Bay, Fagan said she was hopeful it would fly over to Nipigon and it appeared that it did.
“It might have been the same bird (that) was seen up John Street Road, two or three days prior to that,” she said. “So that was initially the first hint that there was one in the area.”
After convincing her husband and receiving the location of the Caracara from a friend, Fagan said the race to find the bird was on.
“He very obligingly gave me directions on where he found it,” she said. “So, I dragged my husband out the next day and we found it.”
Finding the bird wasn’t a small task for Fagan, as the bird flew low and out of sight, almost disappearing before they got a confirmed sighting, she said.
“We were just about ready to leave and I happened to turn around and just over the crest of this dirt road, I saw a white tail flying in the other direction,” she said.
“We went over the crest of the hill and didn't see it, and then we hopped in the car and drove just a little bit down the road and my husband said 'there he is, sitting right there on the side of the road,'” Fagan said, adding that they drove over an hour to just outside of Nipigon.
“I know that other people had gone up immediately after I was there, and then of course I obviously reported to my friends that I've seen it and I think there were four or five of them that were up there, and within two hours and they couldn't find it,” she said.
“It was definitely a fluke and I'm really lucky that I did see it.”
Because it comes from southerly climates, the raptor is known to have a particular taste for insects.
“They are more of a scavenger than anything else, and the Caracara that I've seen … generally forage on the ground, hopping around catching insects and frogs or anything they can find,” Ratcliff said.
“Often in Central America, the place to go find them is at a local landfill,” he added.
Ratcliff said the birds of prey are known to essentially vacation in other countries every once in a while, and have visited Canada before.
“All birds have wings. They do fly, but why this species would wander this far is interesting,” Ratcliff said.
The first recorded sighting in Canada was on July 18, 1892 at Victoria Island in Lake Superior, south of Thunder Bay, where a worker found the dead bird the day after a storm, Ratcliff said.
The second, was only seen by a few on Pelee Island in 1994. The third was found outside of Fort Albany in 2002. And the fourth was spotted in Michipicoten in 2016, he said.
While some in the community have expressed concern for the bird's survival this winter, Ratcliff said he expects it to manage the north just fine.
The Caracara in 2016 started heading to the United States from Canada in December once the temperature dropped, avoiding starvation and difficult weather.
“It stayed around to the fifth of December, and then it was seen in Michigan a week later,” he said.
“It's just wandering around and it's got five months (until) winter, so who knows where it could be.”