Unidentified hawk (1 Viewer)

I took ths photo of a very bold hawk in the middle of a high altitude salt lake in bolivia. Whether it's boldness was simply from lack of association with people or something else i don't know.
Am struggling to ID it though.

Can anyone help??

cheers

Dom

The bird looks more like a quail or tinamou than a raptor.

thanks for the replies. it is certainly a raptor. i had thought it was similar to a dark morph Chimango Caracara but at 5000m above sea level, and this far north, this was less likely. Possibly a very young Mountain Caracara, sure.
cheers
dom

Bumping this to the top to see if anyone can ID it yet!

I am only quite sure that it is a caracara species; but that´s only less far as all others got. heard of similar hawk thingy when my brother was there last year but he didn´t get a good photo

One of them looks like Sweep from "Sooty & Sweep"

Judging from the still very short tail and brown coloration and what appears to be the start of color change on the head, my guess is juvenile Milvago c. chimachima (Yellow-headed Caracara).

I must apologise for bumping these up from a year ago - but in sorting through the Q&A section I'm finding birds that I know the new expanded membership can put a name to!

Jane Turner said:

I must apologise for bumping these up from a year ago - but in sorting through the Q&A section I'm finding birds that I know the new expanded membership can put a name to!

Click to expand...

Hi Jane,

I hadn't even noticed the original date. Don't worry about it. You're doing a stellar job just to undertake such a daunting workload of trying to organize all of these threads. My compliments!

:clap:

First, it is 100% surely a juv. caracara.
Secondly, of all the species possible (and several that most likely are not) only one is that unicoloured brown as a juvenile (and it surely isn't Chimango or Yellow-headed):
Mountain Caracara. It even shows the typical light patched. Only other thing that is rather like this one is juv. Carunculated Caracara...and if one of those, you've just extented the distribution a few thousand km's!

So, Mountain Caracara juv., surely one of the commonest bird-species in the highlands of Bolivia, roughly 1/3 of them usually being in juvenile plumage (as shown on the photo). So, if you're going to visit the highlands of Peru or Bolivia, be prepared for loads of birds that look exactly like this one. They are amazingly bold; I've seen an individual steal meat at a market in Copacabana (NOT the Brazilian beach but a town on the shores of Lago Titicaca). Still, the black and white adults are some of the most beautyful raptors in the world.

Rasmus

What I want to know is, did the dog survive?

And may I echo Steve's atta-girl for all your work on this project.

After having seen that this is still considered "un-id'ed" I'll do another thread on it. It's a juvenile Mountain Caracara. 110% sure! I have seen hundreds, and they all look exactly like that one. I have also seen hundreds of the various other species it was said it could look like... and it's not. Anyways, here's why:

Compared with Yellow-headed or Chimango:
Overall uni-coloured brown. This is NEVER seen in Yellow-headed or Chimango; no matter if they're juv's, immatures or adults. They always appear much more speckled especially below and/or on head. Only fully adult plumaged Yellow-headed are non-speckled (it's the last thing that is lost), but they always have an eye-stripe+different back colour versus chest & head+striped tail+... in short; a very different bird. Neither Chimango or Yellow-headed has ever been reportet anywhere near this altitude, and both are conspicious species so their distributions are clearly understood.

Compared with Carunculated Caracara:
First it is totally out of range! Yet again a very conspicious species, so range is well understood. Even if we assumed it was possible (as it is in a limited zone of Ecuador), the bare skin does NOT extend behind the eye, which it does in both juv./imm./ad. Carunculated.

In short: The bird on the photo even shows hints of cinnamon on the wings and a cinnamon undertail! It's just about the most perfect juv. Mountain Caracara you will ever see!

Ohh, I forgot: Yes, the dog probably survived the encounter Mountain Caracara's prefer to scavenge. Otherwise they mostly take rather small or weak animals.

My fault for not moving it...thanks for the detailed explanation! Its out of the mystery box now... - well it will be the next time I update the index!