Haiku my Heart - Raptor

in the southern wild
a crested caracara
flaunts his handsome self

In all the  years I have lived in Florida, my entire life, I have never seen a crested caracara, in fact did not know they were native here. Now that I know, I am anxious to see one, although that may be awhile because I understand they live in South Central Florida, and I live in West Central. I don't think they are coastal birds. And I won't be getting to Texas, Arkansas, Mexico (their National bird), Cuba or Panama any time soon either. 

This gorgeous, majestic, kingly looking bird is actually a falcon, with a four foot wingspan and long legs. He's a carrion eater, and steals partially digested food from pelicans, digs up turtle eggs, and eats other small animals like rats, armadillos, frogs, skunks, etc. Just to see one of these in the wild, with its flat head, orange face, and pointy blue beak, would be exciting to me. ok. I'm just weird. It doesn't take much to make me happy.

So, two caracara were getting ready to migrate for the season. After talking it over, they decided they were too old to fly all the way so they decided to take a plane.  As they were about to board the aircraft, the flight attendant noticed they were each carrying a dead armadillo. She asked, "would you like to check those through as luggage?"

"No thanks," the caracara replied. "They're carrion".

ok ok I borrowed this (and edited) from 

Maggie Van Ostrand (c) 2010

linked with

Rebecca's Haiku my Heart

Please visit to find more haiku

but no caracara!

caracara photo source:

wikipedia.org and allaboutbirds.org