Caracara in the Panama Bancaria

Our two parakeets live in a cage on the balcony with a nice view of Panama’s banking district on the other side of Via España. They are rather messy eaters and tend to leave the odd seed, or fifty, on the floor of the balcony. Thus we receive daily visits from the little brown birds whose sole purpose in life appears to be to clean up after Carolo and Carolita.  As I click away on my keyboard I often notice that the little brown birds are invading my work area in the fond hope of more seeds. These visitors are ruddy ground doves or columbina talpacoti. They seem very inoffensive but I am of the mind that if I did not stand my ground that they would call all of their friends and take over the apartment.

The other day we had a visit from another species. Late Sunday afternoon there was a repeating schree, schree from the parking area behind our apartment building. The parakeets were uncharacteristically silent and there were no little brown birds in sight.

Down on the roof of the next door parking lot was the answer. There was a pair of medium sized, yellow headed hawks. They preened. They flew from spot to spot and, after half an hour, flew away. These were yellow headed caracaras, a lowland hawk common from Southern Central American to Northern Argentina and parts of the Caribbean. According to bird guides this species has benefitted from deforestation in many locations. The yellow headed caracara is said not to be a fast flyer like many hawks but, rather, a scavenger. I could not tell from our pair as they were just sort of hanging out. The parakeets, however, seemed to have a decidedly different opinion, close together and very quiet to the far side of the cage from the parking lot.

I didn't any little brown birds until the next morning.They returned just after sunrise to help clean the balcony floor.