Red-throated Caracara research: natural history and classification from 1765 to 1838

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This is the illustration of the Petit Aigle d’Amerique from “Planches enluminées d’histoire naturelle” 1765

I mentioned last week in my introduction to the Red-throated Caracara  that there is very little known about the species. While details of the life history of these birds are still hazy, the existence of the bird has in fact been known to scientists for quite a long time. To know a species, we must first be able to recognize it as distinct and to give it a name. There is a formal protocol for this, that has been developed and refined through time, and it so happens that the Red-throated Caracara has a long history in zoological classification.  I normally find the  subject of early nomenclature work to be a bit dry, but I am pleased to report that work with the Red-throated Caracara has been a surprisingly pleasing visual endeavour from the outset.

The first published description that I can find on these caracaras belongs to Buffon, Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon to be exact, one of the pioneering Enlightenment era naturalists. Buffon’s 1765 description consisted of an engraving and a name, “Aigle d’Amerique” in the “Planches enluminées d’histoire naturelle“, a 24 volume set of coloured engravings done mainly by F.N. Martinet, a talented engraver. This work was commissioned by Buffon and supervised by Daubenton, so authorship is a bit muddled, but on the whole,  the work is mainly attributed to Buffon. He recognized this species as an eagle, rather than a falcon, as he considered the shape of the bill, down turned at the end, to be more eagle-like.

Drawing inspiration directly from Buffon/Martinet/Daubenton’s work, the first written description seems to be that of an Englishman, one John Latham, who described the bird quite well and called it “the Red-throated Falcon” on page 97 of his 1781 book “A general synopsis of birds“. It is unclear why Latham placed this species with the falcons, although he was quite correct to do so.

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Here is Latham’s original description, which gives the name Red-Throated Falcon, and notes the occurrence of the species in Cayenne and other parts of South America

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I think it is a moft beautiful fpecies too!

While this is a step along the path, it was not yet the official scientific name of the Red-throated Caracara…Latham’s description may have been useful, but it is not considered the first official species description. That honour goes to Pieter Boddaert, who, in 1783 gave this species its first Latin binomial: Falco americanus in “Table des planches enluminéez d’histoire naturelle de M. D’Aubenton: avec les denominations de M.M. de Buffon, Brisson, Edwards, Linnaeus et Latham, precedé d’une notice des principaux ouvrages zoologiques enluminés“. As the species name “americanus” now has precedence, it has remained attached to the Red-throated Caracara to this day.

In 1786 Gmelin (who was an associate of Carolus Linnaeus) named it Falco aquilinus, but this is considered a junior synonym, as it was published after Boddaert’s F. americanus.

In 1816 L.P. Vieillot moved this species to “Ibycter” in “Analyse d’une nouvelle ornithologie élémentaire“. This was the first written communication that applied the genus name “Ibycter” to the Red-throated Caracara, which has more or less stuck, and also a new common name “Rancanca” which has not. I am very intrigued by the origin of the name Ibycter…I have not found what it refers to, whether to mythology or if it is just an obscure word…Anyone out there have some insight?

The first real natural history information on the Red-throated Caracara comes from 1834, with the publication of “La Galerie des Oiseaux“, also by L.P. Vieillot. Delightfully, “La Galerie” also includes an image of the species!

Lithograph from Galerie des Oiseaux featuring the Red-throated Caracara. This is presumably attributable to Godefroy Engelmann, a lithographer based in Paris.

 In addition to the new name, Ibycter Leucogaster, Vieillot contributed some real natural history to the scientific record, noting their loud calls and group living habits. In addition, having read Vieillot for the first time last week, I was shocked to read his statement that these caracaras are “ordinarily accompanied by toucans”. This habit, which apparently earned them the local name “Capitaines des gros-becs (Toucan Captains!), is not just some 19th century BS either, it was also made by Thiollay in his 1991 paper.

Thiollay noted several species that could be described as toucans accompanying the caracaras: The Guiana Toucanet Selenidera culik, Black-necked Araçari Pteroglossus aracari, Green Araçari Pteroglossus viridis, Channel-billed Toucan Ramphastos vitellinus and the Red-billed Toucan. The latter species was the one most commonly found accompanying the Red-throated Caracaras.  But we get ahead of ourselves. Let us stay in the first half of the 19th century, shall we?

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Red-billed Toucans often do follow Red-throated Caracaras. They also sound like a small dog barking.

In 1838, the first popular work to mention this species was published. The Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge published their Penny Cyclopaedia with the express (and proto-socialist) idea to bring scientific knowledge to the working classes. This was kind of like the Wikipedia of 19th Century Britain. Here is their entry (with an illustration!) for the Red-throated Caracara (on the bottom right). This is part of a much larger section of falcons in general, and is quite commendable for its completeness.

The penny cyclopædia [ed. by G. Long].

This brings us to the middle of the 19th Century. Darwin was just about to arrive back from his voyage on the Beagle, Wallace was yet to set sail for Pará (where he would collect a Red-throated Caracara!), and the world of natural history was yet to be turned on its head by the revelations of Natural Selection as formulated by these two.

I am sure there are many taxonomic references I have left out that I could have usefully employed, but my attention must be elsewhere at the moment. I will return to the early world of ornithological literature, specifically the second half of the 19th Century at a later date. If you are eager to see a list of early synonyms and their references, look no further than page 22 of Strickland’s Ornithological Synonyms below.

synonymsThis is the short early history of the scientific description for just a single species of bird. Of course, there are many many others who share a more or less parallel track through the literature. What I find fascinating is that I can do a few short hours of study on the internet and bring to you this history without even visiting a library or a museum.  Thanks go out to the Internet Archive and the Biodiversity Heritage Library websites, who make trawling through and accessing this literature possible.  An thanks to you for reading!

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New post tomorrow!

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Tomorrow I will take you on a fabulous journey from the Enlightenment to the Industrial Age, and the first 85 years of scientific knowledge of the Red-throated Caracara!

Cheapskate Tuesday 3: Trigger Happy

No not the Weird Al song (although that is awesome).  I refer of course to radio triggers. What is a radio trigger? Well, very simply this type of device transmits a signal which then tells a receiver unit to make a pulse of electricity, which fires either a flash or your camera. If the transmitter is mounted on your camera, the trigger will command receivers to fire flashes or other cameras mated to receivers with a trigger cable.

I have been using the Yongnuo YN-602 triggers, but many of the more modern ones use a transceiver design, with each unit being able to act as both a transmitter and a receiver. The YongNuo products are cheap, and a transmitter with two receivers is about 54 bucks. Other brands may be even less expensive.

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How does this work in practice and what can it be used for? Well, this summer, while sitting in front of this Osprey nest in Port Moody, I had my camera set up on a tripod, with a 300 mm lens aimed and focused on the nest. Rather than stand by the tripod with my finger on the trigger, I mounted a receiver on the hotshoe and held the transmitter in my hand. This way I was free to move around and not jostle my camera while waiting for the very infrequent visits by the adult Ospreys. When an osprey was about to land, I would trigger the camera, which was set to high speed burst mode, and get some shots…Maybe not the most elegant shooting, but fun and relaxing.

This Bombus vosnesenskii, was taken with my 100 mm lens and Yongnuo triggers firing the two speedlights mounted to a special bracket on my camera (to be covered in an upcoming post). In this case, the trigger is being used for its most common purpose, namely to trigger flashes.

A sidelong portrait of the charming  Tailed Frog (also to be covered in an upcoming post) was also shot using the trigger to fire a flash, this time with a single speedlight with a Cheapskate Diffuser over the frog.

This unusual shot of a male Northern Flicker (Colaptes auratus) cleaning out the nest hole of baby poop was a bit more involved. It used two Yongnuo transmitters, one in my hand commanding a receiver attached to the “cable release” ( a 2.5 mm jack) to trigger the camera (as with the osprey shot), and the other transmitter on the hotshoe commanding a speedlight near the nest to fire.  This froze the bird in flight, and allows us to see what was going on.

These triggers can also be used for other things, such as triggering studio mains and other larger lights. Another useful trick is to combine them with Magic Lantern software to trigger recording of video on Canon DSLR’s. Probably the coolest usage would be to use them to trigger your camera in situations that would be impossible or too dangerous otherwise  such as near shy or dangerous animals. The range is about 100 m or so, so you will have lots of room!

These things are versatile and cheap, so get trigger happy!

Results of Weekend Expedition 3: Reifel

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Weekend Expedition 3 went off with no undue trouble thanks to Willow English, a phalarope researcher who drove us both to Westham Island and the George C. Reifel Bird Sanctuary. This was the first time I had been there in many years, the last having been on a field trip with my vertebrate ecology lab way back in undergrad.
The weather was a mix of fog, cloud, and sun, so no real dramatic lighting was available, but this is typical for this area in the winter. There were certainly a lot of birds, as this is one bird sanctuary where you are allowed to feed the wildlife (which, when you think about it, is kind of odd). I think these feeding opportunities made for some good photo opportunities  such as the sandhill cranes in closeup, as well as the low angel mallard shot. On the raptor front, we were not disappointed to find a sleepy Saw-Whet Owl dozing on a low limb with another somewhat higher. These have been spotted for several weeks now, and in general they seem to be reliably found at Reifel.

Overall, not so many surprises, but it was definitely worth the trip. And feeding Sandhill Cranes really is pretty awesome.
What did you get up to this weekend?

Weekend Expedition Plans: Reifel Bird Sanctuary

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I would like to get out to the George C. Reifel Bird Sanctuary on Westham Island, if I can arrange transportation… Folks have been shooting lots of cool stuff out there and I would like to give it a go.  The goal? Get out into new territory and not be such a homebody…If suitable transport cannot be arranged, I will have to wing it with the bus system.

The main work-related goal this weekend is to prepare a 40 minute talk on caracara foraging biology for next Thursday’s Les Ecologistes seminar.

The Red-throated Caracara: introducing my favorite loud bird

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The Red-throated Caracara, Ibycter americanus, is the subject of my academic research and the namesake of this blog.

This beautiful raptor may look like a strange vulture or a hawk, but it is actually in the falcon family. It is classified in the subfamily Polyborinae. This group includes the caracaras, forest falcons and some others, and is thought to have split from the rest of the falcons some 14 million years ago . The caracaras are oddballs in the falcon world, as they are not swift-flying, long-winged aerial hunters, but for the most part rather slow-flying generalists and scavengers, many of whom spend a lot of time walking on the ground. There are currently five recognized genera of caracara, with 10 species.

This is a Crested Caracara, Caracara cheriway. These birds are more typical of the group, found in open habitats. (photo CC Licenced by Manjith Kainickara)

This Yellow-Headed Caracara, Milvago chimachima is a smaller generalist predator, also found in open habitats. A beautiful photo by Bart vanDorp, taken in Minas Gerais, Brazil.

Caracaras are for the most part birds of open habitats, from windswept Patagonian plains to sunbaked Venezuelan llanos to the open cattle country of Central Florida. Bucking this trend, the Red-throated Caracara is a forest specialist, preferring densely forested habitats from Central America to southern Brazil. And unlike most of its relatives, it is not a generalist predator or a scavenger, but rather a specialist predator of social wasps.  This unusual diet is mirrored in the Old World by the Honey Buzzards, of the genus Pernis. It is this unusual dietary choice which led to me taking on my PhD research, the main objective of which was to determine how these caracaras manage to prey on well-defended social wasps without getting injured.

The warning coloration of these Apoica albimacula tell most predators to stay away, and with good reason.

In addition to the diet, the social behavior of Red-throated Caracaras also stands out. Unlike most falcons, this species  is rarely seen alone, preferring to travel in groups of up to 15 birds. They are extremely loud birds and are in almost constant vocal communication with each other.  If you want to hear what I am talking about, listen to  this!

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Yeah, we bad… The Red-throated Caracara is one of the most sociable (and loud) raptors you are ever likely to meet.

This species, and most caracaras in fact, have rarely been studied. Prior to my work on these strange birds, only one study has focused on their behavior, showing that they exhibited some degree of cooperative breeding, and that they appeared to be defended against their social wasp prey by “a powerful chemical repellent”.

Because I have become so enamoured of these caracaras, I would like their tale told more widely, and this blog will be one of the vehicles to do so.  In some upcoming posts, I will begin to tell the story of my research on these (ridiculously cool) animals. My research has been a  fascinating journey, which is not over yet. You are most welcome to tune in to future posts to learn more about the world of the Red-throated Caracara.

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References

FUCHS, J., JOHNSON, J. A. & MINDELL, D. P. 2012. Molecular systematics of the caracaras and allies (Falconidae: Polyborinae) inferred from mitochondrial and nuclear sequence data. Ibis 154:520–532. Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

THIOLLAY, J. M. 1991. Foraging , home range use and social behaviour of a group-living rainforest raptor , the Red-throated Caracara Daptrius americanus. Ibis 133:382–393. Wiley Online Library.

Cheapskate Tuesday 2: The Raynox DCR 250

This shot of a sharpshooter, Oncometopia nigricans, was taken with a compact superzoom and a Raynox DCR 250 lit with the onboard flash and some styrofoam bowls (see below).

Much of the reason I got into photography is the desire to document the wonderful world of insects. This is the realm of macrophotography and is a great one for beginners to get into, because stellar results can come from even modest equipment (provided you are willing to work to achieve them).

One of the best pieces of equipment to get going in macro is the Raynox DCR 250. This marvelous piece of glass fits on the front of a lens and allows you to snap some great high magnification shots. If you are hesitating about getting a macro lens, but still want to get some nice closeups, this is your tool. It costs about 70-90 bucks.

These types of attachments are often called “diopters” or “close-up filters”, but the difference between these and most others on the market is that these ones don’t suck . They are a 3 element design, and are multi-coated for good contrast and flare control. When using this lens adapter, you use your zoom to set your magnification, and then the focus for the close work. Using my DSLR with it attached to the front of my 18-55 IS (kit zoom), I can fill the frame with something 35 mm across. This is not quite 1: 1, but getting there.

If you do not have an SLR, fear not! It also makes a wonderful attachment for compacts, especially the so called “superzooms”. You may need a special adapter to fit it to, but once it is on, the strong telephoto character of the superzoom allows some pretty good closeup ability.

My early days shooting macro I used the combination of the Raynox and a Canon S2IS extensively. I loved the versatility of this combination, and I sometimes still miss it! Below is a monstrously ugly photo I once took of that setup. Here you can see the styrofoam bowl which acts as a flash diffuser for the onboard flash fitted around the bayonet adapter,.  The Oncometopia nigricans photo at the top was taken with this setup, as were many of my favorite macro shots.

Below you can see the Raynox itself. It comes shipped with a clip on adapter (visible in the shot above) to mount it to various sized filter threads, but this is somewhat flimsy and will break at some point. The interior portion is threaded, so you can just get a step-up ring from 43 mm to whatever size filter thread you want to attach it to.

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Here is a shot I took yesterday of a Polistes aurifer (from the lab!) using a borrowed (thanks Mike!) Canon G12 and Raynox DCR250. The light is the YN460 with the Cheapskate diffuser featured in last week’s Cheapskate Tuesday.

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This is a subject that is close to home for many of you, the Cellar Spider, Pholcus phalangiodes shot last night with a Canon A720, the styrofoam bowl diffuser, and onboard flash.

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The equipment used to capture the Cellar Spider. The camera was 50 bucks at a pawn shop.

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The same Polistes aurifer male from the lab, this time shot with my DSLR and the inexpensive EFS18-55 IS with Raynox DCR 250, also lit with the Cheapskate Diffuser. This same  lens combo is often used to stunning effect by Techuser, a.k.a. Brazilian nature photography guru  João P. Burini of Primal Shutter.

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The combo in question. EFS 18-55 IS II, a lens you can probably buy for 100 bucks, and the DCR 250.

To sum up, the Raynox is an adaptable piece of equipment, and unlike many macro adapters, this one is actually good.  I no longer have one of these, having given mine away a couple years back to an aspiring macro shooter from French Guiana, but picking it up again to write this up makes me nostalgic. I think I will have to end with a gallery of some of my favorite shots with this awesome little lens.

Weekend Expedition 2: Stanley Park with Wild Research

This weekend expedition was much like any you might venture to make on a winter day in Vancouver: grey and rainy! The rain was not severe though, so with the camera protected by a big umbrella, I headed out with Wild Research for a birdwatching trip led by Elly Knight, a grassland songbird researcher at SFU. The mission today was to get out and see some waterbirds as well as some passerines that make their homes in wintertime Vancouver. I was along to document the fun, as well as to offer my own, often unreliable, ID help! Click on any image below to see a gallery of the resulting shots.

Snakes!!!

The first and only time I saw this beautiful arboreal pitviper was on the last day of last year’s field season. This shot required running down to the Grand Plateau an hour before the chopper arrived. This is Bothriopsis bilneata (formerly Bothrops bilineatus)

Over the past few years, during my fieldwork in French Guiana, I have been on the lookout for snakes. As a child, I always loved these animals, having kept several as pets. In fact, like many entomologists, I first wanted to be a herpetologist!
In the field, there are snakes to see, but for better or for worse, I usually only see 2-3 per month of fieldwork. This past field season, perhaps because we were covering 7-16 km per day most every day, we did encounter more than that. Please enjoy this selection of French Guianan serpents that we saw this field season:

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My first anaconda! This was actually spotted by an ONCFS director (Jean-Marie), somehow…It is just a small one. Eunectes murinus

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See? Just a small one! Thanks Jean Pierre!

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A small vine snake, Oxybelis aeneus

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A small nonvenomous colubrid, said to be a mimic of the venomous Bothriopsis bilineata at the top of this post. This is Xenodon werneri

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Pseustes poecilonotus…Kinda like a rat snake, I suppose, but maybe a bit more active. This shot was exposed at a couple seconds, steadied with a tripod.

Gorgeous, eh? Oxybelis fulgidus… Somewhat venomous arboreal colubrid with dreamy yellow eyes.

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Yep…Super pretty.

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You know you wanted to keep gazing into these eyes…

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Here is a Bothrops atrox. This one I almost stepped on. My boot was within 1 m of this animal, but it did not bite. Catherine spotted it after my careless blunder!

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The rain started pouring shortly after the first shot, so with our transect scrubbed, I put the camera in a bag on the tripod and kept shooting.

Note on Snakes and the danger posed by them:
Some of the most common questions I get about work in the tropics is “what about snakes? Are there lots of them? Are you afraid?”
Well, yes, of course there are snakes, and yes, there are a lot of them, but no, for the most part, I am not terribly afraid…
Lets be clear, it is a very remote area to work in, and it takes at least 40 minutes for a helicopter to fly out and get you, assuming one is available and it is not crappy weather or nighttime. A snakebite could very well be a very very bad thing indeed.
That being said, with a few sensible precautions, snakebite is very unlikely (or that is what I like to tell myself anyhow). First of all, do not handle the snakes, especially the dangerous ones or the ones you do not recognize to be harmless. This should be obvious. There is probably no good reason to be handling them anyhow, unless they are what you are studying.
Secondly, do try to watch where you are going, and watch where your feet fall. Even with some of the most cryptic species, you can often see them before you step on them (I think you can anyway…I have seen a few anyhow. If I did step on some I did not suffer for it…)
Thirdly, I like to think that the wearing of high boots may ward off some bites, at least of smaller specimens. I generally wear high rubber boots in the forest, as they are cheap, durable and waterproof. They are also pretty tough, and while they probably would not stop all fangs from entering the skin, they might at least make some of the small ones glance off. I always try to look where I am going, and I always use a headlamp or flashlight at night.

Chances are, you won’t get bit… BUT!

it could happen, and it would probably suck, so a little healthy fear is probably a good thing….

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Speaking of nighttime and venomous serpents, this is a Bushmaster Lachesis muta or “silent fate”. This species is one of the biggest venomous snakes in the world. Contrary to its binomial, it is not really silent, and in fact has a hardened horny tail, which it vibrates rapidly to produce quite a loud sound.

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You really do not see these beauties too often, as they are nocturnal. They are one of the best reasons to always use a lamp!

For more snakey goodness from the internet today, click here