I had the incredible thrill of having my 300th Nebraska bird be the Crested caracara. I think many of us like listing, and memorable experiences, and good birding partners, and milestones. I had all of that tied together in this one sighting.
So ... Tobin hooks me up with the Discord chat to follow the latest on the Caracara. I can't go until Saturday work wise. In the chat Em is looking to hitchhike along if anyone is passing through Lancaster County. So, we connect. We agree if there's a sighting Friday it's on. There is, so I pick Em up at 6 am in Lincoln.
The conversation along the drive was wide, varied, and epic. I'll just tell you, Em does a great Richard Burton from Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf.
It's getting icy on this drive. There's a time where we're considering bailing. At a gas station we talk to a group of farmers on their morning "solve the world's problems" coffee meeting. I ask about the roads. One assured me the route would be ok. I took that as a sign. :)
Eventually we get to Keith County, cross the dam, and head down 92. At 20 miles out, we lock in. No more wide and varied conversation. All we're talking about is how we find this bird. We have the "your eyes on the road, mine on the birds" conversation.
We get lucky. We see the bird immediately. But ... it's flying about 300 yards away, just in front of the beige building on the NW corner of 92 and 207. We get a 20-ish second view as it crosses 92 to the North, with trees impeding view.
So, there we sit, and ID a silhouette of a large flying raptor where we can't see the famous face/head characteristics. We can see a flash of light/dark color, and we can see wing shape, wing style, tail angle, and flight characteristics. We start ruling out possibles. Buteos were out. Bald eagle - out. The last DQ was Harrier. We asked each other if we were certain, and we agreed.
You wouldn't know this about me, but the thing I enjoy the most is what I call "good birding" - when you need to go deep into your toollbox to ID a bird. You don't have the visual you need for the full set of field marks. You don't have vocalization. You have things like silhouette, posture, wing appearance, etc. I'm not as good as many here in that process, but it's my favorite thing about birding.
So, I got Nebraska #300, collaborating with a fine young birder who's going to become better than me if they haven't already, by ID-ing my favorite way. The only way it could be better is if JRR Tolkien and Tom Osborne were with us. I don't know if Em caught this or not, but I had tears well up at the whole thing.
Less than 5 minutes after we agree, there's a flash from Ebird, Mark Brogie reported it. So we get the Appeal to Authority :).
Em is on the phone telling their mother, who is just learning birding, and is chasing a Prothonotary warbler in California at the same time. I told Em to tell their mother that their partner says that they are a great birder.
We try and relocate the CC. We eventually end up with a 30-minute spotting scope view about 200 yards out in the same field, as it tore apart and ate a Canada goose. You could see blood on the goose's feather, and pieces of flesh. That's how good the scope view was. The best picture we have is old school digiscoping - Em shooting a phone picture through the scope eyepiece. That's in the checklist.
Em later shares that picture to the Discord chat. With a caption that says "A digiscopic observation of rapid caracarogenic metamorphosis in *Branta canadensis*." We worked on that a bit on the drive home. Em provided "rapid." I served up "caracara-induced," then Em improved it. You get the idea.
Other cool things happened. In addition to 300, we saw Kestrel, Merlin, and Prairie falcon. So, we're in the club of those who have had a Nebraska 4-falcon day without a Peregrine. Em wanted to see a Townsend's solitaire while we were there. Tobin recommended Lake Ogallala, and I went straight to a tree grove where I'd seen one years before. Tick. At the Caracara field, a Merlin blasted over a mass of Starlings on the ground, causing Starling Mayhem. It was just that kind of day.
And ... a mysterious Buteo that flew directly overhead at 20 feet. We watched through binoculars as it approached, flew straight over our heads, and flew away. Neither of us had a camera. We couldn't tell what it was. And we tried hard, went through Sibleys. We left it at the genus level on the checklist.
There's even more to the story, but that's probably enough.
