The Tickbird

video by Tuija Sonkkila on YouTube

20 January 2016

This week I blogged about a caracara on a capybara but I didn’t tell you much about the bird.  Why was the bird standing on the mammal?  Hint: The falcon’s nickname is “tickbird.”

Yellow-headed caracaras (Milvago chimachima) are omnivorous members of the falcon family who live in south-Central and South America.  They eat almost anything — carrion, frogs, fish, eggs, palm fruit, corn, horse dung — but when it comes to feeding their young they focus a lot on insects.  90% of the nestlings’ diet consists of beetles, grasshoppers and crickets.

They earned their nickname “tickbirds” because they also glean ticks off of cattle and other mammals, including capybaras.  Above, a juvenile yellow-faced caracara cleans a cow.  The cattle don’t mind, even when the caracaras pick at open wounds.

Yellow-headed caracaras have adapted well as the forest is converted to ranches and cities.  You’d never guess from this video that their nickname is The Tickbird.

Yellow-headed caracara at the Panama Fruit Feeder (video from Cornell Lab Bird Cams)

(videos from YouTube)

8 thoughts on “The Tickbird

  1. I enjoy reading your blog on my iPhone, but I am never able to get your videos to play. Do you have any suggestions?

    1. Still not working. It looks like it downloads but it never plays. Do you know if anyone else is having the same problem or is it just me ?

    2. Marsha, I posted on Facebook and am waiting for others to comment and see if it is more widespread.

  2. Videos are working fine for me. I don’t think I would have guessed those birds are falcons if I just saw them flying around like in the second video. They kind of sound like a bunch of starlings.

    1. Just check them again in the videos from today are now working. Thank you for making that fix.

  3. I’m sure the cows don’t mind the Caracaras removing their ticks. But they might say, just don’t tick me off! :- ) Thanks for the interesting posts.

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