*Crested Caracara at Ballona, Photo courtesy of Van Pierszalowski*

by Robbie Lisa Freeman

For Van Pierszalowski, Sunday June 4 was just another day doing what he loves to do: chasing down rare birds across Southern California. He wasn’t expecting to become a part of California birding lore.

Van had just photographed a widely reported and exciting new bird to add to his LA County life list: a Franklin’s Gull discovered at Ballona Marsh. Returning to his car, still basking in the glow of the gull and completing notes in his eBird report, he checked the skies over the Ballona Salt Marsh. High up, he spied a Turkey Vulture on the hunt and not far from it, another dark raptor crisscrossed the sky. Van was instantly curious. This bird was not a Turkey Vulture: Its shape wasn’t the same, nor did it appear to have the profile of a hawk, kite, or any other local raptor. Van grabbed his Nikon D500 camera to take a closer look through its ultra-zoom 150-600mm Sigma lens. Whoa, he thought. Not a vulture, not a buteo — his mind raced through his detailed knowledge base of rare raptors reported through the years in the LA area. Could it be…?

Excitedly, Van amped up the brightness in his viewfinder, revealing a large raptor with a white neck and face, white wing tips and undertail feathers, orangish skin around the beak, and a black cap — all key characteristics of a Crested Caracara! Not quite believing the possibility, Van quickly sent a screenshot from his viewfinder to several friends and local experts and with shaky hands fired off more shots of the bird. Within moments, his friends confirmed with excited responses.

“YES!” said one.

“I’m on my way!” said another.

Van immediately texted local birders in a dedicated WhatsApp birding group: “There is a Crested Caracara circling over Ballona! Overhead from approximately here, right now.” He entered the coordinates of the bird’s location at 11:23 AM, along with a photo. Van couldn’t have gotten more action if he’d yelled “Fire” in a crowded theater. Almost instantly, group members began responding with exclamations and emoji faces.

“Amazing!” one exclaimed.

“Poor thing looks like it flew through a shredder,” another said in reaction to the photo.

Then, “I lost it…,” Van reported.

Then, “It’s back…!” he exclaimed.

“Where’s the best viewing spot?” asked someone.

The texts flew back and forth as flocks of birders from across LA converged onto the scene, armed with cameras, spotting scopes, and binoculars.

For the lucky handful of folks (including me) who happened to be onsite at 11:30 a.m., the caracara did one low mesmerizing aerial maneuver over the marsh before soaring south to the Del Rey Bluffs to settle in a secluded tree. For the rest of the birders, the caracara had no intention of making it easy. Some set out to hike the trail along the bluffs for a better view. Others entered the path between Ballona Creek and the salt pan.

“From the top of the Bluff we could see it for quite a long time,” texted one birder.

“Moving east getting progressively smaller….” the birder added.

For many, that view of the bird receding in the distance was the best they got. Still, folks continued to gather, many whooping it up and chatting excitedly. And with good reason: This was the first reported sighting of the Crested Caracara in the state of California since 2016.

“I was unbelievably stoked,” said Van. “I’m really into learning about the status and distribution of birds throughout California. I keep a spreadsheet of every bird species recorded in the state, so I knew from my research how rare this was, and that I’d be making the first report of one in seven years.”

Crested Caracaras reside predominantly in Central and South America, Mexico, and in a few U.S. states, including Texas, Arizona, Louisiana, and Florida. There have only been three records of them in LA County, according to eBird reports, with the last on Catalina Island in 2016 and one reported at Ballona in 2012.

Asked how he would rate his excitement level about seeing this bird on a scale of 1 to 10, Van responded: “17 million! I haven’t been this excited about a bird in a while. It’s my number 1 bird ever! The only thing that even comes close was the Brown Thrasher I found in San Luis Obispo that was the 3rd or 4th record in the area.”

To help celebrate the caracara sighting, Van telegraphed the news broadly to allow more local birders to see it.

“I love birds and fully believe that being near them in their environment is vital to my wellbeing,” he said. “But in the bigger picture, a birder’s goal should be to help educate as many people as possible about the wonder of birds, because the more people get excited about them, the more they love them — and the more they love them, the more they want to protect them. It’s the whole trickledown effect of engaging and exciting people about the birds around them. It’s one of the most important things that birders can do because people won’t fight to protect something they don’t know. But they’ll stand up for the things they fall in love with.”

There was lots of love for the visiting caracara that day at Ballona Marsh. Hopeful birders continued to search for it and post about it into the evening, and then into the next day. But the bird had moved on.

“A CRCA was just reported on the Orange County listserv… wonder if it was our bird,” texted one birder.

“Crested Caracara flew directly over Least Tern Colony in Seal Beach at 10:50 AM. It flew directly east and southerly, leaving the area,” reported another.

Though leaving LA behind, the majestic bird no doubt created small tsunamis of excitement in skies throughout Southern California as it continued its mysterious journey.

Robbie Lisa Freeman is an avid birder, traveler, travel writer, photographer, and contributing writer for the Western Tanager and other publications. Follow her on Instagram @freebird2020lf.