Zapotal came through again this morning … the Savannah habitat. The raptors find this area great for hunting. Today’s find was a Crested Caracara (see yesterday’s post with instructions for birding this area if you are visiting Las Catalinas). I watched “the Mexican Eagle” for over 15 minutes, and then came back later and found the Crested Caracara once again.

Zapotal Crested Caracara

And from a few days ago … the Great Black Hawk (apparently rather uncommon … the double white stripe proves this is not the Common Black Hawk).

And now movie time … a video I took of the Gray Hawk seen earlier this week and today’s Crested Caracara (video links for email subscribers: Gray Hawk | Crested Caracara)

And just to compare the Common to the Great Black Hawk, here is a photograph of the Common Black Hawk which lives and hunts mainly crabs near the ocean, and which I saw over at Playa Potrero at the beginning of this week.

I think there needs to be some better naming conventions for these Costa Rican raptors … Black Hawk … Gray Hawk … Roadside Hawk (links are to posts with these birds). The names of these hawks are exactly original … but they all were seen at the Zapotal Savannah.