The first time Jonathan Meiburg met a striated caracara, it stole his pen. Busy “contemplating the blue-black water stretching away toward Antarctica,” Meiburg sat on the coast of one of the many islands of the Falklands when two caracaras approached him. They looked at him with an avian curiosity often reserved for parrots and corvids, and when Meiburg placed a pen on the ground as an offering, the young birds took no time in snatching it and flying away. This interaction would spark a curiosity in Meiburg – an ornithologist, writer, and musician – that would eventually lead him on a years long quest to research and learn all that he could about these mysterious birds of prey. The result is his recently published book, A Most Remarkable Creature (Knopf 2021), that dives deep into the history of these fascinating birds and takes the reader on a journey through South America that is revelatory, riveting, and full of knowledge and adventure.
When we think of birds of prey, the common players come to mind: red-tailed hawks, great horned owls, peregrine falcons. We marvel at their keen eyesight and graceful ferocity. They enthrall us by being “solitary, aloof, and particular, with little interest in games,” and we understand that they “spend most of their time conserving their energy for the next kill.” We recognize that they have very little interest in humans, and those who often deal with birds of prey, “accept this.” Caracaras, however, are different. Visually, Meiburg describes them as “ten separate attempts to build a crow on a falcon chassis, with results falling somewhere between elegant, menacing, and whimsical,” but mentally, “their most striking qualities, […] are their minds.” The birds come in all different sizes ranging anywhere from the size of a magpie to the heft of a raven. Their plumage is typically black with the occasional white patch, and their faces and feet can often be colored in bright red or yellow skin. They are scavengers who sport “broad wings, hooked beaks, and an alert, curious expression,” and you can find them all over South America, “from the arid peaks of the Andes to the steaming forests of the Amazon basin.”
Throughout Meiburg’s book, we travel with him to the Falklands where we meet the striated caracaras or “Johnny Rooks” as the locals like to call them. We are introduced to the red-throated caracaras “on the banks of the Rewa river, in the deep forests of southern Guyana” where we learn about their penchant for devouring the larvae inside nests of social wasps, a feat so dangerous that it was once believed the birds held repellant properties within their feathers or skin that kept the wasps from attacking. We catch a glimpse of a black caracara that is so rarely studied in the scientific world that next to nothing is known about it. Eventually, we learn the heartbreaking story of the Guadalupe caracara, a species of caracara single-handedly driven to extinction by Rollo Beck, an ornithologist in the early 1900’s who is believed to have shot and killed nearly all of the last remaining Guadalupe caracaras in a single, ironic attempt to collect and categorize the species. Meiburg expertly describes each species of caracara with such devotion that you can’t help but wonder why so little is known about these intelligent birds of prey. And yet, this is precisely the case. Despite vast examples of caracaras exhibiting an intelligence so fierce as to possibly rival the beloved raven, “behavioral scientists […] don’t seem to know they exist.” Even so, you can occasionally find caracaras performing in falconry shows, demonstrating their immense curiosity and interest in the world and the humans around them.
Perhaps the most striking thing about Meiburg’s book is not just that he paints the world of the caracara so vividly, but that alongside the history of these beautiful birds, Meiburg manages to tell a story of South America and its geography that is just as riveting as the birds of prey that call it home. In one particular section of the book, Meiburg brings the reader back to before the asteroid hit Earth when dinosaurs were still plentiful and flourishing. From there, he moves forward in time to detail how a changing planet eventually, through evolution, gave rise to the various species of caracara we know today. It is an elegantly crafted exploration of the beauty of evolution, and one of the most fascinating parts of the book.
In the end, Meiburg draws attention back to the striated caracaras who are “the southernmost birds of prey on Earth, and among the rarest: no more than a few thousand are left.” Without action, striated caracaras are in danger of joining the Guadalupe caracaras in extinction, and Meiburg postulates on the various ways these magnificent birds can be saved. It is this section that made me see the book as more of a door through which we might be able to walk towards more research and conservation of these beautiful, intelligent birds.
A Most Remarkable Creature is a wild ride of a book that left me with more questions than answers, but this seems to be precisely Meiburg’s goal. In a discussion with paleontologist, Julia Clarke, she tells Meiburg, “The more I think about it, the more I think this idea – that the world is known – is what keeps people from committing to a life of discovery.” And so that is what Meiburg does. He takes our known world and spins it on its head, revealing complexities and wonders about not just the field of ornithology, but the planet and humankind as well so that we might be inspired to continue seeking out the unknowns in order to discover something new.
