Chilean Mystery Bird

I saw some beautiful birds today: grebes, cormorants, and even a pair of black necked swans.

The species in these photos, however, is a real puzzler. At first I thought it was a solitary raptor, but as we walked along the seaside park, I saw several of them.

What makes it strange is that they look like raptors, but they hang out in flower beds. At one point, I saw one run out and eat a beetle.

I searched lists of birds for this area, but no luck. There were a few pigeons and doves in the flowerbeds, too, and they did not seem worried by these raptors.

Very strange!

UPDATE: Thanks to my friend, Heidi, on Facebook, I figured out that this bird is a Chimanga Caracara. They are a type of falcon that behaves just as I described here.Read more