He reveals the wild, fascinating story of their history, origins, and possible futures. He takes us through South America, from the fog-bound coasts of Tierra del Fuego to the tropical forests of Guyana, in search of these birds: striated caracaras, which still exist, though they're very rare. Almost two hundred years later, Jonathan Meiburg takes up this chase. Darwin wondered why these birds were confined to remote islands at the tip of South America, sensing a larger story, but he set this mystery aside and never returned to it. In 1833, Charles Darwin was astonished by an animal he met in the Falkland Islands: handsome, social, and oddly crow-like falcons that were 'tame and inquisitive…quarrelsome and passionate,' and so insatiably curious that they stole hats, compasses, and other valuables from the crew of the Beagle. (Mar.An enthralling account of a modern voyage of discovery as we meet the clever, social birds of prey called caracaras, which puzzled Darwin, fascinate modern-day falconers, and carry secrets of our planet's deep past in their family history. Fans of literary nature narratives will be thrilled by his lyrical account, and eager to see where Meiburg goes next.

Meiburg’s evocative prose (“on the sandstone heights, clusters of wild guanacos turned red and gold in the sun, snorting and whinnying to let us know we were seen”) will bring armchair naturalists into the wild with him. A family of birds, caracaras can be found in South America and resemble a “cross between a hawk and a raven.” Meiburg notes how the caracara, with its reputation for stealing people’s hats and other valuables, fascinated Charles Darwin, but he never pursued the questions they’d raised for him, including why they chose the Falkland Islands “for their metropolis.” Meiburg follows a Falklands Conservation biologist to find a dead caracara that “looked like he collapsed from exhaustion” and investigates the rare chimango caracara as its killer, and learns from a falconer (with a devotion to a caracara named Tina) that the birds’ intelligence and sociability are remarkable. Meiburg elevates himself to the top ranks of science writers with this enthralling debut on the obscure caracara.

A most remarkable creature