The Story
The place
Caracolí Bird House, Villavicencio, Meta, Colombia. I photographed this Golden-bellied Euphonia here on September 15, 2025, at about 7:22 a.m.
eBird lists 94 species all-time at Caracolí Bird House (as of October 2026).
The shot
This Golden-bellied Euphonia (Euphonia chrysopasta) was perched on a thin stem at Caracolí Bird House, a rural birding lodge in the vereda Zuria outside Villavicencio, in Meta, Colombia. Euphonias look like small tanagers but belong to the finch family, and this species feeds mainly on mistletoe berries and other small fruits, with a few insects. In forest it keeps mostly to the canopy, coming lower to feed in shrubs and small trees at edges and clearings. In Colombia it reaches about 1,200 meters.
I made this frame with a Canon R5 and the RF 800mm f/11 plus the RF 1.4x extender, at 1/125 sec, f/16, ISO 1600, −0.5 EV. IUCN lists the Golden-bellied Euphonia as Least Concern but notes that its population is decreasing.
©2026 Adam Rainoff Photographer
The bird
The Golden-bellied Euphonia (Euphonia chrysopasta) belongs to the family Fringillidae (Finches, Euphonias, and Allies) in the eBird/Clements taxonomy.
Source: eBird.org (opens in a new tab)
Conservation
Least Concern on the IUCN Red List (assessment published 2024), with the population trend listed as decreasing. Source: IUCN Red List
