The Story
The shot
I photographed this Two-banded Puffbird (Hypnelus bicinctus) at Finca la Reserva de Ecoflora, near Monterrey in Casanare, Colombia. It is found only in Colombia and Venezuela, where it lives in llanos savanna, thickets and the edges of dry woodland, almost always below 500 meters. It hunts from a perch and sallies out to catch insects. It digs its nest burrow into a termite nest in a tree. The two black bands across its chest give it its name. IUCN lists it as Least Concern.
I used a Canon R5 with the RF 800mm f/11 plus the RF 1.4x extender for this one, at 1/60 sec, f/16, ISO 1600. Monterrey, in the foothills of the Eastern Cordillera about 105 kilometers from Yopal, was founded on September 6, 1953, and became a municipality in 1960.
©2022 Adam Rainoff Photographer
The bird
The Two-banded Puffbird (Hypnelus bicinctus) belongs to the family Bucconidae (Puffbirds) 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 stable. Source: IUCN Red List
