The Story
I photographed this Golden-bellied Starfrontlet (Coeligena bonapartei) at the Forest of Orchids, a private reserve in the vereda Chincé near Tabio and Tenjo, Cundinamarca, Colombia. The female’s forehead is plain green and her upperparts are like the male’s but duller. Its calls include a short twitter and a more complex chatter that rises and falls in pitch. It stays in its range all year and works a regular circuit of flowers. IUCN lists it as Least Concern. It feeds by trap-lining, visiting a regular circuit of flowering plants.
I photographed it with a Canon R5 and the RF 100-500mm f/4.5-7.1L, at 1/500 sec, f/6.7, ISO 12800. The Forest of Orchids is restoring land that was once cleared and burned, and it received Colombia’s Premio Nacional Ambiental in 2023.
©2021 Adam Rainoff Photographer
The bird
The Golden-bellied Starfrontlet (Coeligena bonapartei) belongs to the family Trochilidae (Hummingbirds) in the eBird/Clements taxonomy.
Source: eBird.org (opens in a new tab)
Conservation
Least Concern on the IUCN Red List (assessment published 2023), with the population trend listed as stable. Source: IUCN Red List
