The Story
I photographed this Blue-necked Tanager (Stilpnia cyanicollis) at La Esmeralda Hostal, in the vereda Pastales near Ibagué, Tolima, Colombia, in October 2019. It lives from Colombia to Bolivia, in lowland and montane forest and in heavily degraded former forest. It has a blue hood and throat, with turquoise to straw-green wing coverts and rump. Fruit is its main food, along with berries, flower blossoms and insects picked from leaves. The female builds a well-hidden cup nest of moss, and both parents feed the chicks, sometimes with help from other birds. IUCN lists it as Least Concern, with a stable population.
I made this frame with a Pentax K-1 and the HD Pentax-D FA 150-450mm f/4.5-5.6, at 1/800 sec, f/5.6, ISO 3200. Cortolima names the Indigo-capped Hummingbird among the ten most representative birds of Tolima as it promotes birding routes across the department.
©2020 Adam Rainoff Photographer
The bird
The Blue-necked Tanager (Stilpnia cyanicollis) belongs to the family Thraupidae (Tanagers 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 2018), with the population trend listed as stable. Source: IUCN Red List
