The Story
I photographed this Horned Screamer (Anhima cornuta) at the Hotel Campestre Resguardos de Paz, near El Paujil, Caquetá, Colombia, in February 2020. The horn on its crown is not a feather but a horny growth loosely attached to the skull, and it keeps growing while often breaking at the tip. Its loud, echoing call earned it the name el clon-clon in Ecuador. It nests on a floating platform of vegetation. 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 1/500 sec, f/5.6, ISO 100, −1 EV. Spanish Wikipedia notes that El Paujil grew on an extensive ranching model that has lasted economically but has been hard on the environment.
©2021 Adam Rainoff Photographer
The bird
The Horned Screamer (Anhima cornuta) belongs to the family Anhimidae (Screamers) 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
