The Story
I photographed this Yellow-browed Sparrow (Ammodramus aurifrons) at the Hotel Campestre Resguardos de Paz, near El Paujil, Caquetá, Colombia, in February 2020. It eats mostly seeds of native grasses and introduced plants, along with insects, and usually feeds on the ground. It is less secretive than its sister species, the Grassland Sparrow, and is best told by its buzzy song. Males and females look alike, and juveniles have no yellow on the face. IUCN lists it as Least Concern, with a stable population.
I used a Pentax K-1 with the HD Pentax-D FA 150-450mm f/4.5-5.6 for this one, at 1/400 sec, f/5.6, ISO 200. This sparrow has benefited from the clearing of rainforest for farming and cattle ranching, and it is common in young, regrowing fields.
©2021 Adam Rainoff Photographer
The bird
The Yellow-browed Sparrow (Ammodramus aurifrons) belongs to the family Passerellidae (New World Sparrows) 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
