The Story
I photographed this Southern Lapwing (Vanellus chilensis) near La Macarena, Meta, Colombia, in February 2021. It is the only crested wader in South America, known as quero-quero in Brazil and tero in Argentina and Uruguay. Its gray head has a black forehead and throat patch running onto the black breast, edged in white. It is common across South America except dense forest, high Andes and the arid west coast, and it reached Trinidad in 1961. IUCN lists it as Least Concern.
I made this frame with a Canon R5 and the RF 800mm f/11 plus the RF 1.4x extender, at 1/750 sec, f/16, ISO 1600, −1 EV. La Macarena National Park traces its origins to the La Macarena Biological Reserve of 1948 and today covers 629,280 hectares of humid forest, flooded forest, scrub and Amazonian savanna.
©2021 Adam Rainoff Photographer
The bird
The Southern Lapwing (Vanellus chilensis) belongs to the family Charadriidae (Plovers and Lapwings) in the eBird/Clements taxonomy.
Source: eBird.org (opens in a new tab)
Conservation
Least Concern on the IUCN Red List (assessment published 2020), with the population trend listed as increasing. Source: IUCN Red List
