The Story
I photographed this Long-tailed Sylph (Aglaiocercus kingii) at La Florida, El Bosque de las Aves, in the Kilómetro 18 area near Cali, Valle del Cauca, Colombia, in February 2020. It is hovering with its wings blurred, feeding at a cluster of orange and yellow flowers. The Long-tailed Sylph is the most widespread of the sylphs, found in the Andes from Venezuela to Bolivia. It lives between about 900 and 3,000 meters in humid montane forest edges, scrub, clearings and gardens, and it forages at all heights in the forest and along its edges.
I made this frame with a Pentax K-1 and the HD Pentax-D FA 150-450mm f/4.5-5.6, at 1/160 sec, f/5.6, ISO 400. IUCN lists the Long-tailed Sylph as Least Concern, with a decreasing population. The San Antonio cloud forest at Kilometer 18 is recognized as an Important Bird Area and a Key Biodiversity Area, with the Multicolored Tanager (Chlorochrysa nitidissima) as its symbol species.
©2023 Adam Rainoff Photographer
The bird
The Long-tailed Sylph (Aglaiocercus kingii) 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 2024), with the population trend listed as decreasing. Source: IUCN Red List
