The Story
This is a Yellow-headed Caracara (Daptrius chimachima) that I photographed near La Dorada, Caldas, Colombia on June 25, 2017. La Dorada is a municipality at the eastern edge of Caldas, in the Magdalena Medio region, on the banks of the Magdalena River. Caldas has 837 bird species on record, about 45 percent of the birds of Colombia. It is a New World bird of prey in the falcon family, formerly placed in the genus Milvago. Its back and wings are blackish brown, and its reddish-brown eye is set in bare, bright yellow skin.
I photographed it with a Canon EOS 70D and the EF400mm f/5.6L USM, at 1/250 sec, f/5.6, ISO 1600. IUCN lists the Yellow-headed Caracara as Least Concern with an increasing population, and the regional authority Corpocaldas protects the Charca de Guarinocito, an oxbow lagoon of the Magdalena in La Dorada, as an integrated management district.
©2018 Adam Rainoff Photographer
The bird
The Yellow-headed Caracara (Daptrius chimachima) belongs to the family Falconidae (Falcons and Caracaras) 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
