The Story
This Fawn-breasted Brilliant (Heliodoxa rubinoides) perched in a moment of stillness at La Minga Ecolodge in Dapa, near Cali, Valle del Cauca, Colombia, a site well known for its diversity of hummingbirds. Its green plumage and warm fawn breast show well, with a subtle pink throat that glows in the soft light. It is also called the Lilac-throated Brilliant. It lives in the Andes from western Colombia to central Bolivia, between 1,000 and 2,600 meters. It feeds mostly on nectar from brightly colored, tubular flowers, and it catches insects in flight, gleans them from leaves and plucks them from spider webs. IUCN lists it as Least Concern.
I made this frame with a Canon R5 and the RF 800mm f/11, at 1/250 sec, f/11, ISO 3200, −0.5 EV. La Minga sits in the cloud forest of the Kilometer 18 area, about an hour from Cali.
©2025 Adam Rainoff Photographer
The bird
The Fawn-breasted Brilliant (Heliodoxa rubinoides) 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