The Story
I photographed this Fawn-breasted Tanager (Pipraeidea melanonota) at the Reserva Natural Municipal Cerro Munchique Los Tigres, near Santander de Quilichao in Cauca, Colombia. It lives along forest borders, in bushy pastures and in semi-open farmland with large trees. Its diet mixes berries, fruit pulp, buds, flowers and seeds with insects such as moths and caterpillars, and it often feeds alone even when it joins mixed flocks. IUCN lists it as Least Concern. It sometimes gathers with other birds at fruiting trees.
I photographed it with a Canon R5 and the RF 800mm f/11 plus the RF 1.4x extender, at 1/125 sec, f/16, ISO 6400, −0.5 EV. In the vereda Guayabal, students of the Institución Educativa La Esperanza take part in “Rutas de Esperanza,” a community birding project.
©2025 Adam Rainoff Photographer
The bird
The Fawn-breasted Tanager (Pipraeidea melanonota) belongs to the family Thraupidae (Tanagers and Allies) 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