The Story
I photographed this Ruddy-breasted Seedeater (Sporophila minuta) at Hacienda El Japio, near San Esteban de Caloto in Cauca, Colombia. It belongs to the tanager family and lives in dry savanna, seasonally wet grassland and old cleared land. It is found from Mexico through Central America to northern South America, including Trinidad and Tobago. Like other Sporophila seedeaters, it has a stubby, conical bill adapted for feeding on seeds, and in most species of the genus the sexes look strikingly different. IUCN lists it as Least Concern.
I photographed him with a Canon R5 and the RF 800mm f/11 plus the RF 1.4x extender, at 1/750 sec, f/16, ISO 3200, −1 EV. In 2023 Colombia’s national parks agency registered Japio’s forest as a private nature reserve to protect tropical dry forest.
©2022 Adam Rainoff Photographer
The bird
The Ruddy-breasted Seedeater (Sporophila minuta) 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 2021), with the population trend listed as decreasing. Source: IUCN Red List