The place
Restrepo, Meta, Colombia. Restrepo sits on the first slopes above the llanos, just north of Villavicencio, and I found this potoo only a few blocks from the town’s central park, on an urban photo walk early one September morning in 2023.
The shot
In the middle of a bustling town, this nocturnal bird stayed perfectly still, trusting its bark-like plumage to hide it. Soft, diffused light filtering through the canopy brought out every feather without harsh shadows, a rare chance to show this master of camouflage in daylight.
The bird
A member of the potoos (Nyctibiidae), the Great Potoo is a non-migratory resident whose range BirdLife estimates at about 13.2 million km², with moist lowland forest as its major habitat.
Conservation
Least Concern on the IUCN Red List (last assessed 2020), with an estimated 500,000–4,999,999 mature individuals, though BirdLife reports the population as decreasing. Source: BirdLife International