The Story
This Common Squirrel-Cuckoo (Piaya cayana) was at Hotel Waka Rural in Honda, Tolima, Colombia when I photographed it. It is a large, active cuckoo of wooded habitats from northwestern Mexico to northern Argentina and Uruguay. It usually takes its prey off foliage with a quick lunge, but it may catch wasps in flight. Both sexes incubate the eggs for about 18 days. It is plentiful in most of its range and quite tolerant of people, as long as woodland remains. Honda, on the Magdalena in northern Tolima, was the first river port of the New Kingdom of Granada and was named a heritage town of Colombia in 2010.
I made this frame with a Pentax K-1 and the HD Pentax-D FA 150-450mm f/4.5-5.6, at 1/160 sec, f/6.3, ISO 1600, +1 EV. IUCN lists the Common Squirrel-Cuckoo as Least Concern, with a decreasing population.
©2019 Adam Rainoff Photographer
The bird
The Common Squirrel-Cuckoo (Piaya cayana) belongs to the family Cuculidae (Cuckoos) 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 decreasing. Source: IUCN Red List