The Story
I photographed this Scarlet Macaw (Ara macao) in La Macarena, Meta, Colombia on July 3, 2017. In some areas it has disappeared because of habitat loss and capture for the parrot trade, but elsewhere it remains fairly common. Wild scarlet macaws eat fruits, nuts, seeds, flowers and nectar, and they often gather at clay licks. It is a large red, yellow and blue parrot native to humid evergreen forests of the Americas. The nearby Serranía de la Macarena is an isolated mountain range about 120 kilometers long, separated from the Eastern Andes.
I took this with a Canon EOS 70D and the EF400mm f/5.6L USM, at 1/800 sec, f/5.6, ISO 1600. IUCN lists the Scarlet Macaw as Least Concern with a decreasing population, and the Sierra de la Macarena has been a national natural park since 1971, protecting 6,200 square kilometers where Amazon, Orinoco and Andean wildlife meet.
©2018 Adam Rainoff Photographer
The bird
The Scarlet Macaw (Ara macao) belongs to the family Psittacidae (New World and African Parrots) in the eBird/Clements taxonomy.
Source: eBird.org (opens in a new tab)
Conservation
Least Concern on the IUCN Red List (assessment published 2022), with the population trend listed as decreasing. Source: IUCN Red List