The Story
On June 24, 2017, I photographed this White-capped Dipper (Cinclus leucocephalus) at the Río Blanco reserve near Manizales, Caldas, Colombia. It lives along rocky, fast-flowing mountain streams with clear water. It is a semiaquatic songbird of South America, sooty brown with a white throat and white eyelids. Río Blanco lies between 2,150 and 3,700 meters above sea level, with an average temperature of 11°C and about 90 percent humidity.
I used a Canon EOS 70D and the EF400mm f/5.6L USM for this one, at 1/1000 sec, f/5.6, ISO 1000. IUCN lists the White-capped Dipper as Least Concern with a stable population, and Río Blanco, a protected forest reserve managed by the regional authority Corpocaldas, supplies about 35 percent of the drinking water of Manizales.
©2018 Adam Rainoff Photographer
The bird
The White-capped Dipper (Cinclus leucocephalus) belongs to the family Cinclidae (Dippers) 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