The Story
I photographed this Amazon Kingfisher (Chloroceryle amazona) at the Hacienda El Triunfo Private Nature Reserve, near Honda, Tolima, Colombia, in October 2019. Both members of a pair dig a sloping burrow into a riverbank, with a nest chamber at the end. It has a shaggy crest and a long, heavy bill, and males have a rich rufous breast that females lack. It lives along large rivers and the wooded shores of lakes, and it prefers open country to dense forest. It lives in the lowlands of the American tropics, from southern Mexico to northern Argentina. IUCN lists it as Least Concern.
I used a Pentax K-1 with the HD Pentax-D FA 150-450mm f/4.5-5.6 for this one, at 1/500 sec, f/5.6, ISO 400. No immediate threats to it have been identified, though its numbers are believed to be decreasing.
©2020 Adam Rainoff Photographer
The bird
The Amazon Kingfisher (Chloroceryle amazona) belongs to the family Alcedinidae (Kingfishers) 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