The Story
I made this photo of a Bay-headed Tanager (Tangara gyrola) at Reserva Natural Agua Fría in Ibagué, Tolima, Colombia. It is a social bird that eats mainly fruit, which it usually swallows whole. It also takes insects, mainly from the undersides of branches. Its bulky cup nest is built in a tree, and the usual clutch is two brown-blotched white eggs. It lives in forest, especially in wetter areas. Agua Fría is one of the civil-society reserves of Ibagué’s nature tourism network, in premontane humid forest at about 1,150 to 1,200 meters.
I used a Pentax K-1 with the HD Pentax-D FA 150-450mm f/4.5-5.6 for this one, at 1/25 sec, f/5.6, ISO 400. IUCN lists the Bay-headed Tanager as Least Concern, with a decreasing population.
©2019 Adam Rainoff Photographer
The bird
The Bay-headed Tanager (Tangara gyrola) belongs to the family Thraupidae (Tanagers and Allies) in the eBird/Clements taxonomy.
Source: eBird.org (opens in a new tab)
Conservation
Least Concern on the IUCN Red List (assessment published 2021), with the population trend listed as decreasing. Source: IUCN Red List