The Story
On July 3, 2017, I photographed this Black-headed Parrot (Pionites melanocephalus) in La Macarena, Meta, Colombia. It lives in the canopy, clearings and edges of humid lowland forest. It has a creamy-white belly, apricot-yellow flanks and green wings and back. La Macarena has become an ecotourism destination, above all for Caño Cristales, the river of five colors. The nearby Serranía de la Macarena is an isolated mountain range about 120 kilometers long, separated from the Eastern Andes.
I used a Canon EOS 70D and the EF400mm f/5.6L USM for this one, at 1/500 sec, f/5.6, ISO 500. IUCN lists the Black-headed Parrot 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 Black-headed Parrot (Pionites melanocephalus) 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 2025), with the population trend listed as decreasing. Source: IUCN Red List