The Story
This is a Black Phoebe (Sayornis nigricans) that I photographed at the Malecón Cameguadua in Chinchiná, Caldas, Colombia on June 23, 2017. It waits on a perch and then sallies out to catch insects in the air. It builds an open cup nest of mud under a cliff or bridge. It breeds from southwest Oregon and California south through Central and South America. The reservoir sits at about 1,370 meters and has two lakes, with the tourist boardwalk, the malecón, on the northern one.
I photographed it with a Canon EOS 70D and the EF400mm f/5.6L USM, at 1/2000 sec, f/5.6, ISO 1600. IUCN lists the Black Phoebe as Least Concern with an increasing population, and Chinchiná is part of the Coffee Cultural Landscape of Colombia, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2011.
©2020 Adam Rainoff Photographer
The bird
The Black Phoebe (Sayornis nigricans) belongs to the family Tyrannidae (Tyrant Flycatchers) 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 increasing. Source: IUCN Red List