The Story
I photographed this Blue-and-yellow Macaw (Ara ararauna) near El Doncello, Caquetá, Colombia, in February 2021. Small breeding populations descended from introduced birds live in Puerto Rico and, since the mid-1980s, in Miami-Dade County, Florida. In the wild it lives in várzea and open terra firme forest, woodland and savanna. It uses its strong beak for breaking nutshells and for climbing. IUCN lists it as Least Concern.
I made this frame with a Canon R5 and the RF 800mm f/11 plus the RF 1.4x extender, at 1/1000 sec, f/16, ISO 3200, −1 EV. El Doncello sits in the foothills of the Eastern Andes northeast of Florencia, and the town founded there in 1951 took its name from a local tree called el doncello.
©2021 Adam Rainoff Photographer
The bird
The Blue-and-yellow Macaw (Ara ararauna) 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 2018), with the population trend listed as decreasing. Source: IUCN Red List