The Story
I photographed this Blue-and-yellow Macaw (Ara ararauna) near El Doncello, Caquetá, Colombia, in February 2021. Its beak is black, and so are the feathers under its chin, while its feet are gray. It uses that powerful beak to break nutshells and to climb and hang from branches. It nearly disappeared from Trinidad in the 1970s, and between 1999 and 2003 wild birds from Guyana were moved to the Nariva Swamp to bring it back. 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 1/750 sec, f/16, ISO 6400, −0.5 EV. El Doncello became a municipality in 1967, and its Festival Departamental del Caucho celebrates the rubber its farmers grow.
©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