The Story
I photographed this Buff-tailed Coronet (Boissonneaua flavescens) at the Río Blanco reserve near Manizales, Caldas, Colombia on June 24, 2017. It lives in humid montane forest and cloud forest between about 2,000 and 3,500 meters. It is highly territorial, though it may share a flowering tree with other hummingbirds. It is a hummingbird of Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela, with a buff tail and cinnamon underwings that show in flight. More than 360 bird species have been recorded at Río Blanco, and it is known among birders for its antpittas.
I took this with a Canon EOS 70D and the EF400mm f/5.6L USM, at 1/1000 sec, f/5.6, ISO 1600. IUCN lists the Buff-tailed Coronet as Least Concern with a decreasing population, and Río Blanco, a protected forest reserve managed by the regional authority Corpocaldas, supplies about 35 percent of the drinking water of Manizales.
©2018 Adam Rainoff Photographer
The bird
The Buff-tailed Coronet (Boissonneaua flavescens) belongs to the family Trochilidae (Hummingbirds) 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