The Story
This Bushy-crested Jay (Cyanocorax melanocyaneus) perched on a lichen-covered branch at Hacienda Montecristo, a coffee farm that offers birdwatching about 15 kilometers from Santa Rosa de Copán, Honduras, its black head, yellow eye and bright blue back clear against a soft background. It lives in Central America in humid forest, especially pine-oak forest, forest edges, glades and scrub. It is social, living in small groups, and it adapts well to disturbed habitat, becoming common in coffee plantations and around farmland. IUCN lists it as Least Concern.
I used a Canon R5 with the RF 800mm f/11 plus the RF 1.4x extender for this one, at 1/250 sec, f/16, ISO 3200, +0.5 EV. Hacienda Montecristo combines coffee growing with ecotourism and birdwatching, which gives the farm a reason to keep the trees these birds use.
©2024 Adam Rainoff Photographer
The bird
The Bushy-crested Jay (Cyanocorax melanocyaneus) belongs to the family Corvidae (Crows, Jays, and Magpies) in the eBird/Clements taxonomy.
Source: eBird.org (opens in a new tab)
Conservation
Least Concern on the IUCN Red List (assessment published 2020), with the population trend listed as stable. Source: IUCN Red List