On June 20, 2017, I photographed this Cauca Guan (Penelope perspicax) at the Otún Quimbaya Fauna and Flora Sanctuary near Pereira, Risaralda, Colombia. It is a large guan found only in Colombia, living mostly in trees in humid forest where it eats fruit and leaves. By the 1980s it was thought to be extinct, but small populations have since been found in Cauca, Valle del Cauca, Quindío and Risaralda. 307 bird species have been recorded in the sanctuary, about 16 percent of all the birds known from Colombia, eight of them found nowhere else.
I used a Canon EOS 70D and the EF400mm f/5.6L USM for this one, at 1/250 sec, f/5.6, ISO 1600. IUCN lists the Cauca Guan as Vulnerable with a decreasing population, and the Otún Quimbaya sanctuary, declared in 1996, is part of a conservation corridor along the upper Otún that links Los Nevados National Natural Park with regional reserves.
©2018 Adam Rainoff Photographer
The bird
The Cauca Guan (Penelope perspicax) belongs to the family Cracidae (Guans, Chachalacas, and Curassows) in the eBird/Clements taxonomy.
Conservation
Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List (assessment published 2021), with the population trend listed as decreasing. Source: IUCN Red List