The Story
I photographed this Common Tody-Flycatcher (Todirostrum cinereum) at Hacienda El Japio, near San Esteban de Caloto in Cauca, Colombia. It forages very actively, hopping sideways along branches with its tail cocked and wagging, and it eats a wide variety of arthropods along with some fruit. It is found from Mexico to every mainland South American country except Chile and Uruguay. Both sexes build the nest, a messy pouch with a side entrance, suspended from a branch and sometimes placed near a wasp nest. 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 1/125 sec, f/16, ISO 3200, −0.5 EV. In 2023 Colombia’s national parks agency registered Japio’s forest as a private nature reserve to protect tropical dry forest.
©2022 Adam Rainoff Photographer
The bird
The Common Tody-Flycatcher (Todirostrum cinereum) belongs to the family Tyrannidae (Tyrant Flycatchers) in the eBird/Clements taxonomy.
Source: eBird.org (opens in a new tab)
Conservation
Least Concern on the IUCN Red List (assessment published 2021), with the population trend listed as stable. Source: IUCN Red List