The Story
I photographed this female Amazon Kingfisher (Chloroceryle amazona) at the Raudal del Guayabero, near San José del Guaviare, Guaviare, Colombia, in February 2021. Females lack the male’s rich rufous breast, and instead the green of the sides reaches almost to the middle of the breast. It usually hunts from a perch, diving into the water for fish, especially characins, and crustaceans. Both members of a pair dig a slightly inclined burrow in a riverbank for the nest. 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 1/500 sec, f/16, ISO 1600, −0.5 EV. An hour’s climb above the Raudal leads to rock paintings of tapirs, lizards and ritual dances, which have not been dated exactly but may be 7,000 to 12,600 years old.
©2022 Adam Rainoff Photographer
The bird
The Amazon Kingfisher (Chloroceryle amazona) belongs to the family Alcedinidae (Kingfishers) 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 decreasing. Source: IUCN Red List