The Story
I photographed this female Black-headed Tanager (Stilpnia cyanoptera) in the Cincinati area above Minca, in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Magdalena, Colombia, at about 1,480 meters. The species name cyanoptera means blue-winged. Its natural habitats are humid montane forest, high-elevation shrubland and heavily degraded former forest, and it belongs to Stilpnia, a genus introduced in 2016. The Black-hooded Tanager was once treated as the same species. IUCN lists it as Least Concern.
I made this frame with a Canon R5 and the RF 800mm f/11, at 1/750 sec, f/11, ISO 6400, −0.5 EV. The Sierra Nevada is the highest coastal range in the tropics, and its roughly 17,000 square kilometers feed 36 rivers across Magdalena, Cesar and La Guajira.
©2021 Adam Rainoff Photographer
The bird
The Black-headed Tanager (Stilpnia cyanoptera) belongs to the family Thraupidae (Tanagers and Allies) in the eBird/Clements taxonomy.
Source: eBird.org (opens in a new tab)
Conservation
Least Concern on the IUCN Red List (assessment published 2024), with the population trend listed as decreasing. IUCN does not yet assess the Black-headed Tanager separately; this is the assessment of Black-headed Tanager (Tangara argentea), which IUCN treats as including it. Source: IUCN Red List