This female Gartered Violaceous Trogon (Trogon caligatus) perched in the forest at Hacienda Montecristo, a coffee farm that offers birdwatching about 15 kilometers from Santa Rosa de Copán, Honduras. It is found from Mexico through Central America to Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador and Peru, and in Central America up to about 1,400 meters, though it is more common in the lowlands. It usually feeds by hovering to pick fruit and invertebrates from the vegetation, and it eats more fruit than most trogons. It nests in an arboreal wasp, ant or termite nest, or a hole in a rotten tree.
I made this frame with a Canon R5 and the RF 800mm f/11 plus the RF 1.4x extender, at 1/180 sec, f/16, ISO 1600, −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 Gartered Violaceous Trogon (Trogon caligatus) belongs to the family Trogonidae (Trogons) in the eBird/Clements taxonomy.
Conservation
Least Concern on the IUCN Red List (assessment published 2024). IUCN does not yet assess the Gartered Violaceous Trogon separately; this is the assessment of Violaceous Trogon (Trogon violaceus), which IUCN treats as including it. Source: IUCN Red List