The Story
I photographed this female Gorgeted Woodstar (Chaetocercus heliodor) at the Jardín Botánico de Bogotá in Bogotá, Colombia on June 28, 2017. It is the smallest of the woodstars, a group that ranks among the smallest birds in the world. Its small size and slow, bumblebee-like flight sometimes let it feed inside other hummingbirds’ territories. It lives at humid forest edges, in coffee plantations and in open country with some trees and shrubs. The José Celestino Mutis Botanical Garden is Colombia’s largest botanical garden, with an emphasis on Andean and páramo ecosystems.
I took this with a Canon EOS 70D and the EF400mm f/5.6L USM, at 1/500 sec, f/7.1, ISO 100. IUCN lists the Gorgeted Woodstar as Least Concern with a decreasing population, and the garden keeps five special collections for Andean plants in danger of extinction, among them orchids and bromeliads.
©2018 Adam Rainoff Photographer
The bird
The Gorgeted Woodstar (Chaetocercus heliodor) belongs to the family Trochilidae (Hummingbirds) 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. Source: IUCN Red List