The Story
I made this photo of a female Green Honeycreeper (Chlorophanes spiza) at Entreaguas Reserva Natural in Ibagué, Tolima, Colombia. It is mainly a bird of the canopy, though it comes lower at forest edges. It forages alone, in pairs and with mixed-species flocks. In a study in Trinidad, about two thirds of its foraging was for fruit, and half of that fruit was Miconia berries. The female builds the nest, a shallow cup of dead leaves and rootlets. Entreaguas is one of the civil-society reserves of Ibagué’s nature tourism network, set in premontane humid forest at about 1,050 to 1,300 meters.
I used a Pentax K-1 with the HD Pentax-D FA 150-450mm f/4.5-5.6 for this one, at 1/2500 sec, f/7.1, ISO 6400. IUCN lists the Green Honeycreeper as Least Concern, with a decreasing population.
©2019 Adam Rainoff Photographer
The bird
The Green Honeycreeper (Chlorophanes spiza) 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 2021), with the population trend listed as decreasing. Source: IUCN Red List