The Story
I made this photo of a female Long-tailed Sylph (Aglaiocercus kingii), of the subspecies emmae, at Finca Alejandría at Km 18 above Cali, Valle del Cauca, Colombia. The Long-tailed Sylph catches insects by flying out from a perch. The male builds the nest, a bulky dome of moss and plant fibers with a side entrance. Finca Alejandría sits in cloud forest at Km 18 on the road from Cali to Buenaventura, and it is an eBird hotspot with more than 340 bird species recorded, about 40 of them hummingbirds. IUCN lists the Long-tailed Sylph as Least Concern, with a decreasing population.
I used a Pentax K-1 with the HD Pentax-D FA 150-450mm f/4.5-5.6 for this one, at 1/60 sec, f/5.6, ISO 400, −1 EV. Raúl Nieto, who runs the finca, won second place in the 2023 Gemas environmental awards for a project that uses birding as a strategy for conservation.
©2019 Adam Rainoff Photographer
The bird
The Long-tailed Sylph (Aglaiocercus kingii) 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