The Story
I photographed this female Red-headed Barbet (Eubucco bourcierii) in Manizales, Caldas, Colombia on June 22, 2017. It eats caterpillars and other insects as well as fruit such as berries, and at feeders it takes bananas. Females have a green back and a grayish-yellow throat with a yellow to orange band below it. Manizales sits on the steep ridges of Colombia’s Central Cordillera, near the Nevado del Ruiz volcano, which rises to 5,321 meters.
I took this with a Canon EOS 70D and the EF400mm f/5.6L USM, at 1/250 sec, f/5.6, ISO 1600. IUCN lists the Red-headed Barbet as Least Concern with a decreasing population, and the city of Manizales owns and protects forest fragments such as the Ecoparque Los Yarumos inside its urban area.
©2022 Adam Rainoff Photographer
The bird
The Red-headed Barbet (Eubucco bourcierii) belongs to the family Capitonidae (New World Barbets) in the eBird/Clements taxonomy.
Source: eBird.org (opens in a new tab)
Conservation
Least Concern on the IUCN Red List (assessment published 2020), with the population trend listed as decreasing. Source: IUCN Red List