The Story
I photographed this female Shiny Cowbird (Molothrus bonariensis) at the Otún Quimbaya Fauna and Flora Sanctuary near Pereira, Risaralda, Colombia on June 20, 2017. It eats mainly insects and seeds. Males are all black with a purple-blue sheen, while females are smaller and dull brown. The sanctuary lies between 1,750 and 2,276 meters above sea level, and about 90 percent of it is natural forest. The Otún Quimbaya sanctuary protects 489 hectares of Andean forest in the upper Otún River basin, about 15 kilometers from Pereira.
I took this with a Canon EOS 70D and a 400.0 mm lens, at 1/250 sec, f/6.3, ISO 400. IUCN lists the Shiny Cowbird as Least Concern with an increasing population, and the Otún Quimbaya sanctuary, protected by Colombia’s national parks service since 1996, shelters 307 bird species.
©2018 Adam Rainoff Photographer
The bird
The Shiny Cowbird (Molothrus bonariensis) belongs to the family Icteridae (Troupials 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 2018), with the population trend listed as increasing. Source: IUCN Red List