The Story
I made this photo of a female Thick-billed Euphonia (Euphonia laniirostris) at Spa Ambiental Turística Los Alpes in Ibagué, Tolima, Colombia. In northern Colombia it lives in forest edges and clearings, gallery forest, farmland, gardens and trees around houses. It mostly forages in pairs and small groups and often joins mixed-species flocks. Both sexes build the nest, a globe with a side entrance made of twigs, leaves and plant fibers. Nests are usually well hidden, in tree cavities, among epiphytes and vines, or in branch forks. Ibagué, the capital of Tolima, sits on the Central Andes between the Combeima Canyon and the Magdalena valley, near Nevado del Tolima.
I used a Pentax K-1 with the HD Pentax-D FA 150-450mm f/4.5-5.6 for this one, at 1/200 sec, f/5.6, ISO 400. IUCN lists the Thick-billed Euphonia as Least Concern, with a stable population.
©2019 Adam Rainoff Photographer
The bird
The Thick-billed Euphonia (Euphonia laniirostris) belongs to the family Fringillidae (Finches, Euphonias, 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 2020), with the population trend listed as stable. Source: IUCN Red List