The Story
This female White-booted Racket-tail (Ocreatus underwoodii) perched for a moment on a flowering stem at La Minga Ecolodge in Dapa, near Cali, Valle del Cauca, Colombia, in low light under forest cover. Without the male’s long tail streamers, she has a compact form, white leg tufts and iridescent green upperparts, set against blurred greens and violet. She rested at flower level in light filtering through the canopy. The species favors the edges of humid forest, and it builds a tiny cup nest of plant fiber and lichen, usually 6 to 8 meters up on a horizontal twig. IUCN lists it as Least Concern.
I made this frame with a Canon R5 and the RF 100-500mm f/4.5-7.1L, at 1/180 sec, f/6.7, ISO 800, −0.5 EV. La Minga sits in the cloud forest of the Kilometer 18 area, about an hour from Cali.
©2025 Adam Rainoff Photographer
The bird
The White-booted Racket-tail (Ocreatus underwoodii) 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