The Story
This Gilded Barbet (Capito auratus) perched in a fruiting tree in Restrepo, Meta, Colombia, its black-and-yellow plumage set against small green fruits. A New World barbet and a close relative of the toucans, it lives in the Orinoco basin and the western Amazon, in Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela. Depending on the subspecies, its throat ranges from red to orange and its crown from deep yellow to reddish orange.
I photographed it with a Canon R5 and the RF 800mm f/11 plus the RF 1.4x extender, at 1/125 sec, f/16, ISO 1600, −0.5 EV. IUCN lists the Gilded Barbet as Least Concern, and it was formerly treated as a subspecies of the Black-spotted Barbet of northeastern South America.
©2025 Adam Rainoff Photographer
The bird
The Gilded Barbet (Capito auratus) 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 2024), with the population trend listed as decreasing. Source: IUCN Red List