The Story
I photographed this juvenile female Saffron Finch (Sicalis flaveola) at La Huerta Hotel at Lago Calima, in Yotoco, Valle del Cauca, Colombia. The Saffron Finch’s pleasant, repetitive song and bright color have led to it being kept as a cage bird in many areas. Males are territorial and may mate with two females in a nesting season. Lago Calima is a reservoir of about 19 square kilometers, built for a hydroelectric project and later taken over by the regional environmental agency, the CVC. IUCN lists the Saffron Finch as Least Concern, with a stable population.
I made this frame with a Pentax K-1 and the HD Pentax-D FA 150-450mm f/4.5-5.6, at 1/250 sec, f/5.6, ISO 400. In 2024 the CVC declared more than 18,000 hectares of the upper Calima basin a new protected area, linking it with the Río Bravo forest reserve and the Páramo El Duende regional park.
©2019 Adam Rainoff Photographer
The bird
The Saffron Finch (Sicalis flaveola) belongs to the family Thraupidae (Tanagers 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 stable. Source: IUCN Red List