The Story
I made this photo of a juvenile female White-booted Racket-tail (Ocreatus underwoodii) at Finca Alejandría at Km 18 above Cali, Valle del Cauca, Colombia. Only the male has the long outer tail feathers, and he weighs only about 2.5 to 2.7 grams. It favors the edges of humid to wet forest. Finca Alejandría sits in cloud forest at Km 18 on the road from Cali to Buenaventura, and it is an eBird hotspot with more than 340 bird species recorded, about 40 of them hummingbirds. IUCN lists the White-booted Racket-tail as Least Concern, with a decreasing population.
I used a Pentax K-1 with the HD Pentax-D FA 150-450mm f/4.5-5.6 for this one, at 1/250 sec, f/5.6, ISO 800. Raúl Nieto, who runs the finca, won second place in the 2023 Gemas environmental awards for a project that uses birding as a strategy for conservation.
©2019 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