The Story
This is a juvenile Golden-crowned Flycatcher (Myiodynastes chrysocephalus) that I photographed in Manizales, Caldas, Colombia on June 23, 2017. It lives at the edges and canopy of foothill and montane forest and cloud forest, especially near openings. It eats insects and fruit, catching prey in midair or plucking it from leaves. Manizales sits on the steep ridges of Colombia’s Central Cordillera, near the Nevado del Ruiz volcano, which rises to 5,321 meters. Caldas has 837 bird species on record, about 45 percent of the birds of Colombia.
I photographed it with a Canon EOS 70D and the EF400mm f/5.6L USM, at 1/250 sec, f/5.6, ISO 1600. IUCN lists the Golden-crowned Flycatcher as Least Concern with an increasing population, and the city of Manizales owns and protects forest fragments such as the Ecoparque Los Yarumos inside its urban area.
©2018 Adam Rainoff Photographer
The bird
The Golden-crowned Flycatcher (Myiodynastes chrysocephalus) belongs to the family Tyrannidae (Tyrant Flycatchers) in the eBird/Clements taxonomy.
Source: eBird.org (opens in a new tab)
Conservation
Least Concern on the IUCN Red List (assessment published 2019), with the population trend listed as increasing. Source: IUCN Red List