The Story
This is a Lesser Yellow-headed Vulture (Cathartes burrovianus) that I photographed in Flandes, Tolima, Colombia on June 13, 2017. It is a New World vulture of seasonally wet or flooded lowland grassland and swamps from Mexico to South America. It finds carcasses by sight and by smell, an ability that is rare in birds. It uses thermals to stay aloft with little effort. Flandes lies in the upper Magdalena basin, where the Bogotá, Sumapaz and Coello rivers flow into the Magdalena, across the river from Girardot.
I photographed it with a Canon EOS 70D and the EF400mm f/5.6L USM, at 1/2000 sec, f/8, ISO 400. IUCN lists the Lesser Yellow-headed Vulture as Least Concern with a stable population, and fish catches in the Magdalena basin fell by about 90 percent between 1975 and 2008, mostly because of pollution and the loss of habitat.
©2017 Adam Rainoff Photographer
The bird
The Lesser Yellow-headed Vulture (Cathartes burrovianus) belongs to the family Cathartidae (New World Vultures) in the eBird/Clements taxonomy.
Source: eBird.org (opens in a new tab)
Conservation
Least Concern on the IUCN Red List (assessment published 2021), with the population trend listed as stable. Source: IUCN Red List