The Story
I made this photo of a Long-tailed Sylph (Aglaiocercus kingii), of the subspecies emmae, at Finca Alejandría at Km 18 above Cali, Valle del Cauca, Colombia. The male builds the nest, a bulky dome of moss and plant fibers with a side entrance. It lives between about 900 and 3,000 meters and has a complex pattern of movements. 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 Long-tailed Sylph 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 1/200 sec, f/5.6, ISO 800. The finca has run as a birdwatching ecotourism project for more than twenty years, and visitors’ support helps keep its feeders stocked with bananas, sugar and water.
©2019 Adam Rainoff Photographer
The bird
The Long-tailed Sylph (Aglaiocercus kingii) 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