The Story
I made this photo of a Pied Plover (Hoploxypterus cayanus) at Reserva Natural Hato Berlín in Trinidad, Casanare, Colombia. The Pied Plover’s call is a kee-oo, with the second part lower in pitch. It lives along the shores of lakes and rivers where there is sand and mud. Hato Berlín is a civil-society nature reserve on the Casanare savanna, about 10 km from Trinidad, where capybaras, caimans, turtles, monkeys and savanna and marsh birds can be seen. IUCN lists the Pied Plover as Least Concern, with a stable population.
I used a Pentax K-1 with the HD Pentax-D FA 150-450mm f/4.5-5.6 for this one, at 1/640 sec, f/5.6, ISO 100. In 2020 Hato Berlín opened an eco-lodge as part of the Safari Llanero, a project led by the Casanare Chamber of Commerce with Swiss cooperation to strengthen wildlife-watching tourism.
©2019 Adam Rainoff Photographer
The bird
The Pied Plover (Hoploxypterus cayanus) belongs to the family Charadriidae (Plovers and Lapwings) 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 stable. Source: IUCN Red List