The Story
On June 22, 2017, I photographed this Red-headed Barbet (Eubucco bourcierii) in Manizales, Caldas, Colombia. It lives in evergreen mountain forest and nearby secondary forest. It eats caterpillars and other insects as well as fruit such as berries, and at feeders it takes bananas. Males have a red head, an orange to yellow breast and a white belly, with a white collar between the head and the olive-green back. Manizales sits on the steep ridges of Colombia’s Central Cordillera, near the Nevado del Ruiz volcano, which rises to 5,321 meters.
I used a Canon EOS 70D and the EF400mm f/5.6L USM for this one, at 1/250 sec, f/5.6, ISO 1600. IUCN lists the Red-headed Barbet as Least Concern with a decreasing 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 Red-headed Barbet (Eubucco bourcierii) belongs to the family Capitonidae (New World Barbets) in the eBird/Clements taxonomy.
Source: eBird.org (opens in a new tab)
Conservation
Least Concern on the IUCN Red List (assessment published 2020), with the population trend listed as decreasing. Source: IUCN Red List