The Story
I made this photo of a Roadside Hawk (Rupornis magnirostris) at the Otún Quimbaya Flora and Fauna Sanctuary near Pereira, Risaralda, Colombia. The Roadside Hawk is a fairly small bird of prey, and it is often the most common raptor in its range. Except perhaps for dense rainforest, it is well adapted to most ecosystems in its range. The Santuario de Fauna y Flora Otún Quimbaya lies in the Central Andes of Risaralda, and its vegetation is typical of Andean humid forest. IUCN lists the Roadside Hawk as Least Concern, with an increasing population.
I used a Pentax K-1 with the HD Pentax-D FA 150-450mm f/4.5-5.6 for this one, at 1/400 sec, f/5.6, ISO 100. Yarumo Blanco’s local guides are young people from the villages around La Florida, and its Los Yarumitos group trains children as the next guardians of the upper Otún River basin.
©2019 Adam Rainoff Photographer
The bird
The Roadside Hawk (Rupornis magnirostris) belongs to the family Accipitridae (Hawks, Eagles, and Kites) 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 increasing. Source: IUCN Red List