The Story
This is a Southern Emerald-Toucanet (Aulacorhynchus albivitta) that I photographed at the Otún Quimbaya Fauna and Flora Sanctuary near Pereira, Risaralda, Colombia on June 20, 2017. It eats many kinds of fruit as well as invertebrates and small vertebrates. It nests in tree cavities, and its wings make a whirring sound in flight. 307 bird species have been recorded in the sanctuary, about 16 percent of all the birds known from Colombia, eight of them found nowhere else.
I photographed it with a Canon EOS 70D and the EF400mm f/5.6L USM, at 1/250 sec, f/5.6, ISO 1600. IUCN lists the Southern Emerald-Toucanet as Least Concern with a decreasing population, and the Otún Quimbaya sanctuary, declared in 1996, is part of a conservation corridor along the upper Otún that links Los Nevados National Natural Park with regional reserves.
©2018 Adam Rainoff Photographer
The bird
The Southern Emerald-Toucanet (Aulacorhynchus albivitta) belongs to the family Ramphastidae (Toucans) 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