The Story
I photographed this Southern Lapwing (Vanellus chilensis) near Filandia, Quindío, Colombia on June 18, 2017. It is a common resident across most of South America, absent mainly from dense forest, the high Andes and the arid west coast. In recent years it has been spreading through Central America. It is the only crested wader in South America, gray-brown above with a bronze gloss on the shoulders and a black forehead, throat and breast. The Barbas canyon forest is part of the Barbas-Bremen protected area on the border of Quindío and Risaralda.
I took this with a Canon EOS 70D and the EF400mm f/5.6L USM, at 1/250 sec, f/6.3, ISO 800. IUCN lists the Southern Lapwing as Least Concern with an increasing population, and the Barbas-Bremen soil conservation district protects about 4,910 hectares of Filandia and Circasia, including the Barbas canyon.
©2018 Adam Rainoff Photographer
The bird
The Southern Lapwing (Vanellus chilensis) 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 2020), with the population trend listed as increasing. Source: IUCN Red List