The Story
I photographed this Spectacled Parrotlet (Forpus conspicillatus) at PANACA in Quimbaya, Quindío, Colombia on June 15, 2017. It lives at forest edges, in thorn scrub, llanos and gallery woodland, below about 1,600 meters. It eats seeds, nuts, leaves, berries and other fruits and has been seen eating clay. Its green and blue coloring helps it blend into trees. Quimbaya was founded in 1914 and became a municipality in 1922. PANACA, the National Agricultural and Livestock Park, lies about 7 kilometers west of the town of Quimbaya.
I took this with a Canon EOS 70D and the EF400mm f/5.6L USM, at 1/1600 sec, f/6.3, ISO 400. IUCN lists the Spectacled Parrotlet as Least Concern with a decreasing population, and every December 7 and 8 since 1982, Quimbaya’s neighborhoods have competed to light the town in the Candles and Lanterns Festival.
©2017 Adam Rainoff Photographer
The bird
The Spectacled Parrotlet (Forpus conspicillatus) belongs to the family Psittacidae (New World and African Parrots) in the eBird/Clements taxonomy.
Source: eBird.org (opens in a new tab)
Conservation
Least Concern on the IUCN Red List (assessment published 2021), with the population trend listed as decreasing. Source: IUCN Red List