The Story
On June 16, 2017, I photographed this Western Emerald (Chlorostilbon melanorhynchus) at the Jardín Botánico del Quindío in Calarcá, Quindío, Colombia. In Colombia it lives between about 1,000 and 2,000 meters. It is a hummingbird found from Colombia’s Western Andes south into Ecuador. The female has a blackish face with a pale gray spot behind the eye, pale gray underparts and a blue-black tail with white tips. The garden’s main site is a research and environmental-education center in a remnant of native forest in Calarcá. The Jardín Botánico del Quindío was the first botanical garden in Colombia to be fully legalized, receiving its environmental permit from the regional authority in 1998.
I used a Canon EOS 70D and the EF400mm f/5.6L USM for this one, at 1/1000 sec, f/5.6, ISO 800. The garden’s butterfly house keeps more than 30 butterfly species native to Colombia.
©2018 Adam Rainoff Photographer
The bird
The Western Emerald (Chlorostilbon melanorhynchus) belongs to the family Trochilidae (Hummingbirds) 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. IUCN does not yet assess the Western Emerald separately; this is the assessment of Blue-tailed Emerald (Chlorostilbon mellisugus), which IUCN treats as including it. Source: IUCN Red List