The Story
This Western Emerald (Chlorostilbon melanorhynchus) was at the Jardín Botánico del Quindío in Calarcá, Quindío, Colombia when I photographed it on July 17, 2018. The Western Emerald readily accepts man-made habitats and is fairly common across its range. It is found from the Western Andes of Colombia south into Ecuador. The male has a glittering green crown with gold highlights and a steel blue tail. The garden’s butterfly house is a large open-air vivarium, home to more than 30 butterfly species native to Colombia. IUCN includes the Western Emerald in its assessment of Chlorostilbon mellisugus, which it lists as Least Concern, with a decreasing population.
I made this frame with a Pentax K-1 and the HD Pentax-D FA 150-450mm f/4.5-5.6, at 1/250 sec, f/5.6, ISO 200. The regional environmental agency, the CRQ, has also entrusted the garden with eight hectares of natural forest in the Barbas Bremen forest reserve, near Filandia and Circasia.
©2019 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