The Story
I photographed this Western Emerald (Chlorostilbon melanorhynchus) at Finca La Conchita, in the Kilómetro 18 area near Cali, Valle del Cauca, Colombia, in October 2019. It lives from the Western Andes of Colombia south into Ecuador, mostly between 1,000 and 2,000 meters in Colombia. Males are glittering emerald green with a steel-blue tail, while females are pale gray below with a blackish face and a pale spot behind the eye. It usually feeds fairly low down. In Colombia its breeding season appears to run from January to June. IUCN has not assessed it separately from the Blue-tailed Emerald, which it lists as Least Concern.
I made this frame with a Pentax K-1 and the HD Pentax-D FA 150-450mm f/4.5-5.6, at 1/1250 sec, f/5.6, ISO 3200, −0.7 EV. The San Antonio cloud forest at Kilometer 18 is recognized as an Important Bird Area and a Key Biodiversity Area, with the Multicolored Tanager as its symbol species.
©2020 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