The Story
I photographed this Wilson’s Warbler (Cardellina pusilla) in the Microcuenca La Hondura, the forested watershed just west of Santa Rosa de Copán, Honduras. It breeds across Canada and the western United States and spends the winter from Mexico through much of Central America, in clearings, coffee farms, forest edges and pine-oak forest. Its song is a chattering run of loud notes that drops in pitch, and males wear a small black cap. IUCN lists it as Least Concern.
I made this frame with a Canon R5 and the RF 800mm f/11 plus the RF 1.4x extender, at 1/180 sec, f/16, ISO 3200, −0.5 EV. La Hondura was once the town dump, and today it is a 686-hectare protected forest of pine and mixed pine-oak that supplies Santa Rosa de Copán with water.
©2022 Adam Rainoff Photographer
The bird
The Wilson’s Warbler (Cardellina pusilla) belongs to the family Parulidae (New World Warblers) 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