Wild life of Colombia

With coastlines on the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, Andean mountains, and Amazon basins, Colombia’s landscapes are vast and vastly diverse. Here, where the Pacific, Amazonian, Caribbean, and Orinoquian lowland regions meet, the landscapes are a patchwork of mangroves, snow-capped peaks, grasslands, deserts, wetlands, rainforests, dry forests, cloud forests, and other habitats. While world-renowned for its richness in bird species, Colombia also has an extraordinary diversity of amphibians and mammals, as well as orchids and butterflies.

Here are some photographs of  wild creatures taken during my visit to Colombia.

Peahen resting on a branch.

Shutter Speed - 1/50

Aperture - 6.3

ISO - 400

Lens - 70-300mm Telephoto

Blue and yellow macaw with Scarlet macaw (Ara ararauna)


There are 23 kinds of birds that belong to the order of parrots (Psittacformes). The blue and yellow macaw is often considered to be one of the most trainable and intelligent birds of these parrots. It is considered to be the most beautiful.
    The blue and yellow macaw is green on the top of his head and has blue feathers on its upper parts, with yellow underneath. It has a black chin. It is about 34 - 36 inches long from tip to tip. The blue and yellow macaw has a wingspan of 41 to 45 inches and weighs up to 1200 grams.
    Macaws range from the rain forest of Panama to the lowlands of South America to northern Paraguay. They live in the forests, but not dense forests. They also live in tall palms growing in swampy areas and near rivers.  They are losing their habitat because of the destruction of the rain forests, due to pollution, building, and logging.

Shutter Speed - 1/125

Aperture - 5.6

ISO - 1600

Lens - 70-300mm Telephoto

Green Bill Toucan (Ramphastos tucanus)


The Green-billed Toucan - Ramphastos tucanus is a near-passerine bird found throughout the Amazon in south-eastern Colombia,northern and western Brazil, including the Amazon Basin's adjacent Tocantins-Araguaia River drainage, and the Guianas. It prefers tropical humid forest, but also occurs in woodland and locally in riverine forest within the Cerrado.

Shutter Speed - 1/80

Aperture - 5.0

ISO - 1600

Lens - 70-300mm Telephoto

The cotton-top tamarin


known as South America’s cutest monkey.The cotton-top tamarin (Saguinus oedipus), also known as the Pinché tamarin, is a small New World monkey weighing less than 1 lb (0.5 kg). It is found in tropical forest edges and secondary forests.
Cotton-top tamarins are endemic to Colombia and once thrived in the rainforests. In the 1960’s, mass exportation of 20,000 to 40,000 cotton-top tamarins to the US for biomedical (colon cancer) research made them among the most endangered primates in the world. Today, only 6000 cotton-top tamarins remain in northeast Colombia, and rapid destruction of its habitat by deforestation presents the greatest threat to its survival. 


Shutter Speed - 1/200

Aperture - 5.0

ISO - 1600

Lens - 70-300mm Telephoto