About the Red Siskin (Cardenalito).

The Red Siskin (Carduelis cucullata) its a seminomadic bird originary from Venezuela. His colorful plumage is intense red with black or gray and due to the attractiveness of its color and the practices of capture and predation, it is threatened with extinction.
The Red Siskin or Cardenalito is a natural symbol of the #Lara state (Venezuela) . In addition to giving name to the baseball team of that entity (Cardenales de Lara) and a large number of commercial establishments in the region, it also identifies the beautiful promenade that gives access to the city of #Barquisimeto, popular for its huge sculptures of musical instruments and aboriginal pottery characteristic of the state.

A threatened species.

The Red Siskin has been classified as "Endangered" internationally by IUCN since 1952, appearing in Appendix I of CITES and, in Venezuela, classified as "Critically Endangered". It is listed as a threatened species by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service y en la U.S. Endangered Species Act de 1973.
www.cardenalito.org.ve

The main causes of the state of extinction of the Red Siskin, are:

The destruction of their habitat due to the extension of the agricultural frontier and an uncontrolled urban expansion.
Hunting of the Red Siskinto obtain its feathers for decorative purposes.
The extraction of their habitat to be sold to collectors abroad.
Its crossing with yellow Canaries to obtain Red Canaries.

Urban expansion has affected the habitat of the Cardenalito.
Photography: Female Red Siskin. Julio Renee. 2017.

Illustrates three Venezuelan Bills

Since 2008, the Red Siskinhas illustrated the reverse side of all the highest denomination banknotes in #Venezuela. Nowadays it is printed in the notes of 100 bolivars, 20 thousand bolivars and 100 thousand bolivars, however, although it has been a considerable diffusion, efforts, campaigns and individual and collective, private and governmental initiatives are much larger and more effective than generate awareness about the alarming situation of this beautiful and important Venezuelan bird and to prevent its extraction and commercialization outside the national territory.

www.cardenalito.org.ve

About how I photographed the Red Siskin.

A few months ago I traveled to the state of Yaracuy, with the intention of taking some photographs of nature with a somewhat limited team but just what I needed in those days to obtain - with a touch of agility and creativity - some good pictures: my Nikon D5200 camera with a 180mm Nikkor telephoto lens f / 2.8 ED of focus and manual exposure.

Once established in the house, we plan a visit to a nearby mountain with the help of some friends and relatives of the área. Julio Lugo, Argenis Mujica, Johan Lugo and chispita (our canine protector) would be our guides. The road involved climbing up to the mountain for about 45 or 50 minutes on foot and crossing 3 not-abundant streams, in fact, part of the journey we did along one of the rivers without major complications.
From the beginning my intention was to achieve some photographs of wildlife, flora and landscapes. I will leave photos of part of what I managed to photograph that day: