LevelsBirder

Birds and other Wildlife, from Panama and Canada.

Panama April 2006 - My Birding Diary

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My wife Kay and I left our Somerset home at 02:00 hrs and drove to Heathrow Airport where we parked our car in one of the long-stay car parks. From here we flew with Iberia to Panama City via Madrid (where we changed aircraft) and San José in Costa Rica, where we temporarily disembarked while the aircraft was cleaned and refuelled ready for its return transatlantic flight. On clearing immigration in Panama City we were transported in a small coach to our destination: the Canopy Tower in the rain-forest of Soberanía National Park, arriving 26 hours after leaving our home - a long tiring journey, but well worth it! Because of the minus 6 hour time difference, it was now 10:00 p.m. local time and after a quick snack it was time for a very welcome sleep.

Our twin-room was basic, but very comfortable with full en-suite facilities. As you can see, we had over-bed mosquito nets, but the sliding windows were meshed and we never had any problem - not even seeing one in the room!

05:30, our first rain-forest dawn, and we were awoken by the loud calls of several male Mantled Howler Monkeys and a variety of unfamiliar bird song. 06:00 found us climbing the stairs from the large dining room/lounge to the uppermost level - the observation deck, which has a full 360 degree view over the surrounding canopy. This was to be our 'start to the day' for most of the next week, except when we made a pre-dawn start to some distant birding sites. Coffee and biscuits were served on the deck at 06:15 and a good self-service breakfast was taken below at 07:30. Don't worry about missing anything over breakfast (bring your bins'), the large, wide open picture-windows look straight out just below the canopy; we saw our first kettle of migrating Mississippi Kites from here! Lunch was taken at 12:30, either in the dining room or a full, help yourself picnic laid out on 2 tables at the day's birding location. We always returned to the Canopy Tower by about 17:45 (just before dusk) and after an 18:30 Checklist call over, evening dinner, with complementary wine was taken at 19:30. Then, after some enjoyable socialising over the day's events and a couple of drinks, it was off to bed at around 21:30 - tired, but happy and looking forward to the next day!

The sites we birded, in visiting order, were: Canopy Tower - 300 metres asl (almost daily); Semaphore Road - a winding forest-road leading uphill to the Canopy Tower (2 visits); small town of Gamboa and nearby Ammo-Dump Ponds (3 visits); the famous Pipeline Road - a long forest track (2 visits); Gaillard Road and Summit Ponds (3 visits); Old Gamboa Road - a forest track (2 visits); Summit Gardens - a large area of parkland; Tocumen Marsh; Cerro Azul - 800 metres asl, in the mountain foothills; Plantation Road - a forest track; and the Chagris River.

We also went on a slow night-drive along Semaphore Road to the Summit Ponds and back. With the aid of a powerful spotlight, this produced good views of a Central American Woolly Opossum; three Hoffman's three-toed Sloths (a nocturnal species), and two Greater Fishing Bats - catching small fish from the surface of the ponds. We also saw both Great and Common Pottoo (types of large nightjar) and roosting Great Tinamou and Rufous Motmot.

Our return journey was less tiring: Panama to Madrid, direct in 9½ hours (we slept most of the way using the pillows and blankets provided), a 2 hour stopover then 2½ hours to Heathrow.

Memories from Panama

Me, next to the Canopy Tower's Birdmobile - a specially converted 4WD vehicle - on the World famous Pipeline Road, a rough track running for 18 km through the rain-forest in Panama's Soberanía National Park.

The following two photos were taken from the tree-top observation deck of the Canopy Tower.

Just after dawn, the early mist rising from the awakening rain-forest, accompanied by the load evocative calls of Mantled Howler Monkeys.

Another view over the rain-forest, taken later in the morning - after breakfast!

Birds seen on the trip

A total of around 236 species was seen by the group, of which I saw 231, and 134 were new for me (though still checking my world list), the total list included: Great Tinamou; Magnificent Frigatebird; 14 species of heron, including Capped, Cocoi, Agami (only the 2nd sighting by our Panamanian birding guide), Boat-billed, and Rufescent Tiger-Heron; Wood Stork; 22 species of raptor, including King Vulture, Swallow and White-tailed Kites, Mississippi Kite (total of c.750), Tiny Hawk, White Hawk, Common and Great Black-Hawks, Crested and Yellow-headed Caracaras, Laughing and Bat Falcons; Grey-necked Wood-Rail; Gray-chested Dove (a forest dove); 5 species of Parakeet/Parrots; Spectacled Owl; Great and Common Potoos; 4 species of Swift; 16 species of Hummingbird, including the diminutive Rufous-crested Coquette and Purple-crowned Fairy (much better looking than the one that parades along a high street near you); 5 species of Trogon; 5 species of Kingfishers; Blue-crowned, Rufous and Broad-billed Motmots; Black-breasted and White-whiskered Puffbirds; Spot-crowned Barbet; 4 species of toucan: Keel-billed and Chestnut-mandibled, plus Collared Aracari and Yellow-eared Toucanet; 6 species of Woodpecker; 5 species of Woodcreeper; Fasciated, Barred and Western Slaty Antshrikes; Checker-throated, White-flanked and Dot-winged Antwrens; 5 species of Antbird, including the gorgeous plumaged Oscillated Antbird; Black-faced Antthrush; Blue Cotinga – 2 stunningly coloured, bright blue males; 3 species of Manakins; 29 species of Flycatcher; Masked Tityra; 4 species of Wren; Black-chested Jay; Yellow-green Vireo; Green Shrike-Vireo; a few species of migrating American Wood Warblers; 17 species of tanager, including Emerald, Speckled, Bay-headed and Golden-hooded; 3 species of Honeycreeper; plus a good number of different finches and buntings, including Orange-billed and Black-striped Sparrows.

Most of our group of 10 half-way along the Pipeline Road

Perhaps the most exciting birding was the discovery of a foraging swarm of Army Ants, which we were lucky enough to find on two occasions. These ant swarms have their attendant group of antbirds, ant wrens, ant shrikes, ant thrushes and ant tanagers etc, that follow them through the rain forest, even roosting close to them at night. The ants, which move home to a new area about every 10 days, disturb a whole host of insect life from the forest floor and this is readily taken by these birds. If we remained quite and only moved slowly on the edge of the ant swarm (watch your feet!), the birds seemed oblivious to our presence and some very close views were possible at four or five metres distance. My, and probably most others, favourite was the gorgeous plumaged Oscillated Antbird. About the size of a Wheatear with a longer, more graduated, Cetti’s Warbler shaped tail; its plumage bore just a passing resemblance to one of the Asian female pheasants, being chestnut-brown below with darker, black-brown spotting. The dark black-brown feathers of the mantle and coverts were finely edged with pale golden-yellow, giving an immaculate scaled effect. It had a grey forehead and crown, and a wide wrap-around black throat-patch almost meeting on the nape; but most arresting was its large and prominent bright blue ocular-patch surrounding a dark-red eye, while the prominent legs and feet were a pale flesh-pink.

Photos of a few of the birds seen

Taking photos of forest birds is never easy because of the general low level of light. These are some of the more cooperative birds taken through a 20x wide angle 82mm telescope (digiscope) or 8x43 binoculars (digibino) using a 3MP Nikon Coolpix 990.

White-shouldered Tanager - male (digiscope) from the Canopy Tower.

Green Honeycreeper - male (digiscope) from the Canopy Tower.

Keel-billed Toucan (digiscope) from the Canopy Tower.

Blue-chested Hummingbird - female (digibino) at the Canopy Tower feeders.

White-necked Jacobin - male (digibino) at the Canopy Tower feeders.

Broad-billed Motmot (digiscope) from Semaphore Road.

Black-throated Trogon - male (digiscope) from Semaphore Road.

Black-throated Trogon - female (digiscope) from Semaphore Hill.

Black-cheeked Woodpecker - male (digiscope) from Plantation Road.

Common Potoo (digiscope) from Gaillard Road.

Great Potoo (digiscope) from Gaillard Road.

Great Potoo - closed eye & bill - peering over branch (digiscope) from Gaillard Road.

Spectacled Owl (digiscope) at its daytime roost off the Old Gamboa Road.

The kaleidoscope background is caused by sunlight on out-of-focus leaves.

Smooth-billed Ani - adult and juv? (digiscope) at the Ammo Dump Ponds.

White-whiskered Puffbird - earth on bill from tunnelling (digibino) from Pipeline Road.

Mealy Amazon or Mealy Parrot (digiscope) from Pipeline Road.

Amazon Kingfisher - female (digiscope) at Tocumen Marsh.

Amazon Kingfisher- female (digiscope) at Tocumen Marsh.

American Pygmy Kingfisher - male (digiscope) at Tocumen Marsh.

Green or Striated Heron - intergrade race 'patens'? (digscope) at Tocumen Marsh.

Boat-billed Heron (digiscope) at Tocumen Marsh.

Capped Heron (digibino) at Tocumen Marsh.

A superb looking bird, surely it deserves a better descriptive name?

Additional bird photos, copyright Alison Sencer.

Alison took these photos with a 5MP, 12x optical zoom, Panasonic Lumix FZ20

Bat Falcon: found injured, with a broken wing, along Semaphore Hill. Subsequently caught by Canopy Tower staff and taken into veterinary care in Panama City.

Slaty-tailed Trogon (female).

Ocellated Antbird, photographed at an Army Ant swarm along the Pipeline Road.

Bicoloured Antbird, photographed at the same Army Ant swarm.

Black-striped Sparrow, photographed at the Old Gamboa Road. (much enlarged)

Bronze-tailed Plumeleteer (both birds), photographed on a feeder at Cerros Azul.

Mammals, reptiles and butterfly etc.

As well as plenty of birds, the area around the Canopy Tower held other interesting wildlife, of which we saw Mantled Howler Monkeys, Red-naped Tambourine Monkeys, White-faced Capuchin Monkeys, Central American Agouti (like a very large guinea pig), White-nosed Coati (like a long-nosed, long-tailed racoon), Red-tailed Squirrel, Variegated Squirrel, Central American Woolly Opossum (nocturnal), Brown-throated Three-toed Sloth, Hoffman’s Two-toed Sloth (nocturnal), American Crocodile, Spotted Cayman (type of crocodile), Green Iguana (large lizard), Basilisk or Jesus Lizard (runs across water surface on its powerful hind legs), Whip-tailed Lizard, Leaf Frog, Tungara Frog, Talamanca Rocket-Frog (all tiny frogs), Common Slider Turtle, Greater White-lined Bats, Greater Fishing Bats, and many large, brilliantly coloured butterflies, including huge Morphos, bright blue, big as a sheet of A5 paper and fluttering slowly along the forest tracks. I managed to take just a very few photos...

Mantled Howler Monkey (digiscope) from the Canopy Tower.

Brown-throated three-toed Sloth (digiscope) from the Canopy Tower.

Cayman - a type of crocodile (digiscope) at Summit Ponds.

Basilisk or Jesus Lizard (digiscope) at Summit Ponds.

Rhetus arcius - a swallowtail butterfly (digiscope) from the Canopy Tower.

Only saw this once, about 80 feet up in the forest tree tops.

A large moth, species of Hawkmoth? Settled on ceiling fan-light, Canopy Tower.

More information...

More information about The Canopy Tower can be found on their website: http://www.canopytower.com/home.htm

Our birding holiday arrangements were made through Naturetrek: http://www.naturetrek.co.uk/home.asp

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