Vision Visits Panama: The Quest for a Quetzal

[Vision]

Prologue
​

I’ll start this thread with a bit of background. Throughout my life I’ve always been fortunate enough to have parents that both liked travelling, and had the means to do so. Because of them I’ve seen large parts of the world and I’ve been to many very special places, and because of those holidays I also think I am who I am today. I don’t know if my birding hobby, which I’ve always found fascinating but never really started pursuing actively until 3 years ago, would have been as prominent and relevant in my life if it wasn’t for those holidays.

One continent none of us had ever really seen was Latin America. Over the past few years we’ve always kept it in the back of our heads for a family holiday, but whenever we would check for flights to Mexico, Costa Rica, Brazil etc. they were always fairly ridiculously priced. When the topic came up again back in February or March this year, though, I checked again and while most flights were still very expensive there was an attractive option that only cost about half as much as all the other flights: Panama. An interesting country that we didn’t know too much about, but upon doing some research it sounded like a less touristic version of Costa Rica - perfect! A few hours later we had booked the flights, and it was clear that we’d be in Panama from the end of June until halfway July. I started dreaming of all of the cool wildlife the country had to offer, and soon ordered a brand new bird guide (“Birds of Central America” by A.C.Vallely & D.Dyer) to start reading up on which places were good for which birds.

However, I knew in advance that this holiday wouldn’t be primarily birding-oriented since it was still a family holiday, and nobody else in my family is a birder. In the past few family holidays (Croatia last year, Canada and the US the year before) I had had quite a big influence in the planning out of the trips, which sometimes led to a bit of frustration with other family members - rightfully so, I’m more than a bit obsessed! I realized very well that I wouldn’t be able to see everything I wanted to see anyways, so I very consciously made the decision to not have any say in the planning this time - if too much of the holiday was spent watching birds it could never be my fault, and because I had never been in the neotropics I was sure I’d see a lot of cool new species regardless, even if my only birding would be passive. Luckily for me, the main attractions in Panama were all wildlife anyways! I did make a single request for a location, which was Volcan Baru National Park close to the Costa Rican border - that’s where two of the best Central American birds were most reliable in Panama.

I’m not going to write down an itinerary because we were fairly flexible in our decisions on when to go where, and because I don’t want to spoil anything yet (those reading the Big Year 2019 thread attentively might have read the list and figured out some of the route already). Essentially what it came down to was that we’d start in the Panama City area, make our way to the Southern Azuero peninsula, then up Northwest towards Boquete, then towards the Bocas del Toro islands in the Caribbean, and then drive our way back, stopping for a few days in El Valle before ultimately reaching Panama City again. We had hired a car (more about that later) and so we’d drive the entire way ourselves. I have to commend my father for his excellent driving, because that of the Panamanians were nothing to write home about - I’ve seldom felt less safe on a road because of reckless drivers than in Panama, and I’ve crossed Vietnam by public transport.

As mentioned above, this trip wasn’t primarily a birding trip but a family holiday, which is why we went to some of the places we did and which is why I had a few days with very little additions - but then I easily made up for those in other places with many new species. I will write it from a birder’s perspective as if it was a birding trip, though, because in many regards it was one - definitely for me. I had never been to the Neotropics, so similarly to my Vietnamese trip earlier this year it would my first time actively birding a new continent.

As in my thread about Vietnam, I will base my writings around the posts that I've already typed up in the Big Year topic, so they'll be a mix of text paragraphs and lists. I will try not to say something about every single bird and mammal I saw, but in some situations that'll be quite difficult! Feel free to ask me any questions or to give opinions about anything!

 

[Vision]

DAY 1: Arriving
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Once again, like on my Vietnam trip earlier this year, the cheapest flights had been via Paris, which added a good few hours of sitting in a train to the total travel time but was pleasant enough - technically the first addition of the trip was a red kite, seen from the train just across the French/Belgian border. The Parisian airport was a lot calmer than it was in April, which made for a nice change and meant that we didn’t have to spend as long standing in line. The flight was a day flight this time, meaning we arrived in Panama just as it got dark - a bit frustrating to then have to drive to the hotel in the dark in a traffic situation you’ve never had to deal with before, but other than that Westward flights where you land just before you have to sleep are perfect, as you skip out a lot of jetlag that way - you do also miss precious hours of daylight, however. What’s interesting about Panama City’s airport is that as you land you fly right over a coastal area lined with mangroves, into a sort of wetland forest - beautiful! I’m fairly sure I saw frigatebirds and brown pelicans from the plane, but I was sure I’d see them better later on so I didn’t want to count them just yet. On the airport grounds I saw my first few new birds, and I couldn’t be happier!

420) Black vulture, Coragyps atratus
421) Great-tailed grackle, Quiscalus mexicanus
422) Grey-breasted martin, Progne chalybea
423) Neotropic cormorant, Phalacrocorax brasilianus
424) Tropical mockingbird, Mimus gilvus

In the airport there were a few minor hiccups - the car that we had arranged well in advance, which was suspiciously much cheaper than all other options, apparently didn’t include a car insurance (which was mandatory in Panama, and rightfully so) whereas all others did. After this car insurance was added to the price, the rental car turned out to be more expensive than all other options. Eventually we settled on an agreement though, and we could be on our way. Upon driving from the airport to our hotel in the Balboa district I saw a large bird fly in front of the car, which was a wood stork - I didn’t know then that that would be the only wood stork we’d see for the rest of the trip! After that it got too dark for anything else, but while we were drinking a local beer at the terrace of the hotel (which was fantastic) an agouti was foraging right next to our table! I ended up seeing agoutis (a pair and their baby) every day there, and quite a few others throughout the trip, but would never have expected them to be this common, definitely not in the suburbs of a big city like this.

425) Wood stork, Mycteria americana

30) Central American agouti, Dasyprocta punctata

 

[Mehdi]

As soon as you said you would write a thread for this trip, I was eagerly waiting for it to happen. Very well-written as per usual and I can't wait to get to the birding parts of the trip!

 

[Vision]

DAY 2: Metropolitan National Park and Biomuseo

The first few days in Vietnam earlier this year were overwhelming, but at least there I had seen some of the birds before, and in the cases I didn’t I had at least seen members of their families, or I had read about them extensively and seen many pictures. There’s not much that can prepare you for the first day in the neotropics…

As mentioned before it was a family holiday, so I knew I had to bird whenever possible to be able to get a good score. On this first day, and on pretty much the rest of the entire trip, I would wake up just before dawn, bird in the (very) close vicinity of the hotel, and then have breakfast after (which usually started at 7:30 AM or 8:00 AM, a good hour or two after sunrise). This made it possible to use the most of the short, tropical daylight hours, and it made it possible to spend time birding without bothering the rest of the family too much. It did mean I was restricted to the area next to the hotel, however, but in most places that proved to be fine.

So there I was, on the first day, sitting on the hotel’s covered terrace and looking at the trees in the neighbouring backyards. The airconditioning had been on and fairly cold all night, so both my camera and binoculars’ lenses were completely fogged up and unusable for the first half hour. This gets frustrating really quickly, because everywhere around you are birds you’ve never seen before - in the grass right next to you, in the trees far away, flying over your head… Eventually I was able to get my binoculars and my camera to a usable state, and it was fantastic… Parrots everywhere, tyrant-flycatchers on every open perch, grackles chasing them away, tanagers and thrushes foraging, doves the size of sparrows and woodpeckers the size of crows, the trilling sound of a hummingbird’s wings right in front of you… The most notable species from this morning were a lineated woodpecker and barred antshrike, both of which I had no clue would be fairly common this close to cities. The barred antshrike’s song was the first one I learned on the trip, and soon enough I’d hear them all over the place. This was also my first ever antbird, and thus quite a highlight. Looking back at this list I'm surprised it's only about 20 species, which is also what I can get at home while looking out of my window - I think what impressed me most in Panama was just the sheer amount of birds everywhere. There wasn't a single tree that wouldn't have a bird in it, which is just unthinkable in any European suburb.

426) Clay-coloured thrush, Turdus grayi
427) Great kiskadee, Pitangus sulphuratus
428) Ruddy ground dove, Columbina talpacoti
429) Rufous-tailed hummingbird, Amazilia tzacatl
430) Variable seedeater, Sporophila corvina
431) Crimson-backed tanager, Ramphocelus dimidiatus
432) Palm tanager, Thraupis palmarum
433) Orange-chinned parakeet, Brotogeris jugularis
434) Tropical kingbird, Tyrannus melancholicus
435) House wren, Troglodytes aedon
436) White-collared swift, Streptoprocne zonaris
437) Blue-grey tanager, Thraupis episcopus
438) Barred antshrike, Thamnophilus doliatus
439) Pale-vented pigeon, Patagioenas cayennensis
440) Social flycatcher, Myiozetetes similis
441) Red-crowned woodpecker, Melanerpes rubricapillus
442) Lineated woodpecker, Dryocopus lineatus
443) Blue-headed parrot, Pionus menstruus
444) Buff-breasted wren, Cantorchilis leucotis

After breakfast (at the same table I had just been birding at for an hour, so the lifers kept coming while we were eating) we went to the Metropolitan National Park, heavily advertised as one the biggest tropical rainforests in major cities. In reality it really wasn’t a part of the city at all, a more accurate description would be next to the city, but it was still a nice little national park with paved paths, and huts every so often so you could rest - basically, it was very similar to Bukit Timah in Singapore. The park contained three major “loops,” of which the guide says they take up to multiple hours but can easily be done in about 25 minutes each - even at a birding pace we didn’t spend too much time in them, and even though we initially planned on doing only one trail we did all three. Half of the third trail was closed off, though, which is annoying because that was allegedly the best place to see the Geoffroy’s tamarins. The birding overall was a bit slow, but seeing our first toucan right above our heads as one of the first birds in the forest itself was fantastic. The first loop and the area around the visitor center got me 5 new species.

445) Streaked flycatcher, Myiodynastes maculatus
446) Turkey vulture, Cathartes aura
447) Keel-billed toucan, Ramphastos sulfuratus
448) White-shouldered tanager, Tachyphonus luctuosus
449) Thick-biled euphonia, Euphonia laniirostris

The other two loops was where it started getting more interesting, though! I hadn’t heard of ant-tanagers before today, and apparently they’re neither antbirds nor tanagers, but cardinals - seeing both species was great, definitely because they weren’t shy at all. My first pair of motmots was seen here as well, which was very cool, and the highlight of the day was probably our first sloth! A brown-throated three-toed sloth, of which we ended up seeing about half a dozen throughout the trip, but none as well as this first one. No tamarins now or indeed the rest of the trip, unfortunately - we definitely didn’t see as many monkeys as we had expected to.

450) Whooping motmot, Momotus subrufescens
451) Red-crowned ant-tanager, Habia rubica
452) Fasciated antshrike, Cymbilaimus lineatus
453) Red-throated ant-tanager, Habia fuscicauda
454) Dusky-capped flycatcher, Myiarchus tuberculifer

31) Brown-throated three-toed sloth, Bradypus variegatus

After this, we drove to the Amador area in the Southwestern part of Panama City, where we visited the Biomuseo. On the way there I got another three new species, most excitingly a few fork-tailed flycatchers resting on barbed wire around a military base, and a frigatebird circling in a group of black vultures.

455) Short-tailed swift, Chaetura brachyura
456) Fork-tailed flycatcher, Tyrannus savana
457) Magnificent frigatebird, Fregata magnificens

The Biomuseo is a museum dedicated to Panama’s natural history - it does quite a good job of highlighting the extant, endangered and extinct fauna, explaining the impact that Panama had as a sort of “bridge” connecting North and South America, and explaining differences between the Caribbean and Pacific coasts using two decent aquariums. I wouldn’t say it’s a must-visit museum, but it tells a nice enough story and is presented very well. Perhaps even more interesting is the building itself, which is created by architect Frank Gehry, well-known for his asymetric architecture. The Biomuseo is a wonderful, colourful mess, situated in a wonderful park, not dissimilar to but much smaller than Singapore’s Gardens by the Bay. From inside the museum you look out into the gardens and beyond that into the pacific ocean, and at times I found it very hard to pay attention to the things in the museum - how could I, when the last darter species I still needed was flying right along the coast? Luckily we also spent a bit of time looking out at sea and walking around in the park after we visited the museum, where I was able to add some more species. I don’t think anything could have prepared me for the sheer amount of pelicans and frigatebirds on most of the Pacific coast - no matter where you looked, there were always hundreds of both species flying above sea - an impressive sight!

458) Brown pelican, Pelecanus occidentalis
459) American darter, Anhinga anhinga
460) Southern rough-winged swallow, Stelgidopteryx ruficollis
461) Mangrove swallow, Tachycineta albilinea
462) Garden emerald, Chlorostilbon assimili
463) Lesser kiskadee, Pitangus lictor
464) Yellow-headed caracara, Milvago chimachima
465) Common tody-flycatcher, Todirostrum cinereum
466) Yellow-crowned night heron, Nyctanassa violacea
467) Southern lapwing, Vanellus chilensis

A visit to the Casco Viejo, the very beautiful old quarter of Panama City, gained me better views of yellow-crowned night herons (adult birds this time, as opposed to the juvenile from earlier) and a gull in the distance.

468) Laughing gull, Leucophaeus atricilla

What a day! 43 new species for the year, which I think was the first time I had that many additions in a day since the first of January.

 

[Vision]

DAY 3: Soberania National Park and the Canal Zone
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The first few hours were about as species-rich as the ones the day before, but mainly included the same few species as the day before. New were a group of white ibises flying over, a pair of toucans in a tree close to the hotel, a variegated squirrel, and I was able to identify some of the amazons that would regularly fly over my head - they’re more difficult than you’d expect!

469) Red-lored amazon, Amazona autumnalis
470) American white ibis, Eudocimus albus

33) Variegated squirrel, Sciurus variegatoides

After breakfast we were headed to Soberania National Park, one of the best National Parks of the country. At first we drove to the Canopy Tower, but that seemed very much closed (it is perhaps important to note that July, in Panama, is the touristic low season for both birders and non-birders -many things throughout the country were closed, and we only rarely bumped into tourists outside of Panama City). We did see a hermit at the top, which was cool. On our way back down the hill (the tower is an old military base on the top of a hill, that is now turned into a birder’s hotel/lodge/lookout tower) we saw a few agoutis and a group of white-nosed coatis, which was a real highlight.

471) Long-billed hermit, Phaethornis longirostris

34) White-nosed coati, Nasua narica

After that we parked our car near the foot of the hill, where there was a walking trail. This proved fairly good for birding, and after no time we were looking at a pair of impressive slaty-tailed trogons. Other good birds followed soon after, with almost all of the new species nowhere else on the trip. An antwren (my first!) sat very boldly in a bush right in front of us, a pair of grey-headed tanagers are apparently a fairly difficult species to see, and then when a mixed feeding flock of two cacique species and a motmot passed by my day couldn’t get any better - that is, until a second trogon species popped up and I saw another slaty-tailed trogon right above me! Great birding here. Another surprise came in the shape of a coati that walked straight toward us, sniffed our legs and backpacks and went to sit down right next to us, allowing for great pictures - wow! On the way back we also heard some mantled howler monkeys in the distance, which was cool.

472) Slaty-tailed trogon, Trogon massena
473) Checker-throated antwren, Epinecrophylla fulviventris
474) Grey-headed tanager, Eucometis penicillata
475) Cocoa woodcreeper, Xiphorhynchus susurrans
476) Scarlet-rumped cacique, Cacicus microrhynchus
477) Yellow-rumped cacique, Cacicus cela
478) Broad-billed motmot, Electron platyrhynchum
479) Black-throated trogon, Trogon rufus

35) Red-tailed squirrel, Sciurus granatensis

After this it started raining very heavily, so we went to the Gamboa Rainforest Resort to have some lunch. In hindsight I figured out that this place is apparently fairly well-known with birders as well, and they organize birding tours and night tours etc.
The grounds of the resort were fairly birdy - the terrace looked over the swimming pool below (which had a few green iguanas and basilisks running around next to them - odd sight!) and to a part of the Chagres river behind that, with good amounts of tall trees still present. In one of the palm trees next to the swimming pool was a masked tityra! The tityras used to be a part of the cotinga family, but have fairly recently been seperated from them in their own family, Tityridae, together with the becards. A very cool bird, and I was really happy to see them here and in a few other places later on. I also saw a few whistling-ducks and scaled pigeons flying in the distance, which was nice - I only saw the pigeons in one other place after this.

480) Masked tityra, Tityra semifasciata
481) Black-bellied whistling-duck, Dendrocygna autumnalis
482) Scaled pigeon, Patagioenas speciosa

After the rain settled down, we visited the Canal Visitor Centre overlooking the Panama Canal. The museum indoors was mildly interesting, with a few interesting displays about how the canal was made and what influence it had had on the economy and Panama as a whole, but wasn’t very inspirational - more interesting, perhaps, was the viewing platform from which you could see the giant boats manoeuvre their way through the various lock chambers of the canal. The most interesting part for me was a huge, almost kookaburra-sized kingfisher overlooking it all - evidently there was quite some fish in the canal and the lock chambers, because pelicans and frigatebirds were circling all around. On the other side of the canal was a group of deer, which was nice.

483) Ringed kingfisher, Megaceryle torquata
484) Roadside hawk, Rupornis magnirostris

36) White-tailed deer, Odocoileus virginianus

On the way back to the hotel we stopped at a small store next to the road, where I hung around the parking lot and found a pair of yellow-crowned amazons! Quite a rare species, according to the book. I ended up seeing them a few more times around Panama City the next two days, but never anywhere else.

485) Yellow-crowned amazon, Amazona ochrocephala

In hindsight, only spending half a day in Soberania National Park was probably a very big missed opportunity, as this is by far one of Panama's, and probably Central America's best birding places. I feel like I did get a good taste of what the birding was like here, though, and the species I did get were all great. I suppose it just means I'll have to go back to do it properly!

 

[Vision]

DAY 4: Panama Viejo and Panama City​

The third ‘morning bird hour’ (finally, without too much issues with fogged up lenses) got me better views of the barred antshrike, lineated woodpecker and of a pair of yellow-crowned amazons flying over, but besides that just much of the same stuff - there were loads of birds and quite a lot of different species, but it didn’t change much over the course of the four days we were here. I did get a new species, though, namely my first saltator.

486) Streaked saltator, Saltator striatipectus

In the morning we did a quick walk around town, and there we saw a family of keel-billed toucans in someone’s front yard. In many ways they reminded me of when I used to live in Singapore 10 years ago, and when you would still reliably see the oriental pied hornbills in the suburbs from time to time - it seems those days are now over in much of Asia, with most hornbills being harder and harder to see. The toucans here were still present in large numbers, though, which was fantastic - I don’t think watching a toucan hop around in a tree can ever get boring!

After breakfast we went to Panama Viejo, which are ruins of the first Spanish settlement on the Pacific coast. The ruins were interesting and a small museum next to them was well done, but more interesting for me were the animals. Between the ruins were a handful of black spiny iguanas, and next to the site was a large mudflat that looked (and was) good for wetland birds - large numbers of brown pelican, American white ibis and great egret were using it to rest, and between them were small groups of foraging little blue herons, yellow-crowned night herons and willets. In between the ruins I saw a few Panamanian flycatchers (as far as I know, the only birds with “Panama” in their ‘official’ IOC common name) and fairly large numbers of saffron finches! Saffron finches are a South American tanager species, but they were introduced in a handful of places in Panama, with the largest population in Panama City. I didn’t know that before I saw them so I was quite surprised to see them here!

487) Saffron finch, Sicalis flaveola
488) Panamaian flycatcher, Myiarchus panamensis
489) Northern crested caracara, Caracara cheriway
490) Little blue heron, Egretta caerula
491) Willet, Tringa semipalpata

The rest of the day it rained, and so we spent most of it indoors in a shopping mall. Not what I’d choose to do in a country so far away from your own, but fair enough - the rest of the family had to deal with me wanting to look at birds for the entire trip.

In the evening the rain settled down and we went to the Amador Causeway, which is a causeway made using excavated rocks from the Panama Canal, that sticks into the Pacific ocean for a few kilometers and connects the mainland to four (former) islands. It’s also next to where the Biomuseo was, which we visited on day 1. I saw good amounts of seabirds here, but nothing new besides some black-crowned night herons, which I had seen this year but not in Panama. We were wondering how far we’d continue walking, and just as I said “let’s continue walking until we see something cool” we see something interesting on the bicycle path in front of us - a two-toed sloth! It was completely drenched and crawling over the footpath, until it found a branch and pulled itself up in a tree on some tiny twigs that definitely did not look like they could hold its weight. I’ve obviously never seen a sloth on the ground before, so seeing one like this was very impressive. It was a very odd sight though, because normally they’re the more nocturnal of the two sloth species in mainland Panama… The fact that it was drenched and that it came crawling from an area with no trees makes me think it had just been swimming at sea? I know sloths are good swimmers, but I wonder why they’d go swimming in the first place if not to get from one swamp to another.

37) Hoffmann's two-toed sloth, Choloepus hoffmanni

 

[Vision]

DAY 5: Travelling to Omar Torrijos National Park
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The fourth morning got me another new species in the form of one that I had been hearing consistently for 4 days, but that never showed itself - a species I’d see quite often throughout the rest of the trip, but a nice one nonetheless. I feel like this is a nice moment to appreciate the pigeon diversity in the neotropics - I feel like I always knew Africa, Asia and Oceania had large amounts of very variable pigeon species, but I never really considered Latin America to have a lot of diversity in that regard - turns out they do! By the end of this trip I saw 9 species in Panama, and heard a tenth.

492) White-tipped dove, Leptotila verreauxi

Most of the rest of the day was spent driving towards our next stop, El Cope National Park. This was the first time we truly met Panama’s highways, and more specifically the Carretera Panamericana or the Pan-American Highway, the highway going through the entirety of North and South America and only being interrupted once (at the Panamanian/Columbian border). This highway, which mostly followed the Pacific coast of Panama, was also the only major highway in the country, and so every time you had to go to the East or West and you didn’t want to spend hours driving through tiny villages and curly mountain paths, you would at one point end up on this highway. Speed limits are absurd - often 60km/h or even 40km/h was signed when everyone was driving 100km/h. Corruption of police controlling traffic is still very much a real thing as well, with officers waving you over to the side of the road and pretending you were driving more than the limit, giving you the choice to either go with them to the police station or to pay them cash there. Oh well…

On our way we stopped at a coastal village, where we had lunch and where we rested for a few hours. The coast had large numbers of black vulture, brown pelicans and magnificent frigatebirds so I spent a while photographing them, when suddenly a pair of brown boobies flew along the shoreline! As far as I knew that species is a lot easier on the Caribbean side (even though we didn’t end up seeing any of them there), so that made it an even cooler observation. Along the way we also saw a few kites perched on poles, which was cool.

493) White-tailed kite, Elanus leucurus
494) Brown booby, Sula leucogaster

El Cope wasn’t a very touristic place (probably for the better), and as such there aren’t really any hotels in the area. We stayed at a homestay in the house of a local family, which was an interesting experience. The house consisted of a group of buildings with bedrooms, connected via a corrugated iron roof that covered the ‘living room,’ which was completely open on one side. On the second day a rufous-tailed hummingbird and a house wren (how fitting) flew inside the living room, which was quite funny. The beds were clean and the food was good, though, so I didn’t mind. On one of the walls someone had painted a bare-necked umbrellabird, which is the species Omar Torrijos National Park is known for among birders.

A quick walk around the neighbourhood got us a few more species. Anis are great! They’re a lot smaller than I thought they would be, and generally a lot more similar to guiras I’ve seen in zoos than I would have expected.

495) Groove-billed ani, Crotophaga sulcirostris
496) Spotted woodcreeper, Xiphorhynchus eryhtropygius
497) Boat-billed flycatcher, Megarynchus pitangua

 

[amur leopard]

Thank you for sharing all of this with us and in such a comprehensive way

 

[Vision]

DAY 6: Omar Torrijos National Park and travelling to Pedasi
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The fairly expensive night at the homestay included a guided walk in the national park the morning after. I had been excited for this walk beforehand, because I had never really birded with a guide before and wondered what it’d be like, but it became pretty clear early on that the guide didn’t know much about birds - he barely spoke any English at all, and the few times he did call out birds he didn’t get much further than “Tucan” referring to an aracari that I had already found, or “Paloma” when a pigeon was calling in the distance. However, he did know the way, and that turned out to be a very important thing.

What’s interesting is that the guided walk started at 8AM with a walk to the national park, which would’ve taken 1,5 hours on the way there and 1 hour to go back, meaning we’d only have a very limited amount of time before noon, when the guided tour ended and when we’d be back at the homestay. Luckily my father drove us most of the way up to the national park, meaning we only had to walk the last half hour up to the national park, otherwise we would’ve been exhausted before even entering the park for the hour we had left. On the walk to the national park I saw a small toucan in the distance that turned out to be a collared aracari - nice!

498) Smooth-billed ani, Crotophaga ani
499) Collared aracari, Pteroglossus torquatus
500) Black-chested jay, Cyanocorax affinis
501) Yellow-faced grassquit, Tiaris olivaceus

Our guide walked too quickly and birding overall was fairly slow here, so even though it was an extremely unique environment and the first time I encountered the very special cloud forest habitat, we didn’t get too many birds here (and the guide was not much of a help in finding them). Most birds were seen right at the entrance of the park, and while all exciting species then most of them turned out to be fairly common throughout the rest of Panama as well. The nightingale-wren was a real treat though, and genuinely just a super cool species - coincidental that so many cool bird species either have a very long tail, or no tail at all!

502) Black-cheeked woodpecker, Melanerpes pucherani
503) Chestnut-headed oropendola, Psarocolius wagleri
504) Crowned woodnymph, Thalurania colombica
505) Bay-headed tanager, Tangara gyrola
506) Silver-throated tanager, Tangara icterocephala
507) Southern nightingale-wren, Microcerculus marginatus

Upon entering the park we followed the “La Rana Dorada” loop (the golden frog, named after the golden frogs that were common on this path before they went extinct in this region), and while the beginning had clearly marked out paths they eventually dissolved into the sort of ‘almost-path’ where I would’ve turned back immediately if I wasn’t with a guide.The paths were very muddy, steep, and occasionally we had to climb over big, fallen tree trunks. We did get a few good species here though, I’m especially happy with the jacobin, but of course my first honeycreepers were a real highlight as well. Heard only were a rufous motmot and at least one purplish-backed quail-dove.

508) Shining honeycreeper, Cyanerpes lucidus
509) White-necked jacobin, Florisuga mellivora
510) Stripe-throated hermit, Phaethornis striigularis
511) Spot-crowned antvireo, Dysithamnus puncticeps
512) Pale-vented thrush, Turdus obsoletus

After a few hours of ploughing through muddy and hilly paths and hoping for an umbrellabird (it wasn’t the right time of the year so I knew they wouldn’t be here, and even if they were we definitely wouldn’t see them with the amount of sound we were making… But you never know!) we finally emerged into an open area again, and upon the walk back down I picked up a few more species. I also saw the aracari again, which was great.

513) Squirrel cuckoo, Piaya cayana
514) Tawny-capped euphonia, Euphonia anneae
515) Tooth-billed tanager, Piranga lutea
516) Tawny-crested tanager, Tachyphonus delatrii

Squirrel cuckoos are a lot bigger than I expected! I had expected something similar in size to our cuckoo, so I was very surprised when I saw a malkoha-sized bird in a tree right next to the path. They share a lot of resemblance with malkohas in the way they move and the way they look, as well - way more than I would have expected.

After the walk we drove back down to the homestay, and after that we drove to our next destination - Pedasi, on the Southeastern point of the Azuero peninsula. Azuero was once a good place for birds, but recently most of the peninsula except for the protected areas in the Southeast have been completely destroyed for agriculture, which turns into a dry deserty area in the dry season. There aren’t many birds left here, but the ones that are were in many cases new species for me. On the way there and upon arriving I saw another 5 new species.

517) Common black hawk, Buteogallus anthracinus
518) Savanna hawk, Buteogallus meridionalis
519) White-winged dove, Zenaida asiatica
520) Grey-capped flycatcher, Myiozetetes granadensis
521) Bat falcon, Falco rufigularis

Something interesting about Azuero is that it’s very hard to find any information about birds online - almost no birders have been here recently because there’s not much to see anymore, which also means that there’s not many online resources that can guide you in the right direction. That being said, I don’t like being dependent on those online resources too much anyways, but they can definitely help in finding where to look for which species. On much of Azuero, I was on my own!

 

[Vision]

DAY 7: Pedasi and Isla Cañas
​

The hotel we were staying at was a lovely little place overlooking a few fields and in between a few coastal forests, and was only about a 15 minute walk away from the beach. I wasn’t expecting to see a whole lot here, but I did get some new species in the first hour of the day from a quick walk in the area. The most exciting ones were probably the hummingbird which would continuously come back the next few days to feed here, the large numbers of blue-black grassquits (which I was familiar with from in zoos, so it was weird to hear those typical calls here as well) and then the vulture which came as a very welcome surprise in a group of turkey vultures.

522) Blue-black grassquit, Volatinia jacarina
523) Sapphire-throated hummingbird, Lepidopyga coeruleogularis
524) Lesser yellow-headed vulture, Cathartes burrovianus
525) American oystercatcher, Haematopus palliatus
526) Bronzed cowbird, Molothrus aeneus

After that, we planned what we were going to do the next few days. There were a few interesting islands off the coast of the Azuero peninsula, Isla Iguana (mainly known for the best snorkelling in the area, but also for its breeding populations of pelicans, frigatebirds and black iguanas) and Isla Cañas (which is where large amounts of turtles come to land to lay eggs). We decided to do Isla Cañas on this first day because it worked out better with the tides and the planning of tours on the island. We left a bit early which meant that we had quite a bit of time left over, just enough for a nature trail that had been recommended, the “La Cascada Trail” near Eco Venao.

When birding in the tropics, there’s always a select few birds of which you just know that they’ll be good, just from hearing their call. In Vietnam earlier this year a notable one like that was blue-winged pitta, which we kept hearing everywhere in Cat Tien and sounds so strikingly beautiful and pierces through the rest of the forest’s sounds so loudly that you just know it has to be a good bird. Birding on this trail had been very disappointing for the most part, with literally nothing having showed up except for a few white-tipped doves, but when I heard a loud whistle from right in front of me I knew it had to be something good. After following the sound for a little while I found the bird making those sounds - a male lance-tailed manakin! It disappeared from view quite soon after, but I got some very good views. After this we saw our first howlers of the trip, which on the Azuero peninsula are of the subspecies trabeata, a Critically Endangered Panamanian endemic. We ended up seeing two small groups, for a total of about 10 individuals, among which at least one baby. I didn't get much wildlife on this walk, but the species I did see were absolutely two of the trip highlights!

527) Lance-tailed manakin, Chiroxiphia lanceolata

38) Mantled howler monkey, Alouatta palliata

After this we continued to the place where a speedboat came to pick us up to go to Isla Cañas, where we’d walk along the beach at night to try and find some sea turtles. On the way to the island we got a few more additions, among which another exciting but distant monkey, but when we arrived on the island everything was very quiet… We ended up walking 10 kilometers that night, with not a single sea turtle sighting. Very briefly a fairly large, very silent bird did fly over our heads which had to have been an owl, but there would have been a few medium-sized owls in the area and I couldn’t see any details. No sea turtles today, but with great sightings of manakins and the first monkeys of the trip, who can really complain?

528) Brown-throated parakeet, Eupsittula pertinax
529) Snowy egret, Egretta thula

39) White-faced capuchin, Cebus capucinus

 

[AWP]

Parrots everywhere, tyrant-flycatchers on every open perch, grackles chasing them away, tanagers and thrushes foraging, doves the size of sparrows and woodpeckers the size of crows, the trilling sound of a hummingbird’s wings right in front of you…

Where was this hotel located? I stayed in El Cangrejo and birds were limited to rock pigeons, house sparrows and orange-chinned parakeets in that part of the city. However, I spend two nights at Raddisson between the city and Gamboa and that was a great location with multiple species of passerines, shore birds, araçaris, agoutis, caimans, coatis and a tamandua as the highlight.

The park contained three major “loops,” of which the guide says they take up to multiple hours but can easily be done in about 25 minutes ( ) we definitely didn’t see as many monkeys as we had expected to.

I did the Motmot’s Loop and a part of El Roble combined with Los Cacabos, and I agree that these trails can be done quicker than the guide says, even at an easy speed with looking for wildlife. Tamarins were my biggest miss too (although I saw them in Summit) and I agree on your statement about monkeys. In Costa Rica I saw quite a few monkeys in all parts of the country of four different species, but in Panama my sightings were limited.

we visited the Biomuseo. On the way there I got another three new species, most excitingly a few fork-tailed flycatchers

Funny, fork-tailed flycatchers were also my most exciting species at Biomuseo!

 

[AWP]

In hindsight, only spending half a day in Soberania National Park was probably a very big missed opportunity, as this is by far one of Panama's, and probably Central America's best birding places.

I had a similair experience, being on a guided tour that was way to short in time, but saw some great species though (chestnut-billed toucan, white-tailed trogon, female antshrike, coati and howler monkey being the highlights).

 

[AWP]

I’ve obviously never seen a sloth on the ground before, so seeing one like this was very impressive. It was a very odd sight though, because normally they’re the more nocturnal of the two sloth species in mainland Panama… The fact that it was drenched and that it came crawling from an area with no trees makes me think it had just been swimming at sea? I know sloths are good swimmers, but I wonder why they’d go swimming in the first place if not to get from one swamp to another.

Before I visited Panama, I hadn't see a sloth on the ground either, but here I saw a couple of descending and ground crawling (three-toed) sloths. Punta Culebra at the end of the Amador Causeway is a famous spot for two-toed sloths, so your sloth might have been one of these swimming around the coasts.

 

[Vision]

@AWP thanks for the comments and the info! The chestnut-mandibled toucan is a nice one, that's probably one of my biggest misses of this trip as a whole. In Panama City we stayed in the Balboa Inn, between Balboa and Ancón. I believe a large portion of the birds in the area probably has something to do with the Reserva Cerra Ancón being closeby. They definitely also put out food for the birds and agoutis, though, so that will have had something to do with it as well! I'm jealous of the tamandua, that was definitely one of the species I would have loved to see but never managed to connect with!

 

[Vision]

DAY 8: Pedasi and Isla Iguana
​

Another morning walk gained me no new bird species but a few more decent sightings of some birds, including some really good views of roadside hawks and some interesting titan sphinx-moths, which are similar to our hummingbird hawk-moths. On this day we visited Isla Iguana, which is famous for its snorkelling, its colony of frigatebirds, and the many iguanas on the island. I don't have a whole lot to say about the island specifically other than it being a fairly typical but touristic tropical island, with many palm trees and indeed many frigatebirds and black iguanas.
Something I did find ironic is that it is officially protected as a nature reserve, but the only passerines I saw besides a great kiskadee was a large flock of (introduced, non-native) saffron finches, a large portion of the coral had been trampled, and there was quite a fair amount of litter on the beaches. Not really that nice of a place, but a few giant ameivas, two species of pufferfish and great photography opportunities of frigatebirds and black iguanas made it a fairly nice day out regardless.

On the way back from the island I saw a darter and a wattled jacana near a small pond, which was cool. Interestingly enough wattled jacanas in Central America are very different to the ones I've seen regularly in zoos, being all black instead of having the chestnut-coloured wings and back. A nice look, which makes it a very different bird! The only other new species on this day was a very brief view of a scaly-breasted hummingbird when back at the hotel. Not many additions, but the two I did get were great and the day as a whole was nice and relaxing. The next day would be more exciting, because we were finally headed to the mountains!

530) Wattled jacana, Jacana jacana
531) Scaly-breasted hummingbird, Phaeochroa cuvierii

 

[AWP]

large flock of (introduced, non-native) saffron finches

Are you sure? All passerines I saw on Isla Iguana were mangrove warblers, the Central American and northern South American subspecies of the American yellow warbler.

 

[Vision]

Are you sure? All passerines I saw on Isla Iguana were mangrove warblers, the Central American and northern South American subspecies of the American yellow warbler.

Interesting! I double checked my pictures and it turns out you were right - I definitely have pics of those warblers (though I do think I remember seeing saffron finches there as well). Thanks, that adds another species to the list! It might interest you that it seems like IOC even splits off the Isla Iguana population into its own endemic subspecies, S. p. iguanae.

532) Yellow warbler, Setophaga petechia

 

[Vision]

DAY 9: Pedasi and travelling to Boquete
​

This was the last day in Pedasi, and although it had been a few fun days at the coast I was very excited to go to another new place. Not before another hour or so of birding in the area though, which added two new species, one of which a flyover heron that I had been wanting to see. They're very bittern-like in flight, more than I expected!

533) Bare-throated tiger heron, Tigrisoma mexicanum
534) Short-billed pigeon, Patagioenas nigrirostris

As the title of this post suggests, we were headed to Boquete, a village next to Volcan Baru National Park, close to the border with Costa Rica. Panama doesn't have a whole lot of endemic birds by itself, but if you look at Southern Central America as a whole (so CR and PA) that adds a very significant amount - many species are endemic to the mountains that span between Eastern CR and Western PA. Besides the many endemics, there are also many other highlight birds in these mountains, that I hadn't had a chance to see until now.
On the drive there I saw a few more birds, as well, among which a second oropendola species. The shape of oropendola nests really differs quite a lot between the different species, which makes perfect sense but surprised me nonetheless. Trees full of oropendola nests swooping around in the wind are definitely one of the coolest things I've ever seen.

535) Crested oropendola, Psarocolius decumanus
536) Piratic flycatcher, Legatus leucophaius

Our hotel in Boquete was a really nice place, every room was its own little building and between it all was a wonderful semi-natural, semi-planned garden with beautiful flowers and, most interestingly of all, platforms full of fruit for the birds throughout the entire area. A quick walk around the garden before it got dark was already almost as overwhelming as the very first morning in Panama! I never knew what a brushfinch was before this day, and suddenly there were two drastically different species foraging and calling in the trees right by me. You also definitely don't see a motmot from inside your room everyday...

537) Rufous-collared sparrow, Zonotrichia capensis
538) Blue ground dove, Claravis pretiosa
539) Red-legged honeycreeper, Cyanerpes cyaneus
540) White-naped brushfinch, Atlapetes albinucha
541) Chestnut-capped brushfinch, Arremon brunneinucha
542) Lesson's motmot, Momotus lessonii
543) Mountain thrush, Turdus plebejus
544) Snowy-bellied hummingbird, Amazilia edward

 

[birdsandbats]

You also definitely don't see a motmot from inside your room everyday...​

I remember talking with some birders in my area who had been to Costa Rica as a group. They said the one morning several of them went out early and others chose to sleep in. After the group that had chose to stay in their cabin woke up, they found a motmot on their dining room table that had flown in through the open window. The rest of them that were out birding that morning didn't see a motmot for the entire trip...

 

[Vision]

@birdsandbats That's interesting! The ones I saw in Panama (Lesson's were my last, so I've mentioned all of my motmot sightings) were all very shy, not really anywhere near any buildings for the most part with the exception of the Lesson's, but even that one got startled very quickly when I tried to photograph it. They didn't strike me as birds that'd fly into an open window! Definitely a cool anecdote, though, and it's things like those that make you appreciate birding even more - you never know what'll happen!