Panama Forum

panamajames
Joined 2012
Posts: 5096

9 years ago

Birding in Panama

9 years ago

Birding is more than a mere hobby for many people. We have birding groups in Boquete, so if you are coming for a holiday, look for the Friday group that wanders the area. Easily recognizable with binoculars and bird books. For some, it's a way of life, offering a window into a fascinating world of beauty, excitement and mystery.

Birding is also a great excuse to travel to exotic places in pursuit of these lovely plumed creatures.

Some folks that I chatted with from Ohio, had the good fortune to spend two weeks recently on an eco-tour to one of Central America's most spectacular and bountiful birding destinations, Panama.

The trip, according to them, was amazing. On what was their first visit to Panama, they were immediately impressed by the cosmopolitan feel to Panama City, the ease of travel and the lush rain forest habitat bordering the Panama Canal, located about a half-hour's drive from the airport.

They divided their stay between two birding lodges considered among the best in the world: the Canopy Tower and the Canopy Lodge. They occasionally drove past a small prison on the canal where former dictator Manuel Noriega, now 81, has been held since 2011 for murder and other crimes committed during his six years in power.

Led by two of Central America's top birding guides - Paco Madrigal of Costa Rica and Carlos Bethancourt of Panama - they tallied a total of more than 400 species, including 320 in Panama, and featuring 34 species of hummingbirds, 30 tanagers and 19 North American warblers.

It would be unfair to compare the birds of North America to the nearly 1,000 species that spend time in the birding paradise of Panama, but it was thrilling for those folks to encounter neotropic migrants familiar to Northeast Ohio birders before they departed on the warm Southwest winds of spring for their northern breeding grounds.

From the rooftop observation deck of the Canopy Tower, they enjoyed thousands of migrating raptors traveling northward, passing by in swirling kettles. There were broad-winged, Swainson's and short-tailed hawks, Mississippi and swallow-tailed kites, osprey and turkey vultures.

The four-story former U.S. Air Force radar tower also offered them eye-level views into the forest canopy, where they spotted colorful North American migrants such as Baltimore orioles, scarlet and summer tanagers, olive-sided and great crested flycatchers, red-eyed vireos, and warblers: golden-winged, black-and-white, Tennessee, bay-breasted, Blackburnian, chestnut-sided and Canada.

Their familiar migrating birds were communing with brilliantly plumaged resident species such as keel-billed toucans, blue cotinga, blue-headed and mealy parrots, rufous-capped warblers, bananaquits, euphonias, and an assortment of tanagers: crimson-backed, flame-rumped, blue-gray, golden-hooded, bay-headed, silver-throated, scarlet-thighed and blue dacnis, plus green and red-legged honeycreepers.

Adding to the excitement were troops of howler monkeys, snakes, lizards, the occasional two-toed and three-toed sloths, brightly hued butterflies, and roving swarms of leaf-cutter and army ants.

Then there were the odd and exotic species so foreign to North American birders. For instance, in Northeast Ohio they have one species of hummingbird: the ruby-throated. In Panama, they marveled at an array of shapes, colors and sizes from dozens of species that included white-necked Jacobin, stripe-throated and long-billed hermits, garden emerald, violet-headed and violet-bellied, blue-chested, snowy-bellied, and crowned woodnymph.

They were dazzled by sightings of species such as motmots, trogons, puffbirds, barbets, woodcreepers, caciques, oropendolas, and antbirds: antshrikes, antvireos, antwrens, antthrush and antpittas.

Anyone who remembers Michael Jackson's moon walking steps would recognize the source of this iconic move: manakins, which are tiny and colorful forest birds that perform elaborate mating dances while popping their wings on forest stages known as leks. They discovered five species of manakins in Panama, including priceless views of red-capped, golden-collared and blue-crowned.

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