EAST CHATHAM, N.Y. — Sunlight shimmers through the leaves as Danny and I settle in for breakfast on the porch of our inn in Boquete, Panama, surrounded by other guests — in jackets. Really? It's a blissful 60 degrees. The feeders are overflowing with orange rinds, pieces of pineapple and melon, bird-busy as one species more colorful than the next flies in, flies out. Not only can one observe dazzling plumages up close — scarlet, pale blue, electric blue, brilliant yellow, turquoise — but also one can watch the hunger hierarchy (of the world of birds, that is) in action.
Clay-colored thrushes, very similar to our robin, are by far the most forceful. One lands and all the others scatter to nearby perches. The many tanagers — silver-throated, palm, blue-gray, Cherrie's, flame-colored — share and share alike. The tropical mockingbird works his way around the feeder as do the white-naped brush-finches. The scarlet tanager and Baltimore oriole have finagled their way into peacefully joining their cousins at the feeder.
Soon it's time to head south to the Pacific Ocean where we have use of a friend's condo on the water. Down the hills we travel away from the lush rainforests through a very scrubby area, flat and dotted with the occasional palm tree and low bushes, great for hunting hawks and scavenging vultures. We cross the PanAmerican highway into David, a small city near the Costa Rican border, that is a commerce and transportation center, more a city for business than tourism.
Following the blue dot on Google maps gets us through the city with only a couple of wrong turns. Continuing south, we pass through tiny villages surrounded by tilled acreage, some with sugarcane, others with kidney beans. Small rice paddies exist next to watermelon fields. People working the fields are completely covered as the temperature has soared into the 90s. Every small, colorfully painted house has a vegetable plot and banana trees.
Treasure trove of birds
We pass few cars and finally see the ocean and a few largish buildings, one of which must be our condo in La Barqueta. Nothing is marked save a couple of gated entrances with Privado signs. Heidi comes to show us the way and give us the keys. The condo is huge with a balcony overlooking a roaring surf. The beach is deserted, save for brown pelicans drifting by. We settle in and realize we have to head back to the supermarket, a brand new, large market well-stocked with both fresh local goods and those found in any market in the US.
On the way back there is little traffic, so we stop to scan a nearby farm pond. A treasure trove of birds: black-bellied whistling ducks, many egrets, a wing-drying anhinga sitting on a post, one crested caracara, one roseate spoonbill, one glossy ibis, and a stunning bare-throated tiger heron. This heron is not as tall or as graceful as the great blue. It is 30-inches tall, thick-necked and bodied with yellowish beak and throat, more the shape of a bittern but much more colorful. Northern jacana and southern lapwing strut in and among the cattle.
Researching the area we find that not only are there no bird guides, but the mangrove swamps mentioned in the "where to find birds in Panama" are almost two hours away. We decide to limit ourselves to where we are.
The sun decides to limit us to birding in the early a.m. Most days by 11 o'clock, the thermometer reads 90-plus and those weather websites are quick to point out that it feels like 103 or 107 . Too hot to even think, to say nothing of wandering around in long sleeves and long pants! So we fall into a pattern: up before sunrise, a long walk down to the end of the road, a walk to the pond or along the beach. By 11, we're cooked. The afternoon siesta is welcomed.
The first night I awaken in the middle of the night and get up to read in one of the back bedrooms. I hear a bird calling and calling, rather sweetly and very repetitiously. I run though night-calling birds dismissing mockingbird, owl, nighthawk. Hmmm.
The next day Danny finds a website with vocalizations of the birds of Panama. I immediately recognize the common pauraque, a bird related to our nighthawk and whippoorwill, but with a much more melodic, though perhaps monotonous, song! A bird we have looked for elsewhere, but never found. So we are up before sunrise and walking along the field and yes, pauraques slice through the rosy dawn before disappearing to shady limbs or sand hollows to sleep away the day. Check!
Although we have restricted our birding to a smallish area we have amazing views. From the balcony, I see what has to be a fork-tailed flycatcher. Danny doesn't get a look. The next day as we walk along the road with dryish arroyos, flowering shrubs and swaying palm trees, a pair of these dark-headed, white-bellied flycatchers, with long, long flowing tails acting like loose rudders fly back and forth across the road in front of us. Both carry nesting material. Another lifer!
Owl's farewell
Swallows line the wires preparing to migrate to their breeding grounds; the southern rough- wings to South America and the cliff swallows to North America. Black and white wood storks crisscross the sky in the morning as if they know exactly where they are going. They do, but we do not. Purple gallinule and the northern jacana both have fledglings nearly their own size but with quite different juvenile plumages.
And on the last day, as we are heading out for the morning walk, one of the workers at the condo signals for us to come over to him. (Many of the Panamanians in the western portion of the country have little English.) He points and we search the tall slender tree in front of us and find nestled in close hanging leaves the resident tropical screech owl, staring at us and then closing his golden eyes as if saying "OK, you've seen me now go home." And we do.
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