Mokka mit Schlag

On the way back from Cerro Azul, we stopped in Panama City at Costa del Este to do a bit of shorebirding. Mostly, the birds there are the species we’re accustomed to from either the east or West Coast of the United States that have headed south for the winter. However we did spot one life bird here, #680 Cocoi Heron. This is similar to our Great Blue Heron (coincidentally also present.) This was one of my target birds for the tip (i.e. one I could remember from the field guide).

I also spotted three rare for Panama Black Skimmers. What’s rare-bird-alert worthy mostly depends on where you are when you see it. :-)

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Wednesday we woke up in time for a 4:30 AM breakfast, and a 5:00 AM departure to Cerro Azul, a weekend and retirement community west of Panama City and relatively high up in the mountains so it picks up different species than are found in the lowlands. We started at the home of a local Audubon member who puts out several Hummingbird feeders. In her yard alone we managed over 20 species including nine life birds of which five were hummingbirds including this Rufous-tailed Hummingbird:

651. Long-billed Starthroat
652. Rufous-tailed Hummingbird
653. Snowy-bellied Hummingbird
654. Bronze-tailed Plumeleteer
655. Yellow-eared Toucanet
656. Violet-headed Hummingbird
657. Long-billed Gnatwren
658. Black-faced Antthrush
659. Scaly-breasted Wren

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Around 11:00 AM the rain started to break, so we loaded ourselves back into the truck and drove off to the actual start of Pipeline Road. We continued to tick off new birds for the next five hours or so, mostly one at a time including:

634. Great Potoo (harder to find than an owl)
635. Dusky Antbird
636. Double-toothed Kite
637. Squirrel Cuckoo
638. White-necked Puffbird
639. Rufous Mourner
640. Spotted Antbird
641. Streak-chested Antpitta
642. Black-breasted Puffbird
643. Chestnut-mandibled Toucan (a subspecies of Black-mandibled Toucan according to eBird)
644. Blue-black Grosbeak
645. Great Tinamou (heard the day before, but this was the first time I ever saw one. They hide in the deep forest, and don’t come out to the road. But we found one while searching out some Night Monkeys.)
646. Yellow-rumped Cacique
647. Black-throated Trogon
648. Royal Flycatcher
649. Bay Wren

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By now the rain was starting to come down fairly hard, so we made an adjustment in plans. Instead of going down Pipeline road we turned down the left fork toward the Rainforest Discover Center which has a lot of hummingbird feeders and, most importantly, a covered area to watch them from. We hung out there for about three hours from 8:00 AM to 11:00 AM until the rain started to let up. Fortunately the birds kept coming, and I added 13 life birds from the relatively dry location. Plus, since we were staying put, it was a good place to practice tripod photography, including hummingbirds such as this male White-vented Plumeleteer, #621:

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After leaving the Ammo Dump Ponds we drove a just a little further down the road paralleling the canal and turned off to the right (away from the canal) and parked. It was starting to rain here so were birding from under umbrellas, but the birds were still singing. The first one we actually saw was #618, White-bellied Antbird, quickly followed by a Fasciated Antshrike. Then came #619, a Song Wren. I missed a Ruddy-tailed Flycatcher.

However the real surprise came after it started raining a bit harder, and we drove further down the road where one of the leaders spotted #620 a Slaty-backed Forest-Falcon perched in a tree just above eye level about 8 meters off the road. These birds are usually deep in the forest, and are far more often heard than seen.

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Today we woke up relatively late, had a nice breakfast at the Tower, and drover over to Gamboa and the Pipeline Road. This was built in World War II as an alternative way of transporting fuel across the isthmus of Panama in the even the canal was sabotaged. It was never completed, and just dead ends after 20 km or so. However it offers access deep into the rainforest on a muddy road that’s pretty much ignored other than by birders and researchers, amongst whom it’s world famous.

First stop on the way at about 6:30 AM was the Ammo Dump Ponds where we finished yesterday. Among other birds, we got great looks at several White-throated Crakes, #613, a bird heard far more often than seen. We were viewing from the back of the truck, which helped a lot by giving us about a meter and a half extra height so we could see over the reeds and down into the marsh. Otherwise they would have been completely hidden.

We also found one of my target birds for the trip, a Rufescent Tiger-Heron, #614. (There are so many new birds here that target birds are just anything distinctive enough to remember from the field guide.) The Southern Rough-winged Swallow, #615 was also a nice complement to Northern Rough-winged Swallow, also present. You always wonder about birds like Northern Rough-winged Swallow or Northern Mockingbird. You know there must be a Southern one somewhere. otherwise it would just be Rough-winged Swallow or Mockingbird. Of course, in New York we never see these species and they aren’t even in the field guides. Southern Mockingbird is even further south in the Galapagos, but I can now tick Southern Rough-winged Swallow.

613. White-throated Crake
614. Rufescent Tiger-Heron
615. Southern Rough-winged Swallow
616. Yellow-tailed Oriole

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