December 29, 2024-January 5, 2025 with John Coons & Danilo Rodriguez Jr.
We enjoyed a wonderful week of birding in central Panama, escaping some very cold weather at home. We gathered on our first day on the banks of the entrance to the Panama Canal. The next morning, we met Danilo Jr, our Canopy Lodge guide and driver, and started our birding with a visit to Panama City’s Metropolitan Park only about 10 minutes from our motel. One of our first birds was a perched Bat Falcon sitting atop the high crane on the hilltop. We birded here for a couple of hours, finding a few local specialties along with some widespread Panamanian species. The highlight here was definitely a singing male Rosy Thrush-Tanager that sat still long enough for all of us to get a few scope views. Mid-morning we headed across the Panama Canal on the Bridge of the Americas and continued west along the Pan-American Highway before turning north and winding our way through the foothills to the quaint town of El Valle de Anton, the home of the Canopy Lodge. We enjoyed lunch and the fruit and rice feeders, where three Spot-crowned Barbets were feeding with Clay-colored Thrush, Crimson-backed Tanagers, a Green Hermit, and a Rufous Motmot, before getting situated in our rooms. We then walked up the road outside the lodge in a light mist, where we scoped our first Keel-billed Toucans, and enjoyed a Black-headed Tody-Flycatcher. A Violet-bellied Hummingbird put on a nice show. At the Canopy Adventure site one of the guys had a couple of Tawny-crested Tanagers coming to a mango he was holding, while a close Dusky-faced Tanager was summoning the courage to approach as well. We enjoyed a nice dinner in the open area dining area.
Our first morning at the Canopy Lodge found a number of new species, including a Gray-cowled Wood-Rail, coming to the feeder during our breakfast time where there was, again, a mist falling but not enough to deter our birding. It was hard to pull away for our morning outing as a Buff-rumped Warbler was singing up a storm as it hopped among the boulders in the stream and a Panama Flycatcher was gleaning insects off the windshield wipers of one of the cars in the parking area. We headed up to La Mesa with a stop at the Chorro de Macho waterfall and a Black-throated Trogon, and nearby we scoped a pair of Mottled Owls roosting overhead. Further up the road we strolled up the trail at Las Minas for some flock birding where a Bronze-tailed Plumeleteer showed well. We saw a handful of wintering warblers with Bay-breasted being the most common, and a Canada Warbler looking out of place. After lunch we headed to Las Mozas for some drier forest birding. Danilo Jr found a roosting Spectacled Owl. We enjoyed a special roast turkey dinner for New Year’s Eve but I don’t think any of us made it to midnight.
We started 2025 with our barbet, toucan, and tanager friends visiting the fruit feeders again and today was also the 40th Anniversary of the founding of Field Guides. We headed up the road again in a light rain that soon subsided since it was the dry season. Not far along we stopped for a few birds including a close Spotted Woodcreeper and a pair of Tropical Screech-Owls that were tucked into the limbs of a tree. A fruiting fig tree gave us good views of several Silver-throated and Bay-headed Tanagers. We waited out a brief rain before going on a trail where we encountered an army ant swarm with several special birds in attendance. A pair of sharply marked Spotted Antbirds and Chestnut-backed Antbirds were here, but the stars of the show were two Black-crowned Antpittas, normally a difficult to see forest bird, that hopped about near our feet as they snatched arthropods the ants were stirring up. A great sighting! We headed back to the Lodge as the rain picked up again. In the afternoon we did some roadside birding at Mata Ahogado where we encountered a close Broad-billed Motmot, quite local Black-headed Saltators, White-winged Becard, Long-tailed Tyrants, and a couple more Bat Falcons. That evening a group of young carolers celebrated New Year’s Day with us.
We were out a bit earlier on January 2nd in three SUVs to visit the cloud forest for a number of new species. At our first stop, a tanager flock with more Silver-throateds and our first looks at beautiful Emerald Tanagers showed well, as did an uncommon Rufous Mourner and White-ruffed Manakin. A highlight here was a rather cooperative view of the usually secretive and spectacular Crimson-bellied Woodpecker feeding amongst the huge trees in the cloud forest. Further along we scoped a tiny Rufous-crested Coquette on its perch then had a few glimpses of a male Snowcap before it settled for a several minute scope view. A fabulous bird. After our lunch in the field, we hit a few other spots and saw a Brown Violetear on its nest and finally got nice looks at an uncommon Dull-mantled Antbird along a creek as we headed back to the Lodge. We were out again in the SUVs the next morning to bird the Caribbean side. We spent a chunk of the day here with some of the highlights being two perched White Hawks, a singing Barred Puffbird, a few White-necked Jacobins, Cinnamon Becard, and Bran-colored Flycatcher. But our highlight was finding a wonderful Tody Motmot that posed for us for a few minutes. For our final dinner at the Lodge we celebrated Dawn’s birthday.
On our final day of birding we headed off with Danilo Jr to the lowlands of the Pacific side of Panama. An early stop found a quite close Wedge-tailed Grass-Finch, Lesser Elaenia, and Hepatic Tanager. Further along we spotted a calling Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl and had nice views of a singing Rufous-browed Peppershrike and a pair of Olive-throated Parakeets. Near the coast we came upon a rice field being worked by a couple of tractors and found a large congregation of birds that included all the egrets, Little Blue Herons, Glossy Ibis, Wood Storks, Lesser and Greater yellowlegs, White Ibis, and a Gray Kingbird. We then enjoyed a relaxing lunch at Raul Arias’s beach house at Santa Clara where there were a handful of coastal birds, Brown Pelicans, Laughing Gulls, Whimbrels and cormorants. Our final new bird was a nearby Common Potoo that was perfectly camouflaged on an upright perch. From here we bid adieu to Danilo and headed back to Panama City with Eric, arriving at the airport hotel about 5:00 pm. We enjoyed our final dinner here. It was a real joy birding with all of you on this holiday trip. I hope we can do it again one of these days.
Mammals encountered on our trip included:
Geoffroy's Tamarin (Saguinus geoffroyi)
Brown-throated Three-toed Sloth (Bradypus variegatus)
Forest Rabbit (Sylvilagus brasiliensis)
Variegated Squirrel (Sciurus variegatoides)
Red-tailed Squirrel (Sciurus granatensis)
Central American Agouti (Dasyprocta punctata)
White-nosed Coati(Nasua narica)
White-tailed Deer (Odocoileus virginianus)
A few of the specialty herps we found were:
Brilliant Forest Frog (Lithobates sp.)
Fleischmann's Glass Frog (Hyalinobatrachium fleischmanni)
Eyelash Palm Pit Viper (Bothriechis sp.)
Common Basilisk (Basilicus basilicus)
You can see my complete trip report on eBird at this link: https://ebird.org/tripreport/320519
You can download a combined PDF of this page and the eBird report at this link: https://fieldguides.com/triplists/pny24TRIPLIST.pdf
John Coons