Trip Report — Panama’s Canopy Tower & Lodge I 2025
January 26-February 2, 2025 with John Coons, Alex Sanchez, and Danilo Rodriguez
With the Canopy Tower behind us we relaxed with a glass of wine after a full day birding in the forest of Pipeline Road (photo by guide John Coons).
We enjoyed a very nice week of birding at two of Panama’s premier birding lodges, the Canopy Tower and Canopy Lodge. It was great to step out of the Panama City airport in to the tropical warmth and get a break from the winter cold at home. Several of us arrived at the Canopy Tower in the afternoon and after settling into our rooms had a chance to sit and watch hummingbirds at the feeders. We ended up seeing eight species with White-necked Jacobins and Violet-bellied Hummingbirds being the most numerous and White-vented Plumeleteer and Black-throated Mango showing up once each. At the Tower we were joined by Alex Sanchez our long-time local guide who is amazing with his spotting ability, and his son Adrian who is learning the ropes of bird guiding. We all gathered on the top floor for dinner that evening where an Olingo appeared in a tall tree out the window.
One of the prettiest of the antbirds, this Spotted Antbird came confidingly close to us at the army ant swarm we watched for 45 minutes at the Discovery Center near Pipeline Road (photo by participant Joe Trapani).
We spent our first morning watching the sun rise from the top of the Canopy Tower as the forest awoke around us.
This male Barred Antshrike, wearing his black and white striped jail get-up, was ironically perched amongst the razor wire of the Ammo Dump compound (photo by participant Jeannie Hartzell).
We were out early the next morning to head to the Discovery Center Tower to view the canopy species at first light.
This Tawny-crested Tanager, captured through the vegetation by participant Joe Trapani, was seen a handful of times around the Canopy Lodge grounds.
The following morning, we packed up and took the Canopy van to the nearby Camino de Cruces for some dry forest birding.
One of the dazzlers we saw from the top the Canopy Tower was this male Shining Honeycreeper which is rocking his color against a green background (photo by Joe Trapani).
Our final day of birding found us driving off after breakfast for the Pacific lowlands.
Sunbittern is a strange bird that is uncommonly encountered at the Canopy Lodge. We were treated to great views of one hopping about on the boulders in the stream near the Lodge (photo by participant Jeannie Hartzell).
Mammals encountered on our trip included:
Pallas's Mastiff Bat (Molossus molossus) Geoffroy's Tamarin (Saguinus geoffroyi) Lemurine Night Monkey (Aotus lemurinus) also called Owl Monkey; it was a treat to see two of them
