March 6-14, 2026 with John Coons & Alex Sanchez & Danilo Rodriguez
We enjoyed a week of great birding in central Panama, covering two quite different habitats in our excursions from the Canopy Tower and Canopy Lodge. We all gathered up and got acquainted at dinner on Friday, but dinner was interrupted when a Derby’s Wooly Possum and then a Kinkajou came into a tree just outside one of the dining room windows. We met Alex Sanchez who would be with us for our time at the Tower. We saw a few birds late that afternoon but really started hitting it hard the next morning, where we met on top of the Tower for sunrise. The highlights of our first real birding included Red-capped and Velvety manakins gleaning fruit from a tree below us, while a few species of tanagers, honeycreepers, and euphonias joined them. Alex spotted our first male Blue Cotinga in a distant tree and we ended up getting great views of a singing Green Shrike-Vireo and a few perched Keel-billed Toucans. A perched Short-tailed Hawk was scoped, as was a Brown-throated Three-toed Sloth, before we headed down one floor to breakfast. Afterwards we walked the road on Semaphore Hill. Along the way it seemed there was always something to look at; Broad-billed and Rufous motmots, Black-chested and White-whiskered puffbirds, Cinnamon Woodpecker, Golden-crowned Spadebill, and a Purple-crowned Fairy were right next to the road. With more hummingbirds, flycatchers, antwrens, and woodcreepers under our belt, we caught a ride back up for lunch and a siesta for the hot part of the day. In the afternoon we drove down the hill and along the Panama Canal to the town of Gamboa where we spent a little time watching the feeders and the surrounding gardens. We got great views of a number of fruit-eating birds, including Red-legged Honeycreepers, Crimson-backed Tanager, Thick-billed Euphonias, and Clay-colored Thrush, among others. We drove to nearby Ammo Pond and had just started viewing a number of open country and water birds when Alex got a call from Jorge who was looking at an army antswarm only five minutes away. We hustled over and found the ants and the many species of birds that were there to snatch up the insects and spiders which the ants were flushing from the leaf litter. A few of these species are rarely encountered when they are not following the army ants. Here, we had wonderfully close views of uncommon Ocellated Antbirds showing their blue facial skin, several Bicolored Antbirds, close Northern Barred and Plain-brown woodcreepers, Gray-headed Tanager, Buff-throated Saltator, Fasciated Antshrike, Whooping Motmot, and Slaty-tailed Trogon, among others. It is such a treat to encounter this tropical phenomenon. We headed back to the Tower for a wonderful dinner and recap of the day’s events.
We left the Tower the next two mornings, one quite early, to bird the famous Pipeline Road, a stretch of nicely preserved lowland forest. Passing through Gamboa, Alex spotted a Bat Falcon high atop a crane plucking the feathers from a captured swallow. On our first visit, we spent a chunk of the day birding, with a picnic lunch in the field. On our second morning, we birded the road but also the Discovery Center and its 100 ft tall tower that looks over the forest. On both days, we had scope views of loudly singing Pheasant Cuckoos, a quite large species that usually becomes more conspicuous as the wet season approaches and it starts to vocalize. We watched a Scarlet-rumped Cacique building a nest on a palm frond overhanging the road. A lot of tropical forest birding is about finding mixed-species flocks. One can walk for a spell not seeing any birds, then suddenly run into many. We did this a few times, encountering Checker-throated Stipplethroats, White-flanked Antwren, Spotted and Bicolored antbirds, Black-striped Woodcreeper, Ruddy-tailed Flycatcher and Southern Bentbill, and five species of trogons, Graceful Black-throated, White-tailed, Slaty-tailed, Gartered Violaceous, and Black-tailed. One of the highlights here was getting a pretty good view of the ping-pong-ball-sized Moustached Antwren, the smallest of the antbirds. Along the walks, we finally saw a group of Mantled Howler Monkeys as well as the more agile Geoffrey’s Tamarin moving through the trees. We spent about two hours atop the Discovery Center Tower scanning the near and far treetops and the flowering trees close to the tower. The rather colorful and conspicuous Scaled Pigeons put on a good show, and we had a nice comparison of Yellow-throated and Keel-billed Toucans. We saw a perched Crane Hawk and Alex somehow spotted another male Blue Cotinga. Golden-hooded, Plain-colored, and White-shouldered Tanagers made close appearances and a pair of large Crimson-crested Woodpeckers hammered away on a tree trunk as both Blue-headed Parrot and Red-lored Amazons passed by on occasion. On our longer day in the forest, we stopped again at Ammo Pond and caught up with a Rufescent Tiger-Heron on a nest, several Wattled Jacanas, Southern Lapwings, Green and Cocoi herons, Panama Flycatcher, Buff-breasted Wren, perched Black-throated Mango, and Purple Gallinules were crowd pleasers. On our other afternoon, we visited Summit Pond, which is located on the continental divide of the Panama Canal. We spent some time birding the dry scrub where a Barred Antshrike put on a nice show and we finally got some views of the much less common Jet Antbird. A surprise was finding a Gray-cowled Wood-Rail perched high in a tree! A nest stealing Piratic Flycatcher was calling incessantly, a group of Yellow-bellied Seedeaters suddenly flew in, we saw our first Black-chested Jays, Common Squirrel-Cuckoo, and at the pond we found two pairs of the unusual Boat-billed Herons. We had a slightly earlier outdoor BBQ dinner and afterwards did a night drive down Semaphore Hill in hopes of spotlighting some mammals as well as birds. We spotted our only Hoffman’s Two-toed Sloth and another Kinkajou, and a bit further down we found a Great Potoo on a perch that proved to be a nest that we would see again in the daytime. We tried in vain to call out a Choco Screech-Owl that would not budge from its forest perch.
On the day we transferred to the Canopy Lodge, we had an early breakfast and packed up our bags. We drove about 20 minutes to the Camino de Cruces section of the National Park. The park commemorates the foot / horse trail that people traveling by ship during the California Gold Rush had to take across Panama to go from the east coast to the west coast of the U.S. before the canal was constructed. This area preserves a nice area of drier forest that has a different assemblage of birds than the Pipeline Road area. Just as we started birding, Alex spotted a perched Common Black Hawk near the parking lot. We spent a couple of hours here on the trails, which were highlighted by a perched Rosy Thrush-Tanager that we managed to scope through the vegetation. We also had a mixed-species flock that crossed the trail and gave us good views of Greenish Elaenia, Ruddy-tailed Flycatcher, and the very special Yellow-green Tyrannulet, a bird found only in central Panama. We also came upon a group of singing Slate-colored Seedeaters, Slate-colored Grosbeaks, Rufous-and-white Wren, Red-throated Ant-Tanagers, and we flushed a couple of Common Pauraques, with one landing on the ground that we could get in the telescope.
After saying good-bye to Alex, we hopped in the van with Lorenzo and took the Centennial Bridge over the Panama Canal and drove on to the small city of El Valle de Anton, the home of the Canopy Lodge. Here we met Danilo, our guide for our time here, and the senior member of the Lodge guide staff. We went straight to lunch but were easily distracted by the birds coming to the fruit and rice feeder. Gray-headed Chachalacas, Chestnut-headed Oropendolas, Thick-billed Euphonias, and Crimson-backed and Blue-gray Tanagers were really going after their own lunch. After a break to get settled in our quite nice rooms, we walked from the Lodge grounds up the road toward the Canopy Adventure. We stopped along the road to see Tawny-capped Euphonia, Giant Cowbirds, Bay-headed Tanager, Purple-crowned Fairy, Spot-crowned Barbet, and a tiny, but exquisitely plumaged Rufous-crested Coquette. In hopes of seeing another antswarm with the possibility of a Rufous-vented Ground-Cuckoo, we ventured in on the trails of the Canopy Adventure. We saw White-breasted Wood-Wren, and an all too brief Barred Forest-Falcon, Dusky-faced Tanagers and army ants going to their nest for the night but no sign of a ground-cuckoo. We enjoyed a nice dinner under cooler temperatures at this comfortable elevation.
It is hard to get away from the Lodge after breakfast on the first morning, as the birds at the feeder keep drawing you back. Some of us did see our first Bay Wrens and Buff-rumped Warbler as we crossed the foot bridge. We drove up the road to La Mesa and walked the Candelario Trail that starts at a series of vegetable gardens before entering the forest. One of my favorite Central American birds, the Black-crowned Antpitta, has been seen here off and on for a few years, and we learned the Canopy folks had recently brought in an antpitta whisperer from Colombia who has trained other antpitta species to come in to worms. With this in mind, we quietly walked along the trail with Danilo whistling the antpitta’s song. While waiting, we spotted a White-tipped Sicklebill that flew in and perched just above the ground and stayed for a few minutes while we got great views and a few got close photos. A stunning Emerald Tanager appeared with some Bay-headed and Silver-throated tanagers, a male and female Golden-winged Warbler and a very nice orange-bellied race of Collared Trogon, our sixth trogon species. As it was looking bleak, we finally heard the Black-crowned Antpitta call from way down the slope but in a couple of minutes it was quite close to us and made several quick dashes out of the vegetation to grab worms before feeling confident and staying for a spell. Yip! Yip! During this time a mixed species flock moved through and we got views of Chestnut-backed Antbird, Russet Antshrike, Slaty-Antwren, Spotted Woodcreeper, Sepia-capped Flycatcher, Tawny-faced Gnatwren, and Red-crowned Ant-Tanager. On the way back to the Lodge for lunch, we stopped at a newly erected feeding station where Danilo also showed us a couple of Tropical Screech-Owls hiding in the vegetation. A few new hummingbirds were here, including Bronze-tailed Plumeleteer, Crowned Woodnymph, and Stripe-throated Hermit. A rarely seen Tiny Hawk flew in and landed nearby. After lunch we enjoyed another siesta before heading out to Las Mozas, where we walked trails in a preserve and found a family of superb Spectacled Owls. Afterwards, we returned to the new feeding station and saw an incredible Uniform Crake, a very difficult to see forest rail that was coming to a compost pile of fruit to pick at the insects.
The following morning we saw a beautiful Orange-billed Sparrow and a group of Dusky-faced Tanagers at breakfast before we loaded in to three SUVs to head into the hills for some cloud forest birding. Our first stop along the road gave us views of the quite local Dull-mantled Antbird, as well as a group of Northern Emerald Toucanets and Common Chlorospingus. This morning, we would drive a bit and get out and bird a section of the road before continuing on. During the morning, we encountered Spot-crowned Antvireo, a wonderful Rufous-browed Tyrannulet, a long-perched Scale-crested Pygmy-Tyrant, an Ochraceous Wren on a moss-covered tree trunk, White-ruffed Manakin, a few Tufted Flycatchers, sharply-marked Black-and-yellow Tanagers, Black-faced Grosbeaks, and a rather uncommon group of White-vented Euphonias, among others. We had lunch at a man-made lake where a gorgeous Swallow-tailed Kite circled and made a few dips at the lake for a drink. We returned in the mid-afternoon to the Lodge for a relaxing time and a few folks spotted a quite rare Black-cowled Oriole coming to the fruit feeder. The first time the guys had seen it here in 20 years!
On our final day of birding, we viewed the feeder for one last time then loaded up the van to head to the Pacific lowlands. We drove up the rather steep slope of the caldera and stopped in the grassland near the rim in a high wind. It took a bit, but we coaxed a couple of Crested Bobwhites out of the vegetation for a pretty good look. We made a couple of stops along the road and had nice views of several new and also familiar species. An Isthmian Wren showed well, as did our first Plumbeous Kite, Crested Oropendola, Yellow-crowned Tyrannulet, and Yellow-green Vireo. We had nice views of the local Brown-throated Parakeets, a Ferruginous Owl made an appearance, and a Yellow-faced Grassquit perched on the door of the van as it had issue with its own reflection in the mirror. After a pit stop, we headed into some drier gallery forest where Danilo showed us a roost with Tropical Screech-Owls. A pair of the endemic Veraguan Mangos came to a flowering tree, and Groove-billed Ani, Rufous-browed Peppershrike, Mouse-colored Tyrannulet, and Northern Scrub-Flycatcher made appearances. We then made our way to the nearby Juan Hombron area, where there were ponds mixed in with the agricultural areas. The highlight here was an Aplomado Falcon at its nest, but a perched Pearl Kite, Savanna Hawk, Lesser Yellow-headed Vulture, Barred Antshrike, Straight-billed Woodcreeper, and Lance-tailed Manakin also drew our attention. Late in the morning, we made our way to Santa Clara where we had lunch at Canopy owner Raul Arias’s beach house as we watched Royal and Sandwich terns on the beach, a large group of Magnificent Frigatebirds soaring about, and a handful of Cocos Boobys on the cement structure a ways off shore. We then said goodbye to Danilo and took off in the van with Luis to our hotel near the airport at the edge of Panama City. We settled into our rooms before our final dinner together and recap of the week.
It was wonderful adventuring with all of you and we certainly enjoyed some great birds during our time together. I hope to see you again on another adventure soon.
Mammals encountered during our trip included:
Derby's Wooly Opossum (Caluromys derbianus)
Lesser Sac-winged Bat (Saccopteryx leptura)
Geoffroy's Tamarin (Saguinus geoffroyi)
Mantled Howler Monkey (Alouatta palliata)
Hoffmann's Two-toed Sloth (Choloepus hoffmanni)
Brown-throated Three-toed Sloth (Bradypus variegatus)
Red-tailed Squirrel (Sciurus granatensis)
Central American Agouti (Dasyprocta punctata)
White-nosed Coati (Nasua narica)
Kinkajou (Potos flavus)
You can see my complete trip report on eBird at this link: https://ebird.org/tripreport/489799
You can download a combined PDF of this page and the eBird report at this link: https://fieldguides.com/triplists/ptl26bTRIPLIST.pdf
-- John Coons