Panama_2018

Greetings from Davis, CA…..schools are open and I just finished my first week in 6th grade with a good group of Davisites…..

A new slideshow is uploading now into Vimeo, so it is time to write up what it is about. The first set of photos were all taken in the first days while myself, mom, and Sara were staying at the amazing Canopy Tower, one of four of the Canopy family destinations in Panama. This was my second time to the Tower and it was great to be back there once again. The trip began with the usual car rides and plane flights from Davis->Sac Airport->LAX->Panama City->met at airport and transferred so easily to the Tower thanks to Canopy….I met up with mum at LAX on the 23rd of August and after a long wait at LAX (10hrs) we flew to Panama. Sara was already on the ground when we arrived and we headed up to the tower – arriving there less than 1.5hrs after arrival at airport! That in itself is a big perk of going to the Tower. The first afternoon we went down to the Panama Canal and explored the Miraflores locks at the visitor center where you can learn about the history of the canal via museum style displays, a movie, and by going to the locks themselves (from a observation area). We watched a few large tankers/carriers going through both sets of locks while there – which is pretty cool. The new locks just opened in the past 2 years and they let some monster ships go through the canal – really really big super tankers with 1000s of cargo boxes…..After a good time at the canal, we went back to the tower for some rooftop birding, more great food, and some planning for days 2-3 at the tower. At the tower and around the grounds of the tower one can be immersed in rainforest and wildlife without getting out of bed essentially as the tower is in the middle of Soberania National Park. The howler monkey in these slides was about 20 feet from mum’s window. The tamarins, sloth, iguana, many bird species, hawks, vultures, kites, and butterflies as well can be all seen from the observation deck or along the road leading up to the tower. The following days we visited local bird sites such as the ammo ponds, pipeline road, the plantation trail, summit ponds, and of course we spent a lot of time on the observation deck. The highlights are in the photos (with a few videos). Motmots, Toucans, Trogons, Antbirds, Falcons, monkeys, frogs, butterflies and more (~214 bird species (which includes a few neotropical migrants) seen in 7 days) were all daily staples for the eyes and ears. Sleeping at the tower immerses the ears with the sounds of various frogs singing and peeping away the night along with the occasional howler monkey roaring in the distance. As a quick tip for anyone wanting to go to the tower, I can say that once again during the second visit we were basically the only people in the tower during our time there as I guess the ‘green season’ is a less busy time. The same ended up true for our following 5 days at the Canopy lodge which will be Part 2 of this series. It would be easy to write more, but for the most part I would summarize the time as this: wake up at 6am, go to deck, watch sunrise and fog streaming through the rainforest, have coffee on roof, eat breakfast, get in van/truck and go birding for 5 hrs, return for lunch, rest, bird from observation deck, take photos, leave for afternoon birding for another 2-3 hrs, rest, do bird list, visit observation deck, take photos, eat dinner, sleep, repeat. This is a very active vacation with birding and wildlife viewing on foot 7-8 hrs a day….which is quite fun. I can only upload one large file (free) a week to Vimeo, so stay tuned for those photos….the first 3 days were a great start to what was a great quick visit to Panama!!! Please click on link below for video…..