Panama_(trip 2)_Part II

Greetings all,

I added the “trip 2” to the heading as 3 years ago I also went to Canopy Tower in Panama (you can find a link to that by searching past blog posts) – but this Part II is of the recent 2018 trip just to clarify. I did not go to Canopy Lodge the first trip nor did I get down to the Panama Canal locks – so this trip was just as fun and added some new sights…and birds.

After a few days at Canopy Tower, myself, mum, and Sara got a ride to Canopy Lodge which lies about in the middle of Panama. The trip from the Tower to the lodge was fairly quick – only about 2 1/4 hrs. We crossed the canal to start which was via the picturesque Centennial bridge and then made our way up the PanAmerican highway through a variety of scenes such as new cookie-cutter subdivisions looking out of place in the somewhat rural surroundings, through more typical latin american towns and small cities, and eventually through some rolling hills and a very curvy road that was surrounded by a bit of deforested land (probably for agriculture and rural land-use). Eventually we dropped into the town of El Valle de Anton. The town is a nice simple town with just a few main streets, a core central area with the market, businesses, schools, and the surrounding hills (see photo in show: “Sleeping Indian Mountain”) and mountains offering a lush backdrop/forests to explore in. Canopy Lodge is a beautiful place which has been constructed along the main river of the area. The grounds around the main lodge area have plenty of wildlife and a fair amount of bird species can be seen by exploring the gardens, river area, and a feeder or two which fruit is left out on to attract some local species….We stayed a total of 4 nights at the lodge. The 4+ days we were there were filled with hours and hours of walking trails, roads, and birding along the roadsides. Along with birds, we also were searching of non-bird wildlife like sloths or even baby sloths (photo: baby on adult), butterflies, dragonflies, etc… We did not have to travel far at all to see tons of good birds. For many groups such as trogons, motmots, tanagers, woodcreepers, woodpeckers, kingfishers, antbirds, seedeaters, and hawks…..we easily saw 4-5+ species of each. Having local guides that know the areas we explored made finding various species of owls & baby owls (photos), elusive motmots, and somewhat rare woodcreepers (Scythebill – photo) and hummingbird species (Sicklebill – photo) look easy; the Canopy guides are invaluable resources for bird-finding and general bird-knowledge. Many species were quite spectacular to see close-up…such as Lance-tailed Manakins, Boat-billed flycatchers, Barred Antshrikes, and Blue-crowned Motmot (one of my personal favorites – photo). Mum and Sara became instant bird watcher and finders pretty much from day one (neither had done a lot of birding before this trip!). Also thanks to our guides who are incredibly savvy with spotting scopes, we managed to get good looks of birds high in trees, deep in the forest, and also close-up through their nice Leica scopes. Digiscoping was common and some photos you see in these slides are from iPhones held up to the scope eyepieces….I am looking forward to doing more of that. After covering a lot of the local areas by foot and combi, we then did an all-day trip towards the west coast of Panama – we did a lot of roadside birding and driving until the guides knew of good spots for specific species. Quick stops lead to good looks at some cuckoo species, parakeets, hawks, and small but beautiful Blue seedeaters (photo). We arrived at the coast in a light drizzle and found ourselves on an isolated beach with views of Blue-footed boobies sitting far out on a buoy, we had a good place to swim, had lunch and some coffee, a little rest…and then off we went for a little more searching for bird flocks…which we found and kept ticking off more bird species. Back at El Valle we hit the market for some of the nice hand-sewn “Molas” that local people and indigenous peoples make. Our final day, we finally had a little rain but not too hard or too steady – so we drove to some more of the local roadside forest and found some more birds, butterflies, and sights/sounds. We ended the day with a pair of Tropical Screech Owls found by Moyo the guide – which he gets photo credits for as I passed my camera over to him as he had a very close view of them on his side of the fence. Back at the lodge we checked out the gardens some more, went up to the treehouse, and I took a few fun swings into the natural swimming pool they have made by building a wall down into the grounds and then let the river run through it! So cool. A final dinner and good sleep in our nice rooms eventually lead to hopping back into the Canopy van for our ride back to Panama City and then a bit of a wait for our flights back to Peru and LAX. All in all, I find these lodges so simple to travel to and make for a great one week get-away. As schools opened in Davis in late August, the timing was perfect for the trip (USGS field season ended Aug 16th) so I arrived home from Panama and had work the following week in the elementary schools…..hope you enjoy the slides and go check out one of the Canopy family some time…next year I am aiming for Canopy Camp in the Darien region….stay tuned….