Panama - Day 6: March 24 - Anton, Juan Hombron, and Santa Clara

Sandwich and Royal terns at Santa Clara

     Our final full day of birding in Panama will take us from our quarters in the Canopy Lodge down to Anton, around Juan Hombron, and on to the seaside village of Santa Clara.  It promises to be a full day ending up back at Panama City for our final evening in this most beguiling country.

     We'll begin by traveling down Highway 71 south with numerous stops along the way to find specialties we have not yet viewed in our first 5 days of birding.  Our team of the Bakers, Patsches, Fitzpatricks and Anthonys along with our guide John Coons are in for another day of amazing new species which Panama still has in store for us.

Wedge-tailed grass finch

     One of the first birds we come upon is another which we swear John has tethered to a tree the evening before.  Site loyalty plays a big part in finding these birds as well as a thorough understanding of the preferred habitats of the individual species.  Such is the case as we pull over to the side of the road to search for the Wedge-tailed grass-finch.  These are one of those species that are generally heard more than seen, being secretive in deep grasses.  The males will occasionally hop to the crown of a shrub to sing loudly, however, and this was the case with this fine specimen.  All of were able to see the bird and in spite of early morning overcast lighting, I was able to capture an image of documentary quality if nothing else.

      The site of the grass-finch also afforded us with a spectacular view of the surrounding landscape.  We were traveling through the Central Mountain Range of Panama and around each corner, each vista seemed to be more spectacular than the last.

Central Mountain Range of Panama

 

Striped cuckoo

       Scanning the horizon at our next pull-off, we spotted a new cuckoo for our check-list.  The Striped cuckoo was once again distant, but with the help of the scopes and a 500mm lens bounced up to 750mm on a "DX" camera
 body, the bird was easily viewed on its open perch.

     The Striped cuckoo has a wide range extending all the way from Mexico to Argentina and yet, the bird is notorious for being much easier to hear than to spot.  Not so in our case as the bird chose to sit out on an open bare branch affording us very nice looks.  Once again, we were blessed to find yet another of Panama's charismatic icons.  That being said, the bird is one of those "dreaded" brood parasites, but for some reason he seemed so much more affable than our home-grown Brown-headed cowbirds.  Familiarity breeds contempt  as the old adage goes.

          Our next new species was again found along the roadside by our sharp-eyed and all-knowing guide John.  The Rufous-browed Peppershrike can be difficult for new visitors to Central American inasmuch as it has wide geographical variations in plumage.  Cornell's Lab of Ornithology description of the Peppershrike's plumage mentions this variation but goes on to say ,"yet most subspecies are to some extent white below, olive above with rufous lores and supercilium".  Our subspecies had a bit more extensive yellow on the underside, but the facial features certainly fit the bill.

Rufous-browed Peppershrike

 

White-tailed kite

   One of the true "Hot Spots" of Panama's birding venues is Laguna de Juan Hombron.  After birding in the mountains these past five days, we are now at an elevation of 12 feet above sea level.  With so many wonderful birds found in this area, I suggest you go to eBird's hotspot finder for Panama and check out our check-list for March 24 for a complete list with photos of the birds we saw here on this day.  I will highlight just few here.  One of my favourites was the White-tailed kite.  It's markings are distinctive and in the bright sunshine of the day, the bird literally glistened as it hovered over the grasslands in search of small mammals.

     

Savanna hawk

Another raptor of note was the Savanna Hawk.  The Savanna is a wide-spread hawk of open country lowlands throughout Central and South America.  This hawk's long legs and cinnamon plumage are distinctive.  It is one of those rare birds which basically says, "If it moves, I'll eat it". This bird has a very diversified diet and has even been observed walking behind grass fires picking out and eating roasted prey!  Now that's a bird with exquisite taste.

Lesser Yellow-headed vulture

     A bird with less discriminating taste is the vulture.  Back home in the states, we commonly find the Turkey vulture and the Black vulture.  Down here in Panama, there are two more varieties, the King vulture and the Lesser Yellow-headed vulture.  While the King vulture is found throughout Central and South American, it is sparsely distributed and therefore difficult to find.  We did not see any Kings, but we did see plenty of Lesser yellow-headed vultures in the area of Laguna de Juan Hombron.  These vultures closely resemble Turkey vultures in their manner of feeding and locating food by smell, but they rarely soar high up in the air as do the Turkey vultures.  Identify these birds was quite simple as you only need to look for a vulture with a yellow-head (really?)

     Of course, the hummingbirds were still quite the attraction.  With so many varieties, it was hard not to study each new individual to see if it was a repeat or something new for the life or year-list.  Among today's newbies were the following......

Veraguan mango

Sapphire-throated hummingbird

     Sadly, one of the most sought after hummers, the White-tipped Sicklebill, was not photographed by yours truly.  Although seen clearly on the final day for a total of about 5 seconds by all of our group (after a minimum of 5 hours of watchful waiting!), the vision was so fleeting that none of our number recorded the desired image.  You can see by looking at this 1911 lithograph by William Dwight Witney that the actually seeing this bird was certainly worth the wait. Guess we'll just have to revisit Central America to get another chance at capturing a good image of this gorgeous specimen.

White-tipped sicklebill

Fork-tailed flycatcher

     Among the last of our Panama beauties was the Fork-tailed flycatcher.  This flycatcher is migratory in Panama and is a resident only as far south as southern Mexico.  It loves to sit on high conspicuous  perches from which it makes its sweeping efforts to catch passing insects on the wing.  We watched this individual repeatedly lurch from its position, seize an unsuspecting victim from the nearby airspace and return to its perch once again.  It made for wonderful entertainment (providing you were not on the menu).

     Our luncheon stop was a stunning setting to say the least.  The owner of the lodge where we had spent our week owns a beach house on the Pacific in Santa Clara and it was here that we had a "working lunch", birding and dining at the same time.  The most predominant bird on the beach was the Sandwich tern as seen in the opening photograph of this blog.  Magnificent frigatebirds continually soared overhead and out on the far islands, Brown pelicans and boobies could be observed.  Truly a wonderful place to wrap up our journey before heading back to Panama City where we enjoyed yet another wonderful meal in the company of some wonderful friends and fellow-birders.  All good things must come to an end, but I hope these last half dozen or so blog entries have allowed those in the group to relive some of our most wonderful memories. And for those not fortunate to have been with us, I hope you had the chance to bird vicariously with our number on our fantastic birding trip to Panama.

Our final night in Panama

Panama -Day 5: Rio Indio

Down the Jordanal Road

      What an exciting day as we travelled along the "unimproved" roads of the more natural parts of Panama (if that's possible).  Our destination is Rio Indio and the Jordanal Road.  We'll be traveling in 4 wheel drive vehicles today as some of the roads we'll traverse are steep, rutted, and quite slippery the wet.  Today the roads we traveled on promised to be all three.

Cinnamon becard

   We set out early with a forecast for potentially stormy weather later in the day.  We'll cross that bridge (or in the case today - "ford that stream") when we come to it.  Not long after heading out onto into the field, we spot our first bird of note, the Cinnamon becard.  Our personal driver, Moyo, spotted this bird as we were driving in our caravan of three FWDs.  Moyo wants to get you on the birds, so if it means stopping right there and letting the others go ahead, so be it.  We'll catch up in time. He pulled over and pointed out the new life bird to us and allowed me to get as many chances at a decent shot as I cared to take.  No rush....we'll catch up with the group later!  These passerines are fly-catchers and will feed on larger insects and spiders.  Really can't tell whether this individual is a male or female since the species shows little sexual dimorphism.

     Birding along these country roads is a real look into the culture of this part of Latin America.  The people live modestly to say the least and were generally curious and happy to see us enjoying their little corner of this beautiful country.  We often found ourselves on the grounds adjacent to private farms and homes where no-one seemed to mind our incursions.  The photo shown here is of a typical mountain dwelling.  In this case, we were looking to get good sightings for one of the birds of the day

Barred puffbird

the Barred puffbird. Found only in Pamana, Ecuador and Columbia, this species is uncommon throughout its range and we were therefore more than excited to see and capture and image of this bird.  As it so happened, we did find several more individuals throughout the day.  This bird is noted for being a tough one to see since it often prefers to hang out in dense foliage and then occasionally come out for a quick foray to grab a passing insect.  Some of the birds we were introduced to in Panama I found confusing when it came to distinguishing one from the other (Kiskadees, Social flycatcher,  Boat-billed flycatcher and others for example), so it was kind of nice to have a bird like the Barred puffbird which was really quite distinctive!

     Since I mentioned the flycatchers as being a rather confusing group (at least for me), allow me to post several shots showing exactly what I mean.   First of all, one of the more common of the group, the Social flycatcher.  This bird was seen on all but one day during out Panama adventure.

Social flycatcher

     Next, the Boat-billed flycatcher.  We saw this bird on day 5 (this day) only.  Note the heavier bill and a broad superciliary that are barely separated on the back of the head.

Boat-billed flycatcher

     Add one more of the group, the Greater kiskadee which we saw the next day and you can see how easily it is to confuse one from the other.

Great kiskadee

     As we continued our journey north, the roads became a bit more rugged and the rains began to fall.  With the steep inclines of the roads which I mentioned in an earlier post and wet clay mud on the roads surface, it made for some interesting riding and we were not perplexed as to why the guides elected to use 4WD vehicles.  Watch the vehicle in front of us begin to slide in the video clip below.

   

     Occasionally, we would come across a small creek bed which crossed the roadway but is generally dry.  When you get downpours like we had today, however, the stream quickly reforms and makes for some interesting driving.  Our guide Moyo explained that this is the "dry season" and during the rainy times of year, it is often impossible to get past these streams.  If today is representative of the dry season (which it truly wasn't) I can only imagine what the rainy season in this part of Panama must be like!  Eventually, we were ready to have lunch, and our stop was fortunately under the cover of a canopy located at the local Elementary school.  Students attending here come from miles around and many must walk each day.  It reminded me of many old-timers' stories of "when I was young I had to walk 5 miles to school and back !"  Here it is a true story!  The students were all in uniform with bright white shirts.  They all seemed intrigued by the presence of all these Americans with scopes, cameras, and binoculars hanging on the shoulders.  We did have fun interacting with them despite the language difference.

   

  But now, back to the birds.  One of the most fascinating species we encountered was the Rufous-crested coquette.  We were not far from the school when John our leader spotted this little hummingbird.  We found these in precisely the habitat which the field guides tell you they will be...along shrubby clearings, forest edges, and Roadsides where we found this one. 

     

Wedge-billed woodcreeper

Rufous-crested coquette

     So many new species were found on this day, it is really difficult to pick out the most memorable for this blog entry.  I will therefore limit it to two final birds.  One, while not all that remarkable as far as plumage I will include since it was rather difficult to find.  The Wedge-billed woodcreeper is the smallest of all woodcreepers.  The individual seen here more than likely will not look similar to other individuals found throughout Panama as there are 13 subspecies found in Central America, each having a slightly different plumage.  I was very happy to be able to see and capture this little guy with my camera.  Another lifer for most of us!

     My last bird of today's entry is certainly not the last that we saw, nor perhaps the most glamorous.  But, it is among the top picks for the trip to be sure.  The bird is the Plumbeous kite.  What made this bird one of my picks-of-the-trip was its cooperative behaviour in posing at length for all of us with cameras.  We were able to walk around its overhead perch to get the best angle, the best lighting, and hopefully the best pose.  It is a beautiful bird which is known to follow primates around in the hope that their movements will stir up some insects, their food of choice.  Perhaps this is why this kite was so willing to sit around and watch us watch him.  What a way to end up and most memorable day in Panama.

     I should also add into today's sightings one of the true iconic mammals of Central and South America....the sloth.  We did have several sightings during our Panama birding travels.  Today's final shot is of the Brown-throated three toed sloth.  I mentioned how the kite was so obliging in letting us get good shots.  Well, there is probably no other mammal on the face of the earth that is easier to photograph than a sloth.  If you're looking for great video action shots, look elsewhere. But for the opportunity to capture an image of a mammal in it's natural elements, the sloth is hard to beat for ease of shooting.  Tomorrow is our final day in the field for finding new birds and mammals of this most remarkable country.  Sad how the time goes so quickly when you have such an opportunity as this.  We will always be grateful that we were able to share it with such good guides and such good friends.

Brown-throated three-toed sloth