Mokka mit Schlag » Birding

Today we woke up relatively late, had a nice breakfast at the Tower, and drover over to Gamboa and the Pipeline Road. This was built in World War II as an alternative way of transporting fuel across the isthmus of Panama in the even the canal was sabotaged. It was never completed, and just dead ends after 20 km or so. However it offers access deep into the rainforest on a muddy road that’s pretty much ignored other than by birders and researchers, amongst whom it’s world famous.

First stop on the way at about 6:30 AM was the Ammo Dump Ponds where we finished yesterday. Among other birds, we got great looks at several White-throated Crakes, #613, a bird heard far more often than seen. We were viewing from the back of the truck, which helped a lot by giving us about a meter and a half extra height so we could see over the reeds and down into the marsh. Otherwise they would have been completely hidden.

We also found one of my target birds for the trip, a Rufescent Tiger-Heron, #614. (There are so many new birds here that target birds are just anything distinctive enough to remember from the field guide.) The Southern Rough-winged Swallow, #615 was also a nice complement to Northern Rough-winged Swallow, also present. You always wonder about birds like Northern Rough-winged Swallow or Northern Mockingbird. You know there must be a Southern one somewhere. otherwise it would just be Rough-winged Swallow or Mockingbird. Of course, in New York we never see these species and they aren’t even in the field guides. Southern Mockingbird is even further south in the Galapagos, but I can now tick Southern Rough-winged Swallow.

613. White-throated Crake
614. Rufescent Tiger-Heron
615. Southern Rough-winged Swallow
616. Yellow-tailed Oriole

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After leaving the B&B we drove the short distance to the Ammo Dump Ponds. We didn’t quite make it there before we had to hop out of the van for a perched immature Gray Hawk, #596! We walked the last 100 meters in a light drizzle. We added #597 Variable Seedeater, and #598 Barred Antshrike before even reaching the road to the Ammo Dump. And the birds just kept on coming. Several species of swallow were swooping around and perching on wires including #599, Mangrove Swallow. I didn’t even realize I’d hit #600, most likely the Yellow-headed Caracara as best I can tell from my notes, until the next day.

596. Gray Hawk
597. Variable Seedeater
598. Barred Antshrike
599. Mangrove Swallow
600. Yellow-headed Caracara
601. Rusty-margined Flycatcher
602. Wattled Jacana
603. Streaked Flycatcher
604. Boat-billed Flycatcher
605. Panama Flycatcher
606. Golden-fronted Greenlet
607. Greater Ani
608. Red-lored Parrot ( I’ve seen them before in Orange County, but I don’t think they were countable there. Panama, though, is their native range. )
609. Ringed Kingfisher
610. Bat Falcon
611. Yellow-bellied Seedeater
612. Blue-black Grassquit

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After an afternoon break, we drove off to Gamboa to visit the new Canopy Lodge Bed & Breakfast, which has several feeders that attract relatively suburban birds. It was raining so I didn’t bring my camera. Big mistake: there was a covered porch to watch from and lots of easy photo opportunities. Damn it. However we did get lots of great birds at the feeders plus a mammal or two. But first, as we waited to cross the one way bridge into Gamboa, we spotted a Mockingbird; not the usual Northern Mockingbird of suburban parks and gardens but rather a Tropical Mockingbird, #583. This barely makes it into the southern U.S. and shows up in some field guides, but is not a regular bird, and I’ve never seen one before.

Next we stopped at a soccer field where the leader heard some Orange-chinned Parakeets. We didn’t see them well, but we did see two Southern Lapwings in the field, #584.

Finally we arrived at the Bed & Breakfast. Bewfore we even walked to the feeders we spotted a Social Flycatcher in a large tree across the street, #585. Then the staff put some bananas and oranges into the platform feeders, and the birds began swarming in: tanagers, honey creppers, thrushes, and even a Motmot! Since the birds were really obvious and exposed on the feeders, I think I managed all the birds the leaders saw except for a single Rufous-tailed Hummingbird and a Golden-fronted Greenlet.

585. Social Flycatcher
586. Crimson-backed Tanager
587. Blue-gray Tanager
588. Whooping Motmot
589. Red-legged Honeycreeper
590. Clay-colored Thrush
591. Green Honeycreeper
592. Red-crowned Woodpecker
593. Thick-billed Euphonia
594. Shining Honeycreeper
595. Buff-throated Saltator

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I’m putting up some quick placeholders here. Time permitting I’ll fill them in with more details and photographs later, but there are so many birds it’s easy to get way behind. Numbers may not add up until I edit this more carefully.

Around 10:30 we tore ourselves away from the raptor migration on top of the tower, descended to the courtyard, and walked down the entrance road. Almost immediately we found a small flock of antbirds and others including Fasciated Antshrike and Red-capped Manakin. 13 more life birds total:

570. Black Hawk-Eagle
571. Slaty-tailed Trogon
572. White-whiskered Puffbird
573. Plain Xenops
574. Cocoa Woodcreeper
575. Fasciated Antshrike
576. Western Slaty-Antshrike
577. Checker-throated Antwren
578. White-flanked Antwren
579. Dot-winged Antwren
580. Southern Bentbill
581. Blue-crowned Manakin
582. White-breasted Wood-Wren

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After breakfast it was back up to the top of the tower for more birds, now including several species of swallows and swifts that had woken up with the insects and a large flight of raptors that was taking advantage of the warming thermals to climb. Seen lifers were:

564. Hook-billed Kite
565. Short-tailed Hawk
566. Swainson’s Hawk
567. Short-tailed Swift
568. Band-rumped Swift
569. Lesser Swallow-tailed Swift

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The scent of eggs pulled us down from the roof for 45 minutes or so around 7:30 AM, but that didn’t stop the birding. During breakfast, we kept running to the windows as new birds appeared. Over scrambled eggs and sausage stew, we managed 11 species including 9 lifers:

565. Long-billed Hermit
566. Purple-crowned Fairy
567. Brown-capped Tyrannulet
568. Red-capped Manakin
569. Lesser Greenlet
570. Green Shrike-Vireo
571. Barn Swallow
572. White-shouldered Tanager
573. Palm Tanager
574. Blue Dacnis
575. Scarlet-rumped Cacique

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