October 16th, 2011
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.
- Social Flycatcher
- Crimson-backed Tanager
- Blue-gray Tanager
- Whooping Motmot
- Red-legged Honeycreeper
- Clay-colored Thrush
- Green Honeycreeper
- Red-crowned Woodpecker
- Thick-billed Euphonia
- Shining Honeycreeper
- Buff-throated Saltator
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October 16th, 2011
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:
- Black Hawk-Eagle
- Slaty-tailed Trogon
- White-whiskered Puffbird
- Plain Xenops
- Cocoa Woodcreeper
- Fasciated Antshrike
- Western Slaty-Antshrike
- Checker-throated Antwren
- White-flanked Antwren
- Dot-winged Antwren
- Southern Bentbill
- Blue-crowned Manakin
- White-breasted Wood-Wren
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October 16th, 2011
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:
- Hook-billed Kite
- Short-tailed Hawk
- Swainson’s Hawk
- Short-tailed Swift
- Band-rumped Swift
- Lesser Swallow-tailed Swift
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October 16th, 2011
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:
- Long-billed Hermit
- Purple-crowned Fairy
- Brown-capped Tyrannulet
- Red-capped Manakin
- Lesser Greenlet
- Green Shrike-Vireo
- Barn Swallow
- White-shouldered Tanager
- Palm Tanager
- Blue Dacnis
- Scarlet-rumped Cacique
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October 16th, 2011
Today I woke up at 5:30 AM, grabbed my binoculars, walked upstairs, and ticked off 11 life birds (or 12 if you count a heard only birds) with my morning coffee. The first was a Golden Hooded Tanager. I didn’t get a picture of this one, so how about this shot of number four, a somewhat less impressive but more cooperative Palm Tanager:
Needless to say this wasn’t in the United States. Rather I’m down in Central America at Panama’s Canopy Tower for the next seven days or so.
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September 29th, 2011
Assume ideal conditions:
- Stable Tripod
- Off-camera shutter release
- Excellent focus
- Non-moving target
- ISO 100
- Excellent lighting
- Still air
- Aperture below the camera’s diffraction limit
Is any lens /camera combination going to be able to resolve details that are a pixel’s width apart? If not, how close do the best one’s get?
Of course different cameras have different pixel sizes. Larger cameras usually have larger pixels. So perhaps the answer should be measured in microns. How many microns can the best lenses resolve?
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