PAS' Owls and Wines Night

Rather than an owling trip, the Panama Audubon Society's Owls and Wines Night is more like a social event, where old and new friends meet to enjoy a pleasant night.  This year event was held in the iconic Canopy Tower at the Soberania National Park in central Panama.  I went with Gloriela and met the other ten participants a little bit before sunset... the views from the upper deck of the tower are simple overwhelming!

Jan & Gloriela

I don't know if you noticed that a Brown-throated Three-toed Sloth was photo-bombing the frame! You can have eye-to-eye encounters not only with these gentile creatures, but also with some canopy-dwellers hard to see otherwise.  Here is a closer look at our friend:

Brown-throated Three-toed Sloth

The sloths (yes, as in plural) and birds were not the only highlights at the tower.  A set of the Motus Wildlife Tracking System (one of four installed in Panama) is on the tower, and Karl Kaufmann explained to us how it works.  The Panama Audubon Society and Bird Studies Canada made Panama the first country in Central America to track migratory birds this way.

Motus system

After that, we spend some time tasting fine wines and a selection of cheeses and caught up on environmental, political and religious issues... actually caught up on ALL the issues.  Time flew by so fast that we almost forget the owls... almost.  The forests around the tower are home of many different species of owls and other night creatures. So, aboard one of the Canopy Tower's modified trucks and under the guidance of Michael, we started the search.

Well, to be honest, I never expect many species "seen" on these trips... owling is not an exact science and you should aim to identify the birds by their field marks... the vocalizations in the case of owls.  Nevertheless, we tried. The night was bright clear... actually not very good for owling.  After several stops, we only heard frogs and crickets... until Michael found this guy:

Great Potoo

Not an owl, but a Great Potoo in the middle of the night waiting for insects on a pole.  It was the only night bird for the trip... but a good one.  I want to thank all the participants for the good company and the Canopy Family staff for the awesome night!

At the castle

To end well the weekend, I went with Gloriela (and Gabrielle of course) to the Caribbean coast of central Panama, to the Colon province. Specifically, we tried the San Lorenzo National Park and the former Fort Sherman. In the way, we drove through heavy rain and dense mist along the Transisthmic highway, but as soon as we reached Colon, the weather improved, and a radiant sun illuminated us. The road to Sherman is very picturesque, as I have said before, passing through grasslands, primary forests, lagoons and mangroves. The phone lines along this road are the most birdy in Panama... we saw at least one Broad-winged Hawk, several Common Black-Hawks, a male White-tailed Trogon and four Black-breasted Puffbirds perched on the lines. Notice the drops of water in the puffbird body... it was raining a little bit. Not only that, in the stretch of mangroves, the guests on the wires were the Ringed Kingfishers... three of them were noticed along the route... and all this before reaching the gate at the entrance of Fort Sherman! The grasslands in Sherman were alive with birds, including many migrants. For some reason, the most common migrants this time were the Indigo Buntings and the Blue Grosbeaks. Most of them exhibited the dull winter plumage (essentially all warm brown), some had patches of blue in the wings and ventral parts. In these photos you can notice the difference in bill's size and shape (smaller and thinner in the bunting)... the size difference is not evident (the grosbeak is considerably larger than the bunting). Eventually, we reached the old Castillo de San Lorenzo... as usual, we were almost the only beings in the place, except for a family that was also visiting the ruins. The serenity, the silence and the spectacular sights makes this place special... I'm pretty sure that this Brown-throated Three-toed Sloth was also enjoying these aspects of the castle. Do you remember why he looks so green (if not, you may want to read the comments of this post)? In the castle's plaza, two little birds caught my attention. They were feeding actively in the ground, constantly wagging the tails and with conspicuous yellow undertail coverts: a pair of Palm Warblers! It is always great to find this species in Panama because they are rare here... but not only that... supposedly, they arrive to Panama by mid-November, with november 7th as the earliest date recorded (in El Real, Darien... check the report here). Probably they happen unnoticed or simply unrecorded. We crossed all the corridors of the castle and took many pictures of it... of course I couldn't refuse to take a photo of Gloriela and Gabrielle having the mighty Chagres river as background... a small souvenir of her first visit to the castle!

Mammals of Metro Park

I always have been lucky finding mammals in the Metropolitan Natural Park, and yesterday was not the exception. After all, I think that Panama in general is a good country to find mammals... and it seems that I'm not the only one that think this. I have been reading some comments in the web of how easy it was to some guys to find wildlife in Panama (including mammals) and now I even found offerings of mammals trips to Panama. Well, back to Metro Park, most of the mammals species that I found yesterday were at the lookout (that was full of birds too). Surely, the abundance of fruits had something to do with that. The first species that I saw was a Central American Agouti (Dasyprocta punctata) that quickly ran to cover. They are pretty common in the park, and you can find many individuals along the different trails, sometimes in loose herds. Little after that, I heard a noise close to me. I turned back, finding a Variegated Squirrel (Sciurus variegatoides) that was scolding me while eating a seed. These squirrels are very common in all sort of habitats, including urban areas and open forests. This is the common and familiar squirrel of Panama City and many other cities in the country, exhibiting a great variation in patterns and colours among the subspecies. They share the park with the Red-tailed Squirrels (Sciurus granatensis) that I have found several times there (but not yesterday), usually in wetter and/or darker sites, like along La Cieneguita trail. It is always entertained to see these acrobatic creatures to move effortless through the branches. I also found a family group of White-nosed Coaties (Nasua narica), with an adult (surely a female) and three cubs. The males usually wander alone, the reason of their spanish name "Gato Solo" (lonely cat). These racoons-relatives are as happy in the ground as climbing the trees, as you can see in the photo (one of the cubs, the ear and the tail of the other two cubs also appear in the photo). But the stars of the show were the Geoffrey's Tamarins (Saguinus geoffroyi). A troop of nine tamarins got very close to me while making their bird-like calls. These squirrel-like monkeys are fortunately still pretty common in the right habitat, including this park. I even saw a tamarin with a baby on her back. They did not care about the Double-toothed Kite that was following them. In contrast, they overturned all the attention to another mammal that I had left unnoticed: a Brown-throated Three-toed Sloth (Bradypus variegatus) in a Cecropia tree. What can I say about them? These animals are real survivors, a big success of nature. You can see in the photo the three claws of the forearm, and the masked look that distinguishes this species of the Hoffmann's Two-toed Sloth (Choloepus hoffmanni), also found in the park (but again, not yesterday). It was a great day, both for birds and mammals. In my way out I heard the characteristic howl of a troop of Mantled Howlers Monkeys (Alouata palliata) and found this footprint that I'm trying to figure out to whom it belongs. Any idea? (that's my 67mm lens cap for comparison)

Rainy day

October is one of the most rainy months of the year in Panama, and we verified it last saturday, during our day visit to El Valle de Anton. The day started good, with clear skies, but it became dark rapidly. Our first stop was close to Los Llanitos ("Todies Land") where we recorded ALL the motmots species found in Panama, with Tody Motmot in my saw-and-barely-photographed list (as I have said before, they are very tough to photograph). After a quick hot coffee and a piece of pineapple pie in a little bakery close to the famous "mercado" in El Valle, we headed to the Cerro Gaital Natural Monument where a smiley-faced Brown-throated Three-toed Sloth welcomed us. By mid-morning the day was dark and chilly, with some dropplets falling down, but that didn't stop us. We walked the loop trail (El Convento) reaching only the second station. In the way we saw a nice Green-crowned Brilliant and a mixed flock of Silver-throated Tangers, Common Bush-Tanagers, Bananaquits and very cooperative Black-faced Grosbeaks (a huge group, maybe 15 individuals). A little noise in the understore resulted in a Nine-banded Armadillo who quickly ran away. The migrants were represented by Canada, Blackburnian and Mourning Warblers plus Swainson's Thrushes. It soon began to rain, so we headed back just in time to reach the car when a heavy downspur covered everything. We left El Valle, calling it a day not before a short visit to the lowlands of El Chiru, but it was late and we only saw very common birds (plus a nice Pearl Kite). The return journey was under a rainstorm all the way to Panama city, but at least it was refreshing!