Altos de Campana National Park: 20 years later

Altos de Campana was the very first stablished national park in Panama, back in 1966.  It protects humid pre-montane forests at the upper slopes of the Campana hill, but it's probably more popular among locals because of the breathtaking views of Chame Bay from its lower grassy slopes.  Due to its proximity to Panama City, it is a nice place to look for foothills species on a day-trip.  For some reason, I simply overlooked this magical place for more than 20 years since my last visit there was in April 1998 (although I have done several visits to the lookout in the grassy slopes after that)!

Panama trail, Altos de Campana NP

A couple of weeks ago, I decided to start very early and payed a visit to this park.  I was the only visitor that day (to the trails at least).  The chilly atmosphere and the twisted trunks show the strength of the wind that face this part of the park.  Slowly, the activity started to grow.  The dawn chorus was full of new species for my Big Year quest.  In a quick succession I recorded Plain Antvireo, Spotted Woodcreeper, White-breasted Wood-Wren, Bananaquit, Red-crowned Ant-Tanager and Tawny-capped Euphonia.  The several different vocalizations of the euphonia fooled me for a while, until I was able to watch a pair close to the entrance to the trails.

Female Tawny-capped Euphonia

Walking the trails hearing only my steps and the song of the birds was truly relaxing I must admit.  It was so peaceful that I even started to hear the noise of ground-dwelling species over the dry leaves.  One particularly loud noise caught my attention.  Through a window in the foliage, I was able to watch a dark silhouette hoping from one site to another.  It was a familiar sight, one that I saw in the general same area in my last visit twenty years ago.  Some pishing and the bird revealed itself: a Black-crowned Antpitta!

Black-crowned Antpitta

This curious individual stayed long enough for a couple of photos.  After a while, I heard a second individual deep inside the dark forest.  There is no doubt that these birds inspired the tales of goblins and elves that our grandparents told us to warn us not to wander alone through the forest.  Well, I was wandering alone in this forest and was fortunate enough to see this goblin!  With limited time, I returned to the entrance of the park, not before taking my time photographing some nice butterflies on the way.

Heliconius cydno

This photo doesn't make justice to this Heliconius cydno! The flashes of blue and white when flying, as well as the soft shades of yellow and orange when perching are simply sublime.  As soon as I left the forest, the inclement heat of the grassy slopes hit me hard.  My plan was to drive directly to Panama City, but in the last minute I decided to make a stop at the lookout of grassy slopes.

Wedge-tailed Grass-Finch

After a while, a single Wedge-tailed Grass-Finch was very briefly interested to my attempts to attract him with playback.  This species is localized in Panama, absent from sites with apparently suitable habitat, and those slopes are a classic site to finding him.  After twenty years, I can say that Altos de Camapana NP still have a lot to offer and continue to be a very nice place to relax and watch birds (and butterflies), specially if you are short of time!

One day, two destinations

By the end of the last month, some of us were compiling our year lists just to see how far we were for becoming members of The 600 Club - Panama. That is why Rafael Luck and his nephew Daniel invited me, Venicio "Beny" Wilson and Osvaldo Quintero to a one-day quest of those birds that some way or another have eluded us so far. We visited in the same day both the entrance road to Cerro Campana National Park and El Valle de Antón. The trip was a complete success, and I got several new year-birds for my list (I'll number each of them in the text). Our first destination were the hills of the entrance road to Cerro Campana National Park. This park (the first one of the republic) protects the remaining patches of humid forest in the foothills of Capira (western Panama province), but we were interested in the more degraded habitat that occurs in its lower elevations by the entrance road next to the rangers station, the grassy slopes with scattered rocks, the main habitat of our targets: Wedge-tailed Grass-Finch (1) and White-tailed Hawk (2). We stopped by the "Mirador" (from where we got the magnificent view of the Chame bay in the photo with the first light of the day) and started the search. We saw many common species like White-tipped Dove, Lesser Elaenia and Tropical Kingbirds while several American Swallow-tailed Kites patrolled the skies. Soon, we saw a pair of the grass-finches singing atop some rocks, but always close to cover. Then, Beny found with his scope a distant and huge raptor also perched atop a rock. Mostly white with a dark half-hood: a White-tailed Hawk! We got our targets within 15 minutes of our arrival! Very happy, we headed to the west, to El Valle de Anton in the Cocle province. On route, we stopped near the town of Los Llanitos (you know, Todies' Land) for a short walk. Soon, we were looking for the Tody Motmots (3) that responded to the tape, at least three individuals. Eventually we saw one of them very close to us, but it didn't allowed photos. Other birds in the area included Sepia-capped Flycatchers (4), Black-chested Jays, Cocoa Woodcreeper, two White-thighed Swallows (5), several Rufous-capped Warblers with juveniles and a Ruddy-tailed Flycatcher. With more new year-birds in the bag, we finally entered the picturesque town of El Valle and headed to La Mesa, where Beny suggested to explore a side road. It was a good idea since we found a perched White Hawk very close to the road. The elegant bird then took off from the branch and circled us a couple of times before dissapearing behind the hill. We followed the road by foot, which passes through the border of a nice moss-covered forest with lots of bromeliads. We found a nice mixed flock with Silver-throated, Common Bush and Hepatic Tanagers (6), Tawny-crowned Euphonias, Olive-striped Flycatcher, and a pair of Tufted Flycatchers that were nesting in the area. A flock of Tawny-crested Tanagers (7) catched our attention with their calls, the same for a pair of Great Black Hawks (8) flying high in the skies. Then, we tried the entrance of the Gaital Natural Monument, but it was raining so we only saw a group of Dusky-faced Tanagers (9), several Violet-crowned Woodnymphs and a Spot-crowned Antvireo (10) in a mixed flock with more Tawny-crested and Lemon-rumped Tanagers. After a late lunch in town, we spent the last hours of light in Mata Ahogado, close to El Valle. We saw more common birds including Gray-capped and Social Flycatchers, Barred Antshrike; Silver-throated, Plain-colored, Lemon-rumped, White-lined, Palm, Blue-gray and Crimson-backed Tanagers, Paltry Tyrannulet, Buff-throated and Streaked Saltators and a calling Bran-colored Flycatcher (11). A car crash prevented us to continue the road leading to Altos del María so we called it a day and started the return to Panama City, after a successful day with tons of pretty new year-birds!