Panoramic Olá

Olá is a little town in central Coclé province (central Panamá) mere 15 minutes from the Pan-American highway.  This quiet town is the capital of the homonymous district which is, perhaps, the less known district of the province when talking about tourism or birdwatching.  However, Olá offers some natural wonders that are frequently visited by locals, like "Los Chorros" or "El Picacho".

Cerro El Peñón

To the north of the town, the paved road takes you to the mountains, which are exceptionally attractive due to overwhelming sceneries.  I visited one of the most accesible, "Cerro El Peñón" this last weekend with my family.  The winding road through the grassy and dry slopes sinuously takes you all the way to the higher slopes of the mountain.  After the asphalt is gone, the dirt road keep going for miles and miles.  Some impressive rock formations and even a high-elevation plateau become evident, with scattered patches of gallery forests along the narrow valleys.

Of course the evidence of human interventions are everywhere in this landscape, but many areas remains wild and untouched... and I'm talking about natural grasslands up there.  This habitat is home to some localized species in Panama, grass-dwelling species that due to the scarcity of habitat are seldom reported, except from usual sites.  One of those species showed up as soon as we left the car to inspect one of these patches of grass.  A pair of Wedge-tailed Grass-Finches inspected us from a barbed wire.  It was nice to see this species again this year, after finding it in Cerro Campana some months ago... after several years without seeing one!

Wedge-tailed Grass-Finch

However, I was interested in another species.  It may sound weird, but I was searching for Rufous-collared Sparrows.  Yes, the ubiquitous "Tío Chicho" of the western highlands have a population in these mountains that was recently re-discovered by my friend Josanel Sugasti last year (check his eBird checklist HERE).  After some tense minutes without noticing any sign of the birds, I eventually saw a pair quietly feeding mere 10 meters away.  I took some photos before they disappeared in the grass... it is the most exciting sight of "Tío Chichos" so far for me!

Rufous-collared Sparrow

According to Ridgely & Gwynne (1989), Rufous-collared Sparrows are unknown in the province, except for an old specimen simply labelled "Cascajal" (¿?), supposedly in Coclé.  Why is this significant?  The easternmost population of this species in Panama is found in Cerro Campana and Cerro Chame and was described by Wetmore in 1951 as the endemic subspecies orestera, which is supposed to be in average darker than the population (costaricensis) present in western Panamá (east to Veraguas).  Some authorities think it is better to treat orestera as synonym of costaricensis... and this population in Coclé may prove this to be right, since its fills the supposed gap in distribution.  To my eye, these birds are identical to those in the western highlands of Panamá.  To be honest, I don't remember how orestera look... I saw my first ever Rufous-collared Sparrow in Cerro Campana back in September, 1996.  There are no recent records of orestera, and the subspecies well may be extinct or critically endangered by unknown reasons, since it seems that its habitat remains.  I wonder what secrets keep these sparrows of Coclé province.... are they costaricensis?, orestera? an undescribed subspecies?  I hope it is not the last time I run into them!