Whale watching trip to the Pearl Islands

Last weekend, I went with my family on a private tour to the Pearl Islands, the heavenly archipelago within an hour and a half from busy Panama City.  My friend Mario Ocaña organized the trip and was a terrific host, and my whole family is impressed by his professionalism and camaraderie.  Our objective was to watch whales... but it was an open itinerary, and we included some time to enjoy the beaches (as in plural!), to have lunch in Contadora island and to visit some seabirds colonies.

Ready for adventure!

In fact, the first attraction was close to the dock.  Few minutes after leaving the marina, we were admiring hundreds of Blue-footed Boobies and other seabirds resting at the Peñón de San José, a rocky islet to the south of Flamenco Island.  However, the main attraction there were the three Peruvian Boobies resting on the rocks among the Blue-footed Boobies.  They are irregular visitors to Panama (only under abnormal conditions, like El Niño).

Peruvian and Blue-footed Boobies

Blue-footed Boobies

Brown Booby

As you can see, I'm including also a photo of a Brown Booby seen later and another pic of the Blue-footed Booby, both from Pachequilla island, the first of the Pearl Islands that we visited that day.  The sight of several hundreds of seabirds on the rocks made us feel like in a Nat Geo documentary!  A little bit after leaving Pachequilla, we encountered our first pair of whales: mother and calf Humpback Whales!

Mother and calf Humpback Whales

These warm and shallow waters are perfect for the whales to raise their young.  Soon these beasts will engage on an epic transequatorial journey to their feeding grounds around Antarctica.  The second whale appeared shortly after the above pair close to Contadora island... as Mario says, the harder whale to find is the first one!

Humpback Whale (Contadora island in the background)

With the whales in the bag, we decided to enjoy the white-sanded beaches of both Mogo Mogo and Chapera islands... the Survivor: Pearl Islands sets.  We had the whole beaches for us, and the little ones enjoyed it most (specially Gabrielle, after her slight disappointment after realizing that whales were not purple, as her toy whale).

 

In our way to Contadora island, we saw some Wedge-rumped Storm-Petrels.  For most of the participants, they were little dark bat-like birds flying swiftly and in zig-zag among the waves... this photo shows that they are delicately patterned in brown and buffy, with contrasting white uppertail coverts.

Wedge-rumped Storm-Petrel

And of course we saw more Humpback Whales!  Several more, including pairs of mother and calf, solitary adults and even a distant group of adults flapping their flippers and jumping out the water!  The show was amazing and soon we were joined by several other boats admiring the whales as well.

Noisy blow

The ride back to Panama City was a bumpy one, but we were more than happy after enjoying these nature marvels so close to the big, busy city.  While we were having a sunny day at the islands, a huge storm system was whipping Panama City... but we made it without experiencing any rainstorm at all!  I want to thanks Mario for the excellent trip, and hope to repeat it soon my friend!

Peñón de San José revisited

The finding of Peruvian Boobies at the Peñón de San José (a rocky islet in Panama Bay) was pretty exciting news for the panamanian birders (although not exactly good news for the birds); however, having to ID these birds through scopes at 1.6 km away was not that satisfactory. That's why I joined Osvaldo Quintero, Rafael Luck and Venicio "Beny" Wilson in a short boat trip to the islet yesterday's morning.  After leaving the dock, our captain took us swiftly around Flamenco Island (from where we scoped the boobies last time), seeing a colony of Brown Pelicans and many Magnificent Frigatebirds and Neotropic Cormorants passing by.  Soon, we were approaching the Peñón de San José, that was full of boobies!

Blue-footed Boobies

Blue-footed Boobies

As you can see, most of them were Blue-footed Boobies... tons of them.  We counted at least 200 birds, including many immature birds, as in the photo above.  Of course, the main objective of our trip were the Peruvian Boobies scoped from shore, but considering the huge numbers of Blue-footed Boobies in this and other islets around Panama Bay make us wonder if some of these birds are southern visitors too.  Notice the solid brown wings of the immature birds, different to the scaled pattern of the back and wings of Peruvian Boobies immatures.  After a while, we started to see Peruvian Boobies... two at first, then three more, then more and more... WOW!  we counted 38 adult Peruvian Boobies... at least!

Peruvian Boobies

Apart of the obvious differences in legs color, notice the white neck and head (with no brown streaks) and, as mentioned before, the scaled effect of the upperparts.  The Peruvian are also smaller than the Blue-footed Boobies.  Most of these birds were resting in the vertical cliffs of the southern/eastern face of the islet... in fact, the next two Peruvian Boobies were the only that we saw in the northern cliff (the one that can be seen from Flamenco Island).

Peruvian Boobies

After visiting the islet, we visit some other islets, like Changame, Tortolita and Tórtola islands.  In Tórtola, we saw many more Blue-footed Boobies and tons of Brown Pelicans... and yes, we checked the field marks.

The Brown Pelican is the only regularly seen species of pelican in Panama... but if we just saw Peruvian Boobies, why not Peruvian Pelicans?  The adult birds looked normal-sized (Peruvian are considerably larger) with uniformly dark upperwings coverts and the juvenile birds (with all brown head and white bellies) had gray gular pouches.  OK, not Peruvian Pelicans... but I'll keep searching!

Rafael, Beny, Osvaldo and me!