Rails and Crakes in Gamboa Ammo Dump Ponds

The Ammo Dump Ponds in the town of Gamboa (former Canal Zone) are probably one of the most birded sites in Panama.  It is a good introduction for the beginner and even veteran birders find it quite enjoyable... and add to this that almost every visiting birder to Panama stop by the ponds on route to the famed Pipeline road.  And with all that attention, it is amazing that some resident species of the pond are rare enough to attract hordes of birders when they decide to show up.  That is the case of the last discovery of my friend Venicio "Beny" Wilson, when he found a Yellow-breasted Crake walking exposed close to shore one week ago.  This species is known to breed there... but there are only few records from the area.  So yesterday I went with Gloriela to the ponds, looking for the elusive bird.  My friend Howard was already there when we started to search the marshy areas.  The day was cloudy and dark... perfect for the rallids (most of them are similarly elusive species), and soon I was able to see the largest of them at the opposite side of the ponds: a Gray-necked Wood-Rail.

Gray-necked Wood-Rail

It is a distant photo, but this bird is not easy to see... not to mention to photograph.  One huge rail in the bag... but we were after the smallest one recorded in Panama, and we knew it wouldn't be an easy task.  Another good sign that the day was good to watch elusive species became in the shape of a Least Bittern flying across the pond and allowing great views with the scopes... another super elusive bird in the bag... but it was not THE bird we were looking for.  Close to us, this Rufescent Tiger-Heron decided to rest quietly.

Rufescent Tiger-Heron

Then, THE bird materialized like a ghost in front of Howard; we were not close to him and all his efforts to invocate the bird again only attracted a group of three White-throated Crakes to the exact place where the Yellow-breasted Crake was.  I know that feeling... when a group of fellow birders are twitching a rarity but you are the only one that manage to see it... you only want that someone else find the bird too just to prove that you are not mad after all. Of course Howard was not mad... he had a photo of THE bird that we missed... that's life!  Hey, but a group of White-throated Crakes feeding exposed is a real treat!  These birds are very common by voice at the ponds, but you never see them... and let me tell you: that was the best sighting ever of White-throated Crakes!

White-throated Crake

A little bit disappointed, we moved to the Rainforest Discovery Center in order to take our lunch... a tasty fried sea bass and some cold drinks, but first we attended a talk offered by, coincidentally, Venicio Wilson.  It was nice to hear him talking about the role of birds in the ecology of the rainforests... he almost made us forget how miserably we dipped on the crake earlier... a l m o s t.

However, after lunch, many birders decided to try the crake's spot in the way out... so we joined them.  Venicio himself showed us the exact site where he originally saw the bird and we chat about a lot of themes... the time flew with them.  Around 3:30 pm, I noticed a tiny bird at the water just in front of the group.  Skeptical, I raised my binoculars ... only could say "THERE IT IS!!!"  Yes my friends, THE bird materialized again in front of the group, nobody else noticed it before... it simply was there.

Yellow-breasted Crake

The Yellow-breasted Crake stayed for close to 15 minutes walking deliberately and feeding quietly.  Then, it flew to a nearby floating island and disappeared.  Venicio thinks that he saw a different bird... I think that only few birds are so beautiful and shy that this one.  A tiny bird... but a HUGE lifer!

Yellow-breasted Crake

An extraordinaire day

The definition of "extraordinaire day" is different for each person.  For some, a day is extraordinaire if everything goes as planned; for others, you need a special event to occur.  For me, ANY day with a GROUND-CUCKOO is an extraordinaire day!  And, after hearing that a family group of Rufous-vented Ground-Cuckoos were attending an antswarm in Pipeline Road (central Panama) allowing nice views for the visitors, I decided to accept the invitation of my friend Osvaldo to bird the area last saturday.

We started at the marina in the town of Gamboa.  We were expecting to find some migratory ducks, but it seems that this is not a good year for them.  The place was full of Common Gallinules as usual, and Wattled Jacanas (like the one pictured above).  After walking along the access road, we found many species of both resident and migrant birds.  My favorite was an adult Rufescent Tiger-Heron hunting quietly behind the access gate.

After a while, we decided to move to the famed Pipeline Road.  The furious activity at the marina deviated us from our main destination, the same happened in the other stops we made before reaching the entrance to Pipeline Road.  For example,  this Crimson-crested Woodpecker entertained us at the Ammo dump.

And a mixed group of warblers, antbirds and antwrens did the same right before entering Pipeline.  There, two species of antshrikes were inspecting a patch of forest close to the ground.  Considering that others birds were in the same area (like Black-bellied and Song Wrens, Dusky Antbirds and Black-faced Antthrush), I suspect that there were some ants or something in the ground.  Notice the heavy bill of this male Fasciated Antshrike.

And the black crown of this aptly named Black-crowned Antshrike.  This is a male, of course.  The female is patterned in brown and buff, with little black.  This species used to be called Western Slaty-Antshrike... but it is not closely related to other Slaty Antshrikes in South America.

A little before 11 am, we finally reached the Pipeline Road.  One kilometer after the entrance, we noticed a foreign birder standing aside the road.  We joined him and immediately heard the Bicolored Antbirds attending an antswarm.  The birder quickly showed us a photo in his bridge camera... a Rufous-vented Ground-Cuckoo appeared in the screen.  We waited for a while and then, the bird materialized above a log more or less 4 meters from us.  What a sight!  The long tail and powerful legs, plus the expressive crest is unmistakable.

File photo

Unfortunately, we could not take pictures.  I took the above photo five years ago almost exactly in the same site!  The Rufous-vented Ground-Cuckoo is a very rare ground-dwelling species that is found almost exclusively around antswarms.  Pipeline Road is, perhaps, the best place to see it, specially during our dry season.  So, now you see why that was an extraordinaire day?  

At the Caribbean side

For the last weekend, I joined my pals Osvaldo Quintero and Rafael Luck and visited the Caribbean side of the Panama Canal, specifically the former Fort Sherman and the forests of the San Lorenzo National Park.  These area is quite varied in habitats, and rich in migrant species.  Our hope was to find some of these migrants, specially the rare or vagrants.

We started around the former Fort Sherman, and area with forest, mangroves, coast and grasslands... making it good for raptors.  The most common was (as its name suggest) the Common Black-Hawk, like the one pictured above.  We saw many of these hawks, most of them perched atop telephone poles.  We also saw Broad-winged Hawks, Yellow-headed Caracara, Peregrine Falcon, American Kestrel and a hovering Short-tailed Hawk in front of the marina.  This was a dark morph adult which, in Panama, seems to be as common like its white phase counterpart.

We decided to check a patch of forest behind the old church.  In previous visits, this site proved to be very good for migrants passerines; however, this time only the calls of the White-tailed Trogons were evident.  Eventually, we managed to see four trogons... some of them allowed great photos, like this female showing the undertail pattern.

Of course, the undertail of the adult male is completely white.  My photo shows this field mark... although the bird was a little bit far away.

Then, we visited an historic point of this former US base: the Toro Point Lighthouse.  Notice the structure resembling vaguely the Eiffel Tower... that is because this lighthouse, built by the French in 1893, was designed by Gustav Eiffel!

Shortly after I took the above photo with my phone, it started to rain.  We decided to wait at the marina restaurant, where we had our breakfast with a deserved cup of coffee.  After a while, we left the restaurant and decided to leave Fort Sherman because the activity, in general, was very low.  We drove through the Gatun spillway and dam, entering the forests of the San Lorenzo National Park and, eventually, into the road to the town of Achiote.  This road is famous in the birding world... but we arrived late in the day.  We only heard some Blue-black Grosbeaks and Chestnut-mandibled Toucans in the distance.  Some movements in the shrubs by the bridge turned out to be some kind of snake.

I have to admit that I know nothing about snakes identification... and after lot of searching in internet, I'm still confused with this one.  Perhaps a Yellow-bellied Racer?  It recalled me a Salmon-bellied Racer that I saw some years ago in this area too.  It was more or less 6 feet-long and very quick!

We entered the town of Achiote, birding the forest borders and the pasturelands surrounding it.  The only highlight was the above Rufescent Tiger-Heron.  It is unusual to find this species in the open in Panama; although in South America is commonly found in similar habitats.  However, my favorite bird was the lonely Killdeer that we found in the baseball field.

This uncommon migrant is unmistakable, and the Caribbean side of the Panama Canal seems to be a regular wintering site.  Well, probably not the day with the highest number of birds recorded or with the rare or vagrant migrants we were expecting... but very entertaining anyway!

Birding in colombian llanos and amazon region

After a great, but quick, birding trip to northwestern Ecuador, Rafael Cortes and your blogger host were again in Colombia's capital city, Bogota, making our bags in order to start the last part of this epic trip... we were heading to the eastern lowlands, to the llanos and the amazonic region around San José del Guaviare, in the department of Guaviare (and where the road actually ends!).  For this part of the trip we were joined by Mauricio Rueda, a friend of Rafael who only counts the birds he photographs... and is very good doing that!  We left the busy Bogota city and took the same highway that we used for our first birding trip out of the huge city some weeks before (with Oswaldo).  The winding road runs parallel to a rushing river, and I was searching it, trying to find the Fasciated Tiger-Heron that we saw the last time, but no luck on that (photo from that day).  However, we saw several others birds from the car, including Cliff Flycatchers, Lesser Swallow-tailed Swifts, Crested Oropendola, Magpie Tanager (near the Monterredondo), and many more.

It was mostly a travel day... but that doesn't mean that we didn't see any bird... as soon as we left the andean slopes we started to see species typical of the lowlands: Roadside Hawk, Pale-vented Pigeon, Fork-tailed Flycatcher, Carib Grackle, Oriole Blackbirds, tons of herons and ibises.  Definitively, the bird of the day was the Scarlet Ibis.  Mauricio spotted a flock so Rafael stopped the car in order to have better views... it was a spectacular lifer for me, that color is unreal!  Compare it with the abundant Bare-faced Ibis in the second photo (also a immature Wattled Jacana in the same frame).

We arrived at night, left our thing at our rooms in the hotel and then had dinner with our guides Luis Fernando Galindez ("Lucho") and Derly Blandon (who is training in order to become a guide)  at a tiny restaurant by the main square.  Very early the next day, we left San José del Guaviare and drove all the way to the community of Playa Guio, our home for the next three days.  The cabins were in the opposite of the Caño Negro creek, so we left the car and loaded the boat with all the bags and photographic equipment.  We started birding immediately... the first birds being hordes of ancient-looking Hoatzines (we were no longer in the Andes anymore!).   

Right in the dinning hall, I got my first lifers for the day.  A pair of attractive White-eared Jacamars were flycatching while a gang of noisy Thrush-like Wrens inspected every single branch around the house.

A Ruddy Pigeon started to call right in front of us and soon we were having good views of this canopy dweller.

I'm used to the heat... but in Playa Guio, it was suffocating... however, we enjoyed the beauty of the forest and the river.  A pair of Scarlet Macaws flew in front of us... they turned out to be semi-pets of the house, but they wander freely in the forest (I'm not including this species in my list, of course).

At our cabin (powered by solar panels), we have a close encounter with a young Rufescent Tiger-Heron that allowed some VERY nice photos!  This was our second Tiger-Heron for Colombia.

And all this even before our first walk through the forest!  Stay tuned for more! 

Birding Gamboa and Pipeline Road

Gamboa is a quiet town in the shores of the Gatun lake (central Panama) that offers a wide variety of habitats. From gardens and residential areas to primary forest, you can find it all there, close to Panama city. With so many options, the perseverance is the key. That's why we try to visit this place almost every weekend and last saturday was not the exception. Osvaldo Quintero and myself went to this place, making our first stop in the ammo dump, as usual. With cameras in hand, we checked the marshes, finding the usual suspects: a juvenile Rufescent Tiger-Heron (close to a nest), Wattled Jacanas, White-throated Crake, Green Heron, a pair of Black-bellied Whistling-Ducks, Rusty-margined Flycatcher, and so on... Then, Osvaldo spotted three little birds high on a tree. A quick check with my binoculars confirmed that they were Olivaceous Piculets, a lifer for Osvaldo, and only the second time that I have seen this bird in Gamboa.
We entered the Pipeline Road (seeing a Little Tinamou at the entrance) and began to walk from the first bridge (Juan Grande). The activity was low, and the rising heat made us reach only the third bridge (Frijoles). Anyway, we heard some birds and tried to fotograph a Black-bellied Wren (frustrating). We deserved a cold drink, so we headed to the Rainforest Discovery Center. Trust me, you must visit this place. Is located in the middle of the forest, and they have the best lowland hummingbirds feeders in Panama (you can see my video here). If the hummingbirds don't impress you, then the circuit of trails or the 100 feet observation tower will. The place was crowded, but nonetheless we enjoyed the hummingbirds and some antbirds and tanagers attending an antswarm (no Ground-Cuckoos this time). This place is excellent for both the amateur birder and the bird-maniac-lister-&-twitcher. After saying goodbye to Margelis and Julia (our hostesses), we returned to the city. The plans for the evening include to attend the 11th PAS Owls, Wine and Cheese Night (Osvaldo) and to finish some case reports (I'm not in vacations yet!).