Pipeline Road was constructed during World War II after
fears that an Axis attack on the Panama Canal would impact Allied logistics.
True to its name, Pipeline Road has an oil pipeline that runs next to it.
Fortunately, the road was never used. The forest has grown over it and is now
protected as Soberania National Park. Access is so easy from the town of Gamboa
that some people opt to not rent a car.
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| View from the Gamboa Rainforest Resort |
My birding hot take is that I am not biggest fan of birding
in this habitat. Don't get me wrong, saying that is like saying Papa John's isn't my favorite pizza. It's still fire, just not my top choice. Birding it is amazingly difficult. It’s humid, the dark forest
makes it hard to get good looks at birds, and seeing birds in the canopy is
near impossible. Unless you are a top-level birder (not me) you probably need
to get a guide to rack up your species count. As you are probably aware, I do
not like getting guides if I can avoid it. But guides are super valuable and
you can learn a lot from them. With it being my dad’s first trip to the
neotropics, we arranged for a guide, Domi Alveo from Whitehawk Birding.
Due to our flight delays we arrived late in the afternoon.
We had the afternoon of our arrival, two full days, and then the morning of our
departure. We rented a car, the first time I have driven a car in a Latin
American country, something I was told would be much harder than it actually
was. While Gamboa has a restaurant and some Airbnbs, we stayed at the Gamboa
Rainforest Resort. Besides a gorgeous view, the hotel offered some good
excursions and a really nice, comfortable stay.
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| Spectacled Caiman |
Given the afternoon heat we decided to get on the water and
take a short tour of the canal. One of the selling points of Panama for my dad
was the opportunity to at least see the Panama Canal. He read a supposedly
great book on the construction of it and his main takeaway from it was that it
is way more of a marvel than we give it credit for.
Instead of just seeing the canal, we were now birding ON the
Panama Canal, cruising through Lake Gatun. Given the afternoon heat the birding
was pretty sparse. We still picked up Striated Heron and Keel-billed Toucan, but
it was the mammals and reptiles that stole the show.
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| Keel-billed Toucan |
Our first reptile was an iguana that fell at least 30 feet
into the water. We almost fell in the water due to the shock of that noise. It
sounded like a gunshot. But we recovered thanks to a few Howler Monkeys, who
ended up being the least cool monkeys of the day.
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| American Crocodile |
It’s hard to choose what was a better sighting, although I
think I have a lean. We pulled up to an island that had some White-faced
Capuchins. One actually got on the boat, walked down, and ate some fruit off of
the boat, getting more comfortable. Then it actually came on to the boat, sized
up my dad and I grabbed some banana out of our hands! Dad was LIVING. Look, I
can acknowledge that we should be letting the wildlife be wildlife. At the same
time, this troop of monkeys was pretty habituated to people so the damage was
already done (not that there’s much harm).
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| White-faced Capuchin |
We also got up close to some Geoffrey’s Tamarins, a monkey
that I was really hoping to get. This is the farthest north you can find a
Tamarin, and besides looking ornamental they are one of those animals that
really epitomize the tropics. They looked like a mix between monkey and
squirrel. They were very curious but even more cautious, for reasons that we
would see as we headed back. There are some massive crocodiles in the canal,
and we got to see some sunning on the banks.
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| Geoffrey's Tamarin |
The next morning was our second, and last, critical morning.
The quetzals made the trip, but today could potentially be the cherry on top.
Domi picked us up around 6:30 and we made the short drive to the Ammo Dump
ponds along the canal to start.
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| Yellow-bellied Seedeater at Ammo Dump Ponds |
The ponds don’t look like much more than an empty field and you can’t see much water, but there is plenty of it. The birding here was extremely easy and at times it was hard to focus on a single bird because so much was moving around. Rufescent Tiger-Heron was very conspicuous and Gray-breasted Martins were everywhere. I was pretty pumped to get Barred Antshrike, which is one of those birds that I should have seen much sooner than I have.
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| Rufescent Tiger-Heron |
The light was great as well, which made it really easy to ID
certain birds like Golden-fronted Greenlet and Southern Beardless Tyrannulet. A
consequence of the great light meant that it got ridiculously hot around 8 AM.
In about 15 minutes it went from pleasant to energy-sapping hot. Domi picked that up
and suggested we head to Pipeline Road. On our way back to the car my dad
spotted the top bird at the site! He was unsure that it was even a bird, but he
still called it out. It ended up being a Blue Dacnis, a fantastic bird to end
on.
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| Common Tody-Flycatcher |
We were enveloped by the forest, and there were plenty of
birds. Patience is the name of the game. Initially it didn’t feel super birdy,
but as we scanned the trees we started to both see and hear some birds. One of
the first birds we saw was Forest Elaenia. Domi had Choco Elaenia as well but
we never saw it. Scarlet-rumped Caciques were around us, and Crimson-crested
Woodpecker hammered a tree above us. Normally people would blow by this, but
just a little bit of patience seemed to open the forest up.
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| Crimson-crested Woodpecker |
We heard Purple-throated Fruitcrow, which is actually a
cotinga, but before we could focus too much on it Domi saw some Spotted
Antbirds. It’s genuinely impressive how he is able to ID small birds moving
above him at a distance. But sure enough, that’s what they were. 3 sets of eyes
made picking out birds so much easier, although 1 of those sets was clearly
carrying the team. The Spotted Anbirds distracted us just long enough for the
fruitcrows to come in. Fortunately they were high enough to allow the light to
show off their purple throats.
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| Purple-throated Fruitcrow |
It was time to start walking, but we did not make it far.
Gray-headed Tanager required a few minutes to locate as it moved around, but
that kept us still enough to warm up the Bicolored Antbirds. I came into the
trip just wanting a single species of antbird, and now I had a few with some
great looks!
We seemed to pick new birds around each bend, but the families started to add up. First we had Golden-collared Manakin, then a quarter mile up there was Red-capped. Just when I thought it couldn’t get any better we got Velvety with a gorgeous blue crown! I just wanted one manakin and instead I got a sweep.
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| Velvety Manakin |
The same was true with trogons. I really wanted my dad to
get to see one in the jungle, which we had already achieved earlier on a morning to PN Metropolitano, but Pipeline cranked it up a notch. The road created perfect overhangs
for trogons to perch on. We first saw White-tailed, an exciting lifer for me,
but also got Black-throated and eventually a male Black-tailed! We completed
our trogon sweep that afternoon on the grounds of the resort when we found
Gartered.
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| White-tailed Trogon |
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| Crimson-rumped Tanager |
It was almost time to turn around, but not after the
crescendo. I wouldn’t call it an ant swarm, but we found ants crossing the
trail, which can lead to an explosion of bird activity. An almost unnoticeable
amount of movement was picked up on by Domi and we started scanning through the
dense foliage to find a small bird darting around on the ground.
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| Rufous Motmot |
It was a Black-faced Antthrush! Antthrushes are super secretive
birds. They move silently along the ground in thick vegetation, and your only
chance of finding one is really to be near an ant swarm. Even then I don’t
think they’re easy to get. Their cocked tails make them look like a chicken
running around, and the dark chestnut back, blue eye ring, and black face kept
me captivated for the 15 minutes that we got to enjoy it. This was my bird of
the trip. It was impossible to get a picture, but I will never forget it.
Antbirds were my goal for Pipeline because I thought I had no chance at an
antthrush or antpitta.
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| Masked Tityra |
The walk back to the car was quicker, but still eventful.
Not much new was added, but we got to see the clown looking Collared Aracari
and Cinnamon Woodpecker. Hot take alert: I like Collared Aracari more than
toucans. There just seems to be a little more design to them.
That was the cherry on top we needed. 5 amazing hours with
Domi meant there was no pressure at all to see other birds. Everything else
would get to be relaxed.
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| Immature Black-tailed Trogon |
Our last full day was spent at the Panama Rainforest
Discovery Center. This is a very tall canopy tower that gets you above the
treetops, as well as a few trails. It is quite expensive, about $35 to access,
but it is much easier than walking around all day. The tower goes above the
treetops, opening up to a stunning view that gives a bunch better chance at
seeing species that hang out in the canopy.
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| Gartered Trogon |
The dream bird here was Lovely Cotinga, but the chances of
seeing one were low. Although we didn’t see a ton up on the tower, it was a lot
of fun to look around and just hang out while looking for birds. It was similar
to relaxing out by the hummingbird feeders and passively birding. We still saw
some great birds! My dad got his first really good look at Keel-billed Toucan,
the prettier of the toucans. Red-lored Parrots regularly flew by as well.
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| Scaled Pigeon |
The trail system was pretty good and had a lot more cover
than Pipeline Road did, which gave us some good opportunities. It was still not
fully the dry season, so there were some mosquitoes out but we really didn’t
notice them too much, although they were definitely correlated with the
humidity. The prior day with Domi was not very sticky, but today was.
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| Broad-billed Motmot |
As is typical in the neotropics, it was feast or famine. But
we had a feast pretty quickly and especially good for late in the morning!
There were tons of Scarlet-rumped Caciques and Yellow-backed Orioles around us
as we approached the wetland, as well as Greater Anis in the trees above us. We
bailed as mosquitoes started to eat us and made it to the wetland. Not much was
out there, but my dad had a super close encounter with a bullet ant crawling on
him!
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| Snail Kite |
We got spooked and decided to head back to the tower. It was getting late and hot, and we still had to look at the hummingbird feeders. Hopefully we would get some raptors at the tower. It wound up taking over an hour to get back, as we found a fantastic mixed flock. Red-throated Ant-tanagers gave away the presence of the flock, but there were quickly many birds hopping around us. Fasciated Antshrike was exciting, but what really got me going was a Long-billed Gnatwren.
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| Red-throated Ant-Tanager |
The tower ending up being pretty quiet, and we decided to
start working our way out. At this point we were both pretty exhausted from the
last week and a nap sounded great. But we still had to look for hummingbirds! The
feeders at the center were full of White-necked Jacobins and Violet-bellied
Hummingbirds, but we also had a single sighting of Long-billed Hermit. The
feeder area also had Rufous and Broad-billed Motmot, and as we left we found a
Black-throated Trogon!
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| White-necked Jacobin |
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| Striated Heron |
Big shoutout to my dad for being such a great sport about
marching around the hot jungle and bouncing along bumpy mountain roads just to
see some birds. The trip would not have been as much fun if he wasn’t there and
hopefully we get another Mark & Mark trip soon!
