More Panama Birding

Wow, what a great Monday--we might hit 40 degrees (do I dare take out my bike), I'm going to learn how to ice fish today and I just came off a fun weekend.  I have to put in a plug for my Twin Cities readers: Non Birding Bill's birthday was the day I flew to Panama. To make up for it, I scheduled a party with Virginia Corbett who taught us how to do couple's dancing like the cha cha, foxtrot, and hustle.  It was fun and easy going and you have to love a woman who can teach you to fox trot to Jonathan Coulton.  I think even our friends who were horrified at the idea of learning to dance had a good time.  If course, the Lambic and cupcakes helped.

And speaking of Panama, I am SO not finished blogging about it.  What fertile blogging ground that place is.  And I am planning a ten day tour there next year.  Carlos was going to get me the itinerary late last week but his computer died.  But it is on in mid to late February and it will happen at both Canopy Lodge and Canopy Tower.  Start calculating your frequent flyer miles and saving your pennies now.  This will be an unforgettable winter getaway in 2011.

One of the fun things about birding in another country is that the vehicles they use to transport you are a bit more exciting than what would be allowed in the US.  Here we have a truck and the bed is fitted with padded benches that allow us to watch for birds and mammals unfettered by a roof and seat belts.  If we were traveling and saw something worth stopping for, all you had to do was pound on the roof of the cab and the guide would stop the vehicle.  Fun!  Some of our best birding was the road to and from Canopy Tower called Semaphore Hill.  One morning we walked it, but often when we were tootling down to hit the highway and on to birding adventures elsewhere, we would have the driver stop for monkeys or motmots.

Coatis were frequently seen along the road and when the drivers stopped the vehicle so we could get photos, I noticed the familiar smirk.  It's the same one I would give if I were leading a US tour and we stopped for a raccoon.  But the guides are smart and they know that people love an animal with a nose that appears to swivel around of its own accord.  Oh, coati, how can you be so cute munching your palm fruit and not allow me to scratch your belly?

I did get to see a celebrity bird.  Does this species look familiar to you?  It's actual name is the red-capped manakin but I would wager that millions have seen this bird and not know its name, but they do know it as the Moonwalk Bird--here's a collection of videos I've found on the web. There's actually a second male in this photos but he is obscured by the branch.  I did get to see a hint of the display but did not get to see the manakin in his full Moonwalking glory.  Writer Laura Kammermeier has an article a fun video of the manakin mating dance.  Her video also includes a bit more graphic bit that tends to be left off of the nature programs and her color commentary that goes along with it is hilarious.  I never grew tired of seeing these cute little birds, I had to resist asking for an autograph.

All kinds of birds lurked in the lower canopy like this dusky antbird and as much I love a gray bird, the female of this species appeals to my love of brown birds:

All kinds of cool birds hid in the lower foliage. One bird I was really looking forward to was the tinamou--it was also a requested bird when I asked what people wanted me to try and photograph.  We heard them quite a bit and one day when we were driving up to the Tower, we saw a couple on the side of the road.

But tinamous like this great tinamou above like to lurk and hide in dark places--probably because this chicken like bird also known as the mountain hen has a body built for food.  Being cagey and secretive is their key to survival.  I brought along a video camera because some of those dark areas are not good for digiscoping and here is a video of the great tinamou:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UL0RVl9ewko[/youtube]

You can hear Carlos doing the great tinamou wavering whistle and another tinamou answering back from deeper in the forest.

Outside the tower itself were a few hummingbird feeders.  Above is a photo I got of a white-necked jacobin (a type of hummingbird) with the Wingscapes BirdCam. They can't have banana feeders here like at Canopy Lodge because the coatis.  They raid the feeders and will try to get into the tower and as cute as they are, the last thing I want in my room (apart from a fer de lance or bushmaster) would be a coati.  But the hummingbird feeders are enough to entertain.

Great Potoo Madness

There are some birds who are celebrities to me--one would be the potoo.  I was into birds as a kid, I had a ton of books and I remember sitting in my room looking at bird books and there were certain birds that were iconic that I hoped to see one day when I got older and had the means to travel.  The potoo falls in that category.

Potoos are nocturnal birds in the order of Caprimulgiformes and that includes nightjars (like nighthawks and whip-poor-wills) but are in their own family. Nighthawks are also active at night and will roost horizontally on the ground or a branch to hide from potential predators. Potoos do it upright and kind of look like a broken off branch.  If you go to Google Image Search, you'll find a ton of photos of potoos in action.

When we were birding our first day at Canopy Tower, I asked my guide Carlos Bethancourt if there were any around.  I wanted to see a potoo and when I asked people for bird requests, someone requested that I try and get a photo of a potoo.  Carlos said that they have them but they are not always at the same roosting spot.  During lunch he came up to me and said that a potential potoo has been spotted near the entrance gate to Semaphore Hill (the road that leads to the tower). He was going to check it out to see if it was there and show people on the afternoon field trips and wanted to know if I would like to come along. So I did!

The best part was that Carlos took me to the general area and then had me look for it.  My first attempt turned out to be an ant nest but I found it the second time and we set up our scopes on the cool bird.  I was so excited to see this bird, I wanted to ask for its autograph.  I love when I birds doing what I have read about for years--there was the great potoo perched and erect, looking like a piece of branch like all the guides and online photos show.  And this was a great potoo--it was huge!  The great potoo was nothing like a dainty nighthawk, it was the size and shape of roughly a red-tailed hawk.  As Carlos watched me take photos with my Nikon D40 on my Swarovski ATM 80 scope, he asked to try the camera on his Leica scope.

He got a pretty cool photo of it stretching its wings and I was stunned at how long they were.  The wings were not pointed like a nightjar and I wondered what it must be like to see something like that fly.  They don't zoom around like a nighthawk.  They grab insects like a flycatcher does.  The potoo will perch out on a prominent branch and fly out at night to grab beetles, moths, grasshoppers and other large insects.

While Carlos used my camera, I handheld an HD video camera to my scope and managed to get a few stills.  Look at that floofy face! And notice all the wispy feathers around the head.  I bet it would be so soft to touch.  Alas, like so many birds, not a good pet but such a cool bird to see up close.  I'm glad Carlos took me out during the break time, I was able to get some gratuitous photos of this great potoo without the rest of a birding group getting irritated that I wanted to lolly-gag. I could have stayed and watched this bird all day.   And that is the sign of what a great place this is.  If you have a birding/wildlife request at Canopy Lodge or Canopy Tower and you tell them what you would like to do, they work very hard to accommodate that request, while still be respectful to the wildlife and environment.  I've been to a lot of places that wanted me to cover how great they are for birding, this is one organization that has truly lived up to the hype.

Canopy Tower offers night excursions (which I'll blog about soon) and while we were out we got to hear a common potoo.  Here's a link on Xeno-Canto of what a common potoo sounds like (do follow it, that is one of the coolest bird songs ever).  I remembered hearing that on the Biodiversity of Animal Sounds CD from Cornell and always thought, "What must that be like to hear in the wild?" Answer: Pretty damn cool!  We were on Semaphor Road in the dark, no lights, hearing crickets and no traffic.  Then that lonely call (almost like a child on a pipe) comes from overhead and another echoes far in the distance. It was beautiful and I haven't felt chills like that down my spine since the first time I heard a brown-backed solitaire.

Anyway, I was hopeful that since we heard the common potoo's haunting song at night that the great potoo would have an equally touching call.  Not exactly.  Here's a great potoo calling on Xeno-Canto.  It's rather reminicent of Barney Gumble on the Simpsons.  Ah well, I guess that is the sound would expect an odd bark looking bird to make.

Here's a video of the great potoo and you can see how well it is hiding in the branches.  It's only about a minute and a half long:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsBBK6v-7Sk[/youtube]

Did you hear the cars in the background?  The potoo was not bothered.  One of the things I love about my videos from Panama is that you can hear Carlos in the background of some of them and he seems just as genuinely happy to see the bird as you are.  He's a very enthusiastic guide.

It's a once in a lifetime bird to see...and I just realized the type of bird that makes my husband shake his head.  I saw all these colorful birds and the one that I'm super excited about is brown and gray.

Signs of Spring Bird and Bee Wise

I think I saw an honest to goodness sign of spring this weekend around Mr. Neil's. I did a little driving to look for golden eagles again and I was stunned by the number of horned larks I flushed as I drove along the country roads.

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This is a terrible photo of a horned lark--heat shimmer coming off my car does not make for good digiscoping--even with a window mount for my scope. You might be seeing horned larks in your area if you drive down rural roads. Horned larks are commonly seen but if you don't know what to look for, you don't know that they are there. When you see brown birds flush away from a rural road, watch for dark stripes on either side of the tail as they fly--that's a horned lark. They are one of the first birds to return to Minnesota and when you see them that means spring migration is on.

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I took a moment to watch the juncos since their time is limited here and they will flock up and eventually head north to their breeding grounds. We have so much snow everywhere. I heard on Minnesota Public Radio that there's a 60% chance of big flooding of the Mississippi River this May and Harriet Island could be flooded. My national park's visitor center is in the Science Museum of Minnesota which is right across the Mississippi River from Harriet Island...should make for some interesting photos if it floods.

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I was surprised to find Mr. Neil at home when I stopped by to take photos of the feeders--he travels more than I do. He checked the hives while I was in Panama and did a wee blog about it. He took me out Saturday so we could see them fly out in the warm weather. All of the hives had little flecks of dull gold dots around the hives. The girls had been coming out for a poop. Hans had been doing a good job of helping our hives this winter. He's been shoveling snow away from the entrances to hopefully help with the ventilation. We watched bees fly out of all four hives--even our red hive which is down to only 2 boxes instead of three like the other hives because she swarmed late in summer. I was surprised that all four were all still going despite some of our bone numbing freezing temperatures in January.

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We know not to get too excited about this. Last winter at this time both our hives were in good shape and both died in late March so it ain't over til it's over. We discussed what our plan was. According to the bee class that I took, we should divide our hives this spring to prevent a swarm and save money by dividing one large hive in 2. If we actually get the Russians we ordered last year and are supposed to get this year...that could mean we'd have 9 - 10 hives this spring--YIKES.

Working with queens has been an exercise in heartache for us up to this point: queens arrive before we're ready and die in the cage, queens die in the divide process, new queens are ordered and hives still fail and they get combined into one angry hive. If you have a serious honey operation--dividing hives makes sense if all goes well--one colony becomes two. We don't have a money making honey operation. Neil and I talked about what could be so bad if our hives swarmed and the bees tried to strike out on their own into little feral colonies in his woods? We'd still have plenty of honey from the remaining hive and the feral colony would still pollinate his trees.

I think we will try and divide one hive but let the others go. We congratulated each other at our changing and easy going attitude towards bees. I don't think we're really going to name them anymore. Even if we do we tend to talk to each other about the hives in terms of their box color or in rare cases when a hive has a particular personality--like our ill-fated Lebowski hive (it was a total slacker hive and got robbed by another colony). Mr. Neil smiled that I was seeing the wisdom what he suggested all along--taking a Sue Hubbell approach to bees--the less you do to them, the better off they are. No personal involvement. We will appreciate their pollination, enjoy their honey and hand it out as gifts and watch their industrious nature towards survival with awe.

Then, we noticed a bee flying above us and land on the snow. The snow is so cold that once a bee lands on it, she struggles for about 60 seconds and then freezes to death. Mr. Neil scooped her up from the snow.

Bee Warmer.jpg

He brushed the snow away and breathed his warm breath on her to keep her going. She didn't seem to anxious to leave his glove. He walked over to the top of the hive to set her down, she stayed on his glove. He decided to leave his glove on the hive for the bee to get her bearings and stay warm on the dark fleece in the sun and hopefully when her returned later to retrieve the glove the bee would gone and presumably have flown into her hive. I smiled as we walked away and said, "I'm glad we just had this conversation about being less involved with our bees and you picked one up from the snow, gave mouth to bee heat, and left your glove behind for her."

He smiled and said, "And one has absolutely nothing to do with the other."

Indeed. Ah, spring.

Birding In Fog

Believe it or not, it can be a tad humid in Panama leading to a great deal of fog in the upper elevations early in the morning. It was like walking in a strange dreamland and were surrounded by strange sounds. One of them was a bird that excited our guide Tino (the Human iPod) and he said, "Thrush like schiffornis" and casually walked toward the sound strumming air guitar and whistling back at the bird. He whistled, the bird called back and after a few moments at medium sized ball of brown streaked above our heads across the trail and that was it.

Now this bird is something of a mystery. It goes by many names in the guides because ornithologists appear to not know exactly how to categorize it. You mind find it in a guide as thrush-like mourner or thrush like manakin or thrush-like schiffornis. So, if you haven't gathered, it has characteristics of a thrush, it's kind of a manakin, well maybe not so let's just call it by its latin name schiffornis who knows.  You would think a spectacular mystery bird like this would be something to behold.  Here's a photo of one.  It's worthy of some Non Birding Bill brown bird ridicule.

I giggled later in the day when I read my Panama bird guide about the schiffornis--it said that the only looks you are going to get is of the bird flying away unless you are lucky enough to snare one in a banding net. Ah well, those brown birds, always the heart breakers.

One of our targets was the orange-bellied trogon which was very cooperative despite the fog. That bright belly was a beacon in the haze.

Another most awesome bird that we got to see was a toucanet or more specific a blue-throated toucanet.  Alas, the clouds steal thunder from how mind bendingly beautiful a small green toucan can be. It was awesome to see this little dude (there were actually three) doing their thing and plucking fruit from the trees...and for the record, the little green guys show no interest in helping you find Fruit Loops or Guinness.

And while we were watching some great birds we got to see some interesting bugs. I have no idea what this is, some sort of millipede? I asked someone in our field trip group if they would put their hand next to it for a size comparison because it was huge.  He hesitated...I guess I can't blame him, who knows what creepy defense mechanisms Central American bugs have?

Oh and speaking of bugs--check out this trail.  Any guesses as to what made this trail?  If you said leaf cutter ants, you'd be correct.  I have lots of video of those dudes.  Not only do they cut up pieces of leaves for their little farms, but they clear the path for their trail by removing debris to make it easier for the ones carrying the leaves. There was something ominous to me about see the cleared and well worn trails unused.  Where were the ants and what were they plotting?

Here was a wonderful discovery in the mist--a hummingbird nest.  This time my friend was happy to use their hand for size comparison--no worries at a hummingbird nest as there might be next to an unknown millipede.  The nest had at least one egg in it.  We're not sure of the species, the female didn't fly in while we were there and we didn't hang around so as not to keep the female away from incubating the egg.

So even if fog, there are interesting things to see in Panama.

Hidden Tropical Screech Owl

There's a tropical screech owl hidden in this photo:

Do you see it? I think if you look hard, you can make out the small owl's tail.  See it?  Okay, here's a hint:

Here's a digiscoped image of the little owl. We so would not have seen this little guy had it not been for Tino!

And there the arrow is pointing to the wee owl's tail next to the bromeliad.

Migratory Birds In Panama

I'm very excited, I just got a 2 pound package of shade grown coffee that I ordered in the mail:

I've always been a fan of shade-grown coffee on paper, but generally found the taste of most of them lacking--and I'm not a coffee snob, I'll drink gas station coffee. But generally the flavor of most shade-grown coffee (to me) is enough to make me give up drinking coffee.  Every now and then someone will send me a sample and I don't mention it because...it tastes bad.  But I've been given samples of the above and now I actually order it.  It's from a line of shade-grown coffee from Birds and Beans called the Chestnut-sided Warbler Blend and I really, really like it (I even like it better than Dunkin Donuts coffee, it's like a fuller, richer blend of that coffee).  You can order it from Birds and Beans, but I ordered mine from the ladies at Wild Birds Unlimited in Saratogo Springs, NY because they're one of the few places that carry it, I like them and want them to stay in business but you can also order it from Birds and Beans too.

And why would I bring shade-grown coffee up in the middle of blogging about Panama? Well, while in Panama, I saw several familiar birds like this Baltimore oriole--it's fun to see birds on their migratory habitat in winter. Walking around in Panama, seeing the abundance of fruits and insects, I understood why they risked a long and dangerous journey to spend the winter here rather than the snowy US.

I especially appreciated it as I sat on top of Canopy Tower and read a Snow Emergency Email Alert from the City of Minneapolis. While my home was being covered in yet another blank canvas, the mountains were covered in lush green. How fun to be the one reading about snowmaggedon Tweets and not writing them. But above is the type of habitat our migratory friends need to survive the winter. Coffee plants were originally meant to be grown in the shade but were developed over the years to grow in full sun, meaning our morning cup of joe comes at the expense of habitat our summer birds need to survive the winter in Central and South America.

There's been a movement in the last decade to revert to coffee's original plant and grow it in the shade so we can still drink coffee but not at the expense of birds like orioles, tanagers, grosbeaks (like the preening immature male rose-breasted grosbeak that I saw in Panama above), vireos and warblers. There are several types on the market but it can be a challenge to find on that is truly shade grown (some growers try to get away with one or two trees on the plantation and calling it shade grown) and actually tastes good.  Birds and Beans straddles both by being tasty and having the Smithsonian Certification (so we know it is truly shade grown). I especially like the Chestnut-sided Warbler flavor--a medium roast and it seems appropriate to drink it while blogging about Panama because the most common warbler I saw there was the chestnut-sided (alas, no photos from me but I was happy to see them and enjoy their company as they flitted among the leaves).

Songbirds weren't the only migrants I saw in Central America--there were a TON of turkey vultures, quite possibly the most common bird I saw...do you hear that Hasty Brook? Tons of turkey vultures.  This is an actual migrant turkey vulture.  Carlos--my most awesome guide at Canopy Tower (more on that magical place coming) told me that resident turkey vultures have a white patch on the backs of their heads.  This one with a full read head came from somewhere in North America.  I wondered if it was a Minnesota bird.  I'm working with Carlos on leading a trip to Panama and I am a bit torn.  I'd love to go back this time next year, but they have quite the fall migration of raptors and vultures that you can watch right from the tops of the tower.  Here are a few photos.  If there's a good migration going on, I would have no desire to ever go out on other trips to look for birds.

People have been emailing asking about dates and cost of a Panama trip.  I haven't worked out all the details with Carlos yet, but as soon as I do, I'll post it here and on the Facebook Page so everyone get save pennies and budget.

Canopy Lodge Field Trips

canopy Lodge Breakfast.jpg I look out my apartment window this morning at the new snow cover taking note of the new parking restrictions in my neighborhood (no parking on the even side of the streets until April 1 or some significant snow melt happens). Sigh, not so long ago, I was in Panama, starting my morning with fresh bananas, papaya and watermelon (there was also fresh pineapple but I can't eat that). A little bacon, some eggs, a weird banana bran muffin and a tangy little picante sauce.

The breakfast area at Canopy Lodge was in a buffet style and tables were set up in various sizes to accommodate the various travelers. Some were traveling solo like myself but there was also a birding tour group there too from Field Guides led by John Rowlette. During siesta and after dinner, John and I would find ourselves sitting together taking advantage of the wireless in the library. One night as John and I arrived with our MacBooks in hand someone said, "Watch out, here come the computer nerds!"

"Nerd, eh," I said, "that's big talk coming from a birder."

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And while you ate breakfast outdoors, you could watch the feeders--I have a TON of photos from the feeders between using the Wingscapes Camera or my digiscoping like the above photo of clay-colored robins and a female crimson-backed tanager grabbing onto a blue-gray tanager. You'll be seeing a lot of feeder photos.

I found a group of people who I naturally gravitated to at mealtimes and on field trips. One was a man my age named John, a non birder who was on a month long journey of several stops in Panama. The other was a couple from Amsterdam named Ellen and Emile who were general birders like myself. After initial conversation and birding pleasantries, we revealed our occupations. The man my age turned out to be a writer and film critic and the couple from Amsterdam owned a publishing house. We laughed that 2 writers managed to find the one table in a foreign country with a publisher.

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After breakfast, we'd head out on field trips. If you were in the foothills, the atmosphere was sunny and you could get great photos and watch the clouds play at the tops of the mountains.

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Or your field trips were in the tops of the mountains and you were birding among the clouds. It may not have made for the best photos, but it was almost as though you were birding in a dream with mist momentarily revealing birds with bright colors and then shrouding them suddenly in cloudy mystery. Though overall it was very humid, the temperatures were quite comfortable and I was surprised that I wasn't sweating like crazy.

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My first time out with Tino the Human iPod we walked a road in the foothills near the lodge in bright sun. That's where we got our first sloth of the trip (and certainly not the last) and I saw some familiar birds like the above red-legged honeycreeper. A bird seen throughout Central America but who cares, it's cool, it's blue, it's always a pleasure to see.

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Hummingbirds were all over the place and I had an easier time of getting photos of them perched in trees than at feeders. This hummingbird is called a garden emerald and I think the describes it perfectly--it looks like an emerald and can be found in a garden.

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We got an Amazon kingfisher right away and I chuckled a bit to myself. Right before I left town, an Amazon kingfisher showed up in Laredo, Texas and many of my birding friends were hightailing it out there to get the bird on their US list. I got one, not on my US list, but that's okay. No matter how you slice it, the bird is a huge green kingfisher--what's not to love?

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This was one of my favorite birds we saw--a lineated woodpecker. These are about the size of a pileated woodpecker (the bird that got me into birding). We saw quite a few of these and I was excited to get a photo.

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Here's a yellow-crowned euphonia which were different than the ones coming to the lodge's feeders. I couldn't believe my luck at getting photos of birds this time in Central America--it was very challenging for photos on my first trip to Central America last year with the shade and the birds hiding in the leaves, this time it was much easier. I've been with all sorts of bird guides and I lead trips myself. I know that when I go out of the US that guiding practices may be different depending on how young the tourism industry is in that country. The guides with Canopy Tower and Canopy Lodge were some of the most professional, accommodating and helpful (while still being respectful of the birds) that I ever birded with. They whistled in birds, sometimes used iPods and even laster pointers to help everyone see the birds. There were also little differences too:

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One of the target and prized birds to see is the very secretive tody motmot. Tino came to a spot where he had seen them before, had all of us bunch up next to him and watch a particular thicket. He whistled the motmot's song and then whispered, "There it is." I didn't even see it fly in and I was watching hard but Tino pointed it out. We trained our binoculars on it. As I was getting my good look of this secret and small motmot, Tino set up his scope and my scope on the bird so everyone could get a look and I could get the above photo. I didn't ask Tino to set up my scope, but more than once he would do it unasked. Even more impressive, my scope was different from his. You could tell that he's accustomed to training all sorts of scopes on good birds. It was the look of a lifetime at a very cool bird. I mentioned earlier that Tino played the guitar as well as being a musical wiz with bird calls, but he appears to be a true Rennaisance Man. He's quite the artist, he has quite the sketchbook of art work and his tody motmot illustration is framed at the lodge. He is definitely one of the highlights of the country.

Birding Around Canopy Lodge In Panama

When I arrived in Panama, it was dark.  I couldn't see Panama City when I landed or any of the terrain as the driver took me to Canopy Lodge. Had I not been so exhausted from travel, the sound of running water, frogs and wind would have forced my brain awake, so much of the surrounding terrain was hidden from me and I couldn't wait to see it. Then I woke up the next morning. The wind was really howling, I felt that I had arrived in a strange and mysterious land. I couldn't help but enjoy the nighttime chorus. In Minnesota, February nights are mostly silent (apart from the occasional owl), there no leaves rustling in wind, no running water, no frogs and crickets singing.

The next morning I was roused awake by a very loud and squeaky hummingbird outside my window, I looked out to the above view.  The lodge is tucked in the forest surrounded by mountains. It was humid and it took some time for my body to adjust, but because of the elevation, the temperatures were not overwhelmingly hot. Everything smells warm and wet. The schedule at Canopy Lodge is a dream: breakfast, field trip, lunch, siesta, field trip, and dinner followed by some conversation--a very relaxing pace.

Everything at the lodge is built for luxurious comfort in the open air. The library and dining area is on a large porch area, you can watch birds and wildlife any time that you want. Since I arrived so late at night, the owner--Raúl Arias de Para let me sleep in my first day. Breakfast was waiting for me when I stepped out and right away, foraging on the ground next to the library was a rufous motmot to greet me. The bird perched there most of the time. Alas, it was too dark for a photo, but I was able to get some video of the cool looking bird:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dqva3TgeYx4[/youtube]

I thought about my Guatemala trip last year and how hard it was to see a motmot--mine were pretty much all by ear or dim glimpses. This bird seemed a silent sentry of the lodge.

After breakfast I was free to watch the birds at the feeder which worked out well for me.  When I'm in a new place, it's overwhelming, new birds everywhere! I have to check every single one to make sure I'm not missing anything.  The very active bird feeders satiated that need. I sat in a deck chair and watched the "common" birds like broad-billed euphonia (the little blue and yellow guys) and blue-gray tanagers swarm into the feeder. The feeders were simply filled with bananas and the staff kept a close eye out and replaced them regularly.

I especially loved the large chestnut-headed oropendolas that fly in to the feeders. What an amazing looking bird--that giant beak, the subtle green on the wings, the yellow on the tail, and that lovely little blue eye, they make strange almost mechanical sounds. So I took some time to just enjoy the activity.  The one thing about Canopy Lodge--it is definitely a birder's lodge.  I have a tendency to sleep out of pajamas in warm weather and lounge about that way in the morning. Not thinking, I had most of the curtains open to keep an eye out for birds...I ended up seeing quite a few birders wandering the property (who were far more interested in birds than my open windows) and wearing pajamas to bed.

And what a place to wander! There's a creek right outside the lodge (you can hear it in the background of the motmot video above).  The creek had birds flitting all over including green kingfishers and...

...this very exciting sunbittern! I only saw it in low light and this was the best photo I could get of this bird. Sunbitterns are cool looking birds that eat fish and invertebrates but they do this wild display with their wings. I've read that it is used in courtship displays and to frighten off potential predators.

In the middle of the day, you could find lizards sunning themselves on the rocks in the creek. This was a large male basiliscus we found on a rock. This lizard is also known as "the Jesus Lizard" because the young basiliscus appears to walk on water. It's more of a wild flailing of limbs and tails that makes it look like the lizard walks across the water. It's not majestic, but if you don't know they are there and they take off, it's startling--especially the larger lizards who splash through the water, rather than zip across the top.

The grounds are beautiful and as I meandered watching the various tanagers, I was surprised to find this huge and beautiful tree house. Raúl told me that he had built for his children and they would play and sometimes spend the night in the house. You can still go up in the tree house, but it is required that a member of the staff accompany you to the top for safety reasons. I imagines what a wonderful childhood it would be to have this huge tree house in the top of the rain forest to play and grow up in, oh the things you would see and the adventures you would have.  Under the tree house is a pond with ropes draped overhead to allow you to swing and cool off in the water which at least one person took advantage of during our stay.

I could not get enough of this bird. It's a crimson-back tanager. I didn't think red got much better than a scarlet tanager, but this bird demanded that I reconsider that idea. I don't think any photo can truly do the red of this bird justice. The beak is silver, the bottom mandible huge. I couldn't believe this bird would readily fly in for bananas, but it did. My favorite moment of my first day was sitting in the deck chairs with my coffee (dusted with a bit of cocoa), feeling a cool breeze across my face and staring at the many, many crimson-backed tanagers. This is a bird I saw several times in Panama, but never did I have as good of looks at the crimson-backed as I did at the Lodge. What a treat to be able to drink in the colors.  This is another one of those birds who make me wish I could paint. I would love to spend a few hours drawing this bird, getting to know every nook and cranny of every feather.

More Canopy Birding to come.