Baby Three-toed Sloth Scratching Its Face

I have no patience.  I had this idea that I would go through my Panama trip chronologically using my words, photos and even some edited HD video.  But I'm too excited about this baby sloth! I blogged way too early about sloth in Panama.  I didn't think my look at a sloth was going to get much better than the one I saw my first full day there, but sloth ended up being a daily occurrence.  So, here is a snippet of a sloth video that I'm working on.  It's a female three-toed sloth with a baby crawling over her belly and trying to scratch its face that we got on one of our field trips with Canopy Tower.

Warning: may cause your head to implode with its utter cuteness. This may rival my Baby Porcupine Eating a Banana with Hiccups video:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rOWot9pTuE[/youtube]

If you're wondering about the sound in the background--a cicada that sounds like a buzz saw.

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.

Turkey Vulture Crash & Golden Eagle Attacks Deer

I'm catching up on emails and blogs since I came home--have you seen Julie Zickefoose's new blog redesign? It's fabu! In the world of Holy Crap links, my buddy Amber told me about a helicopter pilot that was supposed to some filming during the Super Bowl and had a turkey vulture crash through his window and land in his lap. The pilot landed safely (and surprisingly didn't get barfed on) and the vulture flew away before animal control could take it to be checked by vet!

And on an Illinois listserv is a a photo series and story of a golden eagle attacking a white-tailed deer! Golden eagles eat dead here in winter and we've had some reports of young eagle especially attacking young deer. There's no way a golden is going to fly off with a deer but attacking and following a weak deer is not out of the realm of possibility. That would be food for a few days.

Also, I put out a request for birds before I left on my blog and on my Facebook page. People gave me a list of birds or mammals they wanted me to try and document while I was in Central America. I got quite a few, but not all. You can check it out here

Canopy Lodge Field Trips

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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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:

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.

Canopy Lodge Guide

Here's a preview for a coming blog entry about going out with Tino one of the guides from Canopy Lodge. Raul the owner told me that Tino is known as the "human iPod" for his ability to mimic the many bird calls of Panama--it's no exaggeration.  Here's is a few minutes of Tino in action. [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbVGjh7T6Ug[/youtube]

He whistled the entire time we were out. He would whistle, hear the bird answer back and say something like, "Ant thrush!" As he would walk to the bird's location, he would nonchalantly play air guitar. I asked him if he played and he held up his hand. His fingers showed the well worn callouses of a dedicated musician. It made sense that Tino played guitar. A person with that ability to remember and mimic bird calls must have some sort of musical talent.

Teenage Birder Explains Birding

This is a video by Stephen Rutt who is taking a media class and chose to use his hobby of birding to make a documentary about the definitions of a birder vs twitcher.  Very cool effort and fun video of some British species: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySRkIFsPp24[/youtube]

Very cool, Stephen!

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.

Must Listen: Yellow-rumped Caciques

Check out this short clip of yellow-rumped caciques (pronunciation here) in full display mode--you must listen to this crazy sound! [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_bDMRspdlU[/youtube]

I'm in the process of editing video and photos from Panama...wow, HD video takes up a lot of space on my poor laptop, but I got some cool stuff.  Panama is a birding wonderland. I've been to several places and I have enjoyed them all, but the birding at Canopy Lodge and Canopy Tower is top tier. I love it because you get a little of everything--natural history, mammals, plants, even cultural history if you want it.

I enjoyed it so much, that I'm going to put together a tour to head there next year. I'm looking at February 2011 but if anyone already knows that they'd love to go and wants to request dates, I'm open.  I have to go back and I love the idea of doing an International Birds and Beers.  If you are remotely on the fence about going to Panama, my future blog entries will change your mind. Definitely in my top three birding places.

Hot New Bird House

The new standard in bird houses: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u08oJJh5SKk[/youtube]

Stop! Coati Time!

A coati eating a palm fruit on the road outside of Canopy Tower: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yVNLEl8quE[/youtube]