A trip to Panama is a trip to bird paradise
(canada.com) When it comes to birding, I am convinced that I get more thrills from showing a new bird to a novice bird-watcher than seeing one the first time myself.
I visited Panama with my wife and our two offspring this past December as part of our annual Christmas getaway from the stress of gift-giving. While Derek and Erin prefer to go to places that offer body-surfing and snorkeling, I always insist that there be opportunities for me to see new birds.
Bridging two continents, the tiny country of Panama is home to more bird species than any other in Central America; some are resident year-round, while many are migrants from the U.S and Canada. Panama encompasses a mere 78,000 square kilometers but contains an amazing avifauna of around 972 species. Canada, just a tad short of a million square kilometers, is home to about 482 bird species.
We chose the Royal Decameron Beach Resort in Farallon and, as expected, the first birds I laid eyes upon after stepping off the shuttle bus were blue-gray tanager, great-tailed grackle, social flycatcher, magnificent frigatebird, and brown pelican. I particularly enjoyed watching a horde of black vultures gobbling up a good-size fish carcass that was washed up on the beach.
It is certainly possible to do some decent birding right on the grounds of the resort. A fellow Quebecker named Jean Bernier and his companion racked up about 75 species without even getting into a vehicle!
I befriended Jean during the one birding excursion offered by the resort to the Cerro Campana National Park. Our guide was a 32-year-old Indian named Igua Jiminez.
When we arrived just inside the park gates and Jiminez pointed out a hawk perched above the road in a tree and called it a roadside hawk, I was a bit apprehensive about his birding skills. It was clearly a broad-winged hawk, a migrant species that commonly breeds in North America. I kept my mouth shut because all birders, including me, are prone to occasionally making snap but incorrect identifications.
My fears were unfounded. Within the next hour, "Iggy" demonstrated his excellent birding skills, pointing out by song alone, a number of birds in the tropical rainforest, including antshrikes, eleania, and leaftossers.
Neither of my kids are especially interested in bird-watching, although they do enjoy seeing the more spectacular species from time to time. But for my daughter, Erin, there is one exception - toucans, specifically the famous keel-billed toucan or "Fruit Loops" bird. So I made it my goal to show her one.
The four of us rented a car and headed off to one of Panama's jewels for bird-watching - Pipeline Road, a national park.
Pipeline Road (or Camino del Oleoducto) has consistently set world record bird counts in a 24-hour period - up to 367 different birds, including thick-billed motmot, slaty-tailed trogon, and of course, keel-billed toucan.
We had barely parked the car when I looked up into a tall dead tree and spotted about five birds with toucan-like beaks. I had my binoculars into Erin's hands within five seconds and she got her first look at, well, not a keel-billed toucan, but a collared aracari. Close, but no cigar!
I was proud of my daughter when she spotted a breath-taking violaceous trogon, a new species for me.
So did Erin eventually see her keel-billed toucan? Well, she did spot a silhouette of one flying high over the road while departing Cerro Campana, but it was not sufficient to quell her desire to get a really good look.
Secretly, this pleases me. A best buddy of mine has purchased a winter home on the grounds of the Royal Decameron and you can be darn sure that both Erin and I will knocking on his door more than once in the not-too-distant future.
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David Bird is a professor of wildlife biology and director of the Avian Science and Conservation Centre on the Macdonald campus of McGill University.
