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| Ochraceous Peewee |
After our visit to El Valle in Panama (see following post)
we continued heading west on a long drive to the village of Las Lajas on the
Pacific coast. Here, in tall trees lining a road, after some effort we connected with one of the Panama endemics – a
male Veraguan Mango, spotted by our driver, Francisco.
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| Veraguan Mango |
Birds seen from the beach at Las Lajas included Black Tern, Brown
Pelican, Magnificent Frigatebird and Brown Booby. We continued westward,
leaving the province of Veraguas and entering the far western province of
Chiriqui. At around sunset, we arrived at the delightful Hotel Dos Rios - our accommodation for
the next three nights - at an altitude of 1100m in the highlands town of Volcan.
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| Las Lajas |
Our first morning was occupied not far from the town at a
site called Cuesta de Piedra. This place was very birdy and scenic to boot.
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| Ravine at Cuesta de Piedra |
Some of the nice birds
here included Eye-ringed Flatbill, Cherrie’s Tanager, Scarlet-thighed Dacnis,
Fiery-billed Aracari, Speckled Tanager and Costa Rica Brushfinch. In a patch of scrub nearby we had a fine male
Orange-collared Manakin.
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| Fiery-billed Aracari |
In the afternoon we visited some pasture and secondary scrub
on a coffee plantation near Volcan lakes, seeing the distinctive Chiriqui race
of Masked Yellowthroat. My camera is stuffed as a consequence of my dropping it into a creek, so apart from some images from my iphone through the scope (thanks to our guide Kilo for helping with that), some of Ketil Knudsen's lovely images appear here.
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| Scarlet-thighed Dacnis - pic Ketil Knudsen |
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| Speckled Tanager - pic ketil Knudsen |
We spent our next full day walking the Los Quetzales trail from
1700m to 2500m in Volcan Buru National Park. Long-tailed Silky-Flycatcher was
one of the first birds of the day at the start of the trail; later we saw
Black-and-yellow Silky-Flycatcher.
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| Long-tailed Silky-Flycatcher |
Black-cheeked
Warbler, Flame-throated Warbler and Flame-coloured Tanager were among the birds
in the early morning flocks. Scintillant Hummingbird fed in flowering bushes
and higher up were plenty of Volcano Hummingbirds. The cloud forest of the surrounding mountains was looking good on a perfect October morning; this is the wet season, but fingers crossed, to date we have lost hardly any birding time to rain.
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| Volcano Buru National Park |
Other hummingbirds included White-throated Mountain-Gem, Fiery-throated Hummingbird and
Magnificent Hummingbird. Townsend’s Warbler was a Panama tick for Kilo. We were soon onto a Zeledonia (Wrenthrush), a much-wanted
oddity that is likely to be given its own family; most of us secured
satisfactory views of this skulker. Not long after we enjoyed fine views of
another skulker – Silvery-fronted Tapaculo. Yellow-thighed Finch and
Large-footed Finch were both seen well. A Black Guan was flushed.
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| Ochraceous Peewee |
The track was very birdy. Good birds in the flocks included
Buffy Tuftedcheek, Ruddy Treerunner, Yellowish Flycatcher , Black-thighed Grosbeak
and Red-faced Spinetail. We were happy to connect with a flock of about 8
Silvery-throated Jays – a difficult species to score within its limited range.
Soon after we found another tricky specialty of the site –
an Ochraceous Peewee near the track.
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| Costa Rica Pygmy-Owl |
We found a juvenile male Resplendent Quetzel early on the walk but some of the group later saw a group of five, including an adult male, When we returned to the vehicle in the afternoon we tracked
down - with a good deal of difficulty - a calling Costa Rica Pygmy-Owl.
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| Resplendent Quetzal - Ketil Knudsen |
Our final morning in the Volcan area was occupied in secondary scrub and a patch of rainforest in the Volcan Lakes area.
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| Volcan Lakes |
Nice additions to the list included Ruddy Foliage-gleaner and Violet Sabrewing.
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