2019/04 Panama trip - Discovery Center |
|||||
Wednesday April 24th
We were up before the birds and even before the howlers, and off on our first tour before dawn. Our guide was Jorge, pronounced “Horhay”. Our transport was a flat-bed truck with a snorkel behind the cab and equipped with sideways bench seats, four to a side; I called it the birdmobile.
 |
Toucan (0.37) |
 |
|---|
|
Birdmobile (0.46) |
 |
|---|
We were going to the Panama Rainforest Discovery Center. The birdmobile took us down the hill and across the Chagres River to the odd little town of Gamboa, another relic of the Canal Zone. It includes the prison where the Americans held dictator Manuel Noriega after his surrender to their troops in 1990.
|
Discovery Tower birds (1.55) |
 |
|---|
The Discovery Center is on the Pipeline Road, constructed in World War 2 as a backup in case the canal itself was destroyed. It was never used and is now famous as a place to see the more than 500 species of birds that inhabit the surrounding jungle. 
We were there primarily to visit another tower; a platform reached by a 100 foot high spiral staircase. It was above the canopy, so we had a 360 degree view of the forest. There were over a dozen of us up there plus a couple of guys with howitzer-sized lenses. My big lens was about half the size, but it was about all I could carry.
It was hot up there in the sunshine but there was a nice breeze. Some of the birds were easy to identify like these keel-billed toucans, but mostly we were struggling with unfamiliar species and names.
Jorge, our guide, had a laser pointer so he could direct us to birds that we couldn’t see yet, and a spotting scope so we could see a close-up of the bird. He could imitate many bird and animal calls and also had a phone and speakers that could project any of the local bird calls.
We were amazed by the guides’ eyesight and their ability to identify distant birds flitting through the treetops. Jorge was very patient with the two of us; we probably saw only about half of the birds he did.
There were butterflies and capuchin monkeys as well as the birds: toucans, motmots, trogons, parrots, vireos, and the more familiar hawks and kites and vultures and woodpeckers. There was considerable excitement at the sighting of a blue cotinga, a rare and beautiful blue bird. All I could see was a distant blue pixel. The postman butterfly is on a lantana, I think; an invasive weed around the world but at home here in Panama.
|
Capuchin monkeys (1.04) |
 |
|---|
|
Discovery hummingbirds (1.04) |
 |
|---|
After a couple of hours we came down to the Center’s verandah where we were entertained by dozens of hummingbirds visiting the feeders. 
Walking the trails found a few more birds in the undergrowth and we had some warnings about the ants. There are columns of leaf-cutter ants everywhere, taking gigantic leaf fragments back to the nest. These are mostly harmless but there are also columns of army ants which can give painful stings. Then there are the bullet ants, usually solitary and about an inch long. They are called bullet ants as their sting is as painful as a bullet wound. Victims may be sick for a few weeks too.
No, I wasn’t wearing sandals! We were all being careful not to lean on rails or trees without looking first. There were constant scurrying noises in the undergrowth, probably lizards we’d disturbed. There are some snakes of course, but they rarely make any noise.