2019/04 Panama trip - Canal at Lake Gatun |
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Friday April 26th
We all met up on the viewing platform at about 6.30 am, easier than it sounds as the mornings were always warm and there was tea and coffee close at hand. The guides were there with their pointers and spotting scopes and there was usually plenty of bird activity.
The guests changed from day to day. Tim, a young American teacher, had left the previous day to go on to the Canopy Camp in the Darien area. He seemed to know the birds as well as the guides did, and he got on well with everyone. The Spanish couple had gone too. Barbara and Alex from Edmonton were with us for another couple of days. Martin, a retiree from England with a great sense of humour, was on a month-long trip to Panama.
George, from New York, had just joined us. If you read children’s books then you know Curious George; this was Garrulous George, an expert on everything, whether you needed one or not. More recent arrivals were Charles and Jessie from Telluride; though Jessie never made it to the early morning sessions.
Once again we were on our own, on a morning boat trip onto Lake Gatun, and once again we had to tell the envious others about our mammal package. We had been given a detailed itinerary when we booked but although we were taking the advertised trips, the order depended on what the other groups and guides were doing and every day’s schedule was a 
surprise to us!
On our way out we stopped partway down the hill to look at this black and white owl.
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Semaphore Hill Birds (0.45) |
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From there, we went back down to the river again and boarded a boat at the marina. It was large enough for a dozen of us, but there was just the boatman, guide Igua, and the two of us. We had an awning but as always we kept our arms and legs covered despite the heat, as this trip would be an opportunity for some serious sunburn.
We putzed around the Marina for a while getting a closer look at many of the water birds we’d seen there on the Thursday 
evening. We also found a number of small crocodiles. These were American crocodiles, sometimes seen in brackish water around the Florida coast, and generally larger and more aggressive than the American alligator.
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Gamboa lagoon (3.13) |
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We headed under the road and railway bridges out into Lake Gatun. This is part of the canal so we were sharing the waterway with freighters headed in both directions. We were under canal rules and had to wear lifejackets. The canal’s banks showed evidence of a hundred years of history: rusting machinery, empty buildings, and the remains of docks. We blasted through this area at speed and then slipped into the backwaters around the 
islands, what used to be the hilltops around the Chagres River.
As well as this enormous crocodile, we saw many water and wading birds. Amongst them was the limpkin, on the right, thought to be one of the oldest species of birds. The bird on the left is an anhinga, also called the snake bird as that’s what it looks like in the water.
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Panama Canal (1.09) |
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We saw more monkeys, capuchins and tamarins. We weren’t the only tourists out there and the monkeys obviously were used to being fed. This cormorant was circling our boat looking for a handout when it strayed too close to a crocodile, barely escaping the croc’s lunge.
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Baby crocodiles (3.25) |
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The guys spotted a group of baby crocs at the water’s edge and scooped up a couple for us to look at. So I got to hold a crocodile, the biggest one I ever want to get close to. Igua was making baby croc noises to sooth the ones we’d caught when mama croc showed up next to the boat. I let mine go! On the other side of the boat.
As well as the crocodiles, we found these basilisk lizards and a large green iguana.
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Island Fauna (5.43) |
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Cormorant (0.49) |
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Return from canal (1.08) |
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Amongst the islands we felt like we were out in the wilderness, but this feeling disappeared when a gigantic container ship 
appeared, following the dredged channel through the lake and looming over us and the islands.