A Lesser Setback

Day 6.5 of Nine

Oops.  I counted as a new species one that we had already seen before.  But I guess one can be forgiven for overlooking a bird with such a humble name as Lesser Greenlet.

Subtract one new species from Day 5.  Back down to 30 for the week and 70 more to go.  

Why Birds This Week?

Day 6 of Nine

Today, Thursday, we are preparing to move from the mountains of Boquete to the beaches of Bocas del Toro, Panama.  So no new birds today.  Just a day of rest before our big transcontinental push tomorrow.  We’ll be up and out of the house early in the morning, birding the whole way to Bocas.

So why is this week devoted to birding?  We’ve survived, even succeeded in the last 6 weeks of Spanish school.  Four hours a day, five days a week, plus homework.  The homework was easy the first 3 weeks, but it ramped up steeply in Survivor II, the second 3 weeks.  We were introduced to 3 new verb tenses in the last week, and we both felt like we were losing more than we were gaining.  In short, we were tired and feeling a bit burned out. 

All along we had been planning this 1 week vacation between the first 6 weeks in Boquete and 2 more weeks in Bocas del Toro.  Now it looks like great planning, because it couldn’t have come at a better time. 

We feel good about how much we have learned, but still find it extremely difficult to put our lessons to use in actual conversation.  But in time, that too will come, as long as we keep at it.   

So the birding this week is a little breather to refresh us before the final 2 weeks.  More studying ahead.  Life is not just about birding.  But you already knew that.

Got A Few Today

Day 5 of Nine

Despite our guides’ lament—“This is horrible.  Last time I was here we stayed 2 hours and couldn’t leave for all the birds. Today, nothing”—we did see some birds today.  Like I thought, we found different bird life in the lower elevations.  It was at times slow birding, but still we got a few new ones today in and near the village of Caldera.

Add these to the list:

White-winged Becard
Southern Beardless Tyrannulet
Gray-headed Chachalaca
Rough-legged Tyrannulet (aka White-fronted Tyrannulet)
Thick-billed Seed-Finch
Squirrel Cuckoo
Blue-headed Parrot
Lesser Greenlet
Lance-tailed Manakin

Unfortunately for me, Peggy saw that Lance-tailed Manakin, but I didn’t.  So I guess it counts toward the 100 for the week, right?  That means today 9 new ones, and for the week 31.  Only 69 to go!

Falling Behind

Day 4 of Nine

Now I am discouraged.  About meeting my goal of seeing 100 new bird species this week, I mean.  We had a very fine morning of birding in a remarkably verdant forest in a private farm/reserve above Boquete town.  But most of the birds were not willing to be seen today.  We saw more bird-tails-behind-leaves and rear-ends-flying-away today than we saw birds in clear profile.  There were a lot of birds around.  Peggy and the guide, Terry, told me they could hear lots of them—but mostly I cannot hear the high-pitched birds any more.

Fortunately for me, I can still hear some of the lower-pitched songs, and because of that I got one of the lifers we “saw” today.  As soon as we got out of the car this morning we heard a bird calling frequently from deep within the forest—impossible to see or get to it.  But with Terry’s help we learned it was the Three-wattled Bellbird.  Which is an odd name, because it sounds nothing like a bell, but very much like a croaking frog.  So we memorized the “song” to compare it later to the wonderful collection of bird songs at www.xeno-canto.org.  It was easy to confirm that the croaking we heard was the same as the recordings of the Three-wattled Bellbird recorded nearby.  It’s a shame we didn’t see it, because the male is rather ugly in a beautiful kind of way with those 3 pendulous wattles hanging from its bill. Maybe someday soon.

And here is the very short new bird list of the day.

Scaly-throated Foliage-gleaner (aka Spectacled Foliage-gleaner)
Three-wattled Bellbird

So instead of the 6 or 8  or more new species I had hoped for, we got 2 new species for the day, totaling 22 species in 4 days.  That’s less than half of the daily average needed to make 100.  I’m way behind.  Now reaching my goal seems very doubtful.

There is still good birding ahead, however.  Tomorrow we plan to go down to lower elevations where we have spent very little time.  Elevation makes a tremendous difference to the birds here in the tropics, so as we go to low country I have high hopes for some new finds tomorrow.   Thursday will be an off-day as we prepare to move to the Caribbean beach-front town of Bocas del Toro, so I expect zero new birds that day.  Friday will be a big day as we cross the continental divide and for the very first time bird the Atlantic slope of Panama.  Just like the change in elevation, changing from one side of the mountains to the other has a great effect on the bird life.  That day will be the biggest birding day of the week.  But could we get 50 or more in one day?  Right now it doesn’t feel possible.  Then Saturday and Sunday, the 8^th and 9^th days of the week we will be settling into our new digs in Bocas del Toro and exploring the island.  We’ll see more new birds there.  Will it be enough for 100 in the  or week?

Today I doubt I’ll make it, so I am discouraged about the goal.  But I am not the least bit discouraged about the adventure of it.  We are having a grand time exploring this little part of God’s creation, seeing, and sometimes hearing, the colorful, loud and strange spectacle of bird life that God put here.  We experience it as though a gift God meant for us to enjoy.

When a Week Is Nine Days

4 June 2012.  My goal is 100 new birds in a week, right?  Well, in my week I’m giving myself both weekends.  So that makes it a 9 day week.  I need 11.111 birds per day, on average.  But do you think I’m counting?  I sure am.  Some of my faithful readers (well, maybe one or two) have asked why I don't write more about birds.  You asked for it, you got it!  This week is devoted to the birds.  All 9 days of it.

 

Day 1 of Nine.  Saturday we left Boquete in a rental car and birded our way to Cerro Punta on the other side of our volcano Volcan Baru.  Our first stop of the morning came with an exclamation—“Wow! What was that?”  It was not one, but 6 Fiery-billed Aracaris.  Their long bills and wild coloration could put the Fruit Loops toucan to shame.  They were stunning, but not new.  We did see a 3 new ones at this stop along the road, and 6 more at the next stop, which was actually planned.  Finally, we added 2 new hummingbirds at the feeders at Cielito Sur B&B.

Eleven for the day!  A pretty good start.

Golden-hooded Tanager
Green Honeycreeper
Scaled Pigeon
Bananaquit
Bran-colored Flycatcher
Black-and-white Owl
Yellow Tyrannulet
Yellow-crowned Euphonia
Olivaceous Piculet
Green Violet-ear
Stripe-tailed Hummingbird

Nope, I’m not making up these names.  I’m not that creative.

Day 2 of Nine.  We started birding today in Volcan Baru National Park.  It was slow at first, but then we encountered a mixed flock in the cloud forest that got us off and running.  We got up as high as the start of Los Queztales Trail—famous for Resplendant Queztals, but we have already seen several of them—and then we headed back down.  Five lifers here.  After a short drive to the other side of the valley we entered La Amistad International Park.  There we got 1 lifer while eating lunch and 3 more out on the trail.  That is 9 for the day and 20 in 2 days.  I’m really pleased.

Collared Redstart
Flame-throated Warbler
Ruddy Treerunner
Black-billed Nightingale-thrush
Mountain Thrush
Long-tailed Silky-flycatcher
Yellowish Flycatcher
Black-cheeked Warbler
Spot-crowned Woodcreeper

We also saw a Scintillant Hummingbird at the B&B.  It wasn’t new this week, but worth mentioning just for the name.

Day 3 of Nine.  We birded the grounds of the B&B after breakfast (delicious!), and then loaded the car to bird our way back to our home stay in Boquete.  We got kind of a late start, and the morning was sunny and hot.  Birding was slow at first, and then got slower.  We stopped at a couple of recommended stops.  Nada.  We looked especially for the White-crested Coquette, but nada.  We ended up back at the home stay with nothing new to show for the day.

That’s zero for today and 20 new species in 3 days.  My pace is now 13.333 species behind the average of 11.111 per day.  I’m disappointed with the day, but not yet discouraged.  The best is yet to come.  The next 2 days we go out with a local guide, and Friday we’ll be going with her again to cross the isthmus to the Atlantic side where there are many birds that don’t appear here on the Pacific side of the mountains.   It can still be done.

Beisbol en Panamá

27 May 2012.  Sunday.


What a pleasant afternoon it was.  A couple weeks back we discovered that each Sunday there is baseball at the local baseball stadium.  Today we decided we must try it out.  We were already in town, so it was easy to hail a taxi.  However, because the ball park was in the opposite direction from home, our usual destination, the taxi driver instinctively swung the car around and headed toward home.  We got him to stop quickly enough, but then a confused conversation ensued.  When I concluded he was not going our direction, we hopped out of the taxi and crossed the street to the spot where we began.  After a few confused looks and hand signals from the taxi driver, he turned the taxi around and we hopped right back in the same car.  Off we went.

A couple of kilometers later (all uphill), we arrived at the stadium.  Admission was free, so in we walked.  The grand stand was not large, but there were bleacher seats for maybe 300 or 400 people.  Only about a hundred were there today.  The game was already underway, so we just grabbed a spot on the bleachers and began to absorb the experience.  Quite a few people were watching us as we walked in and climbed to our seats.  As we settled in, it was hard not to notice immediately the play-by-play announcer.  He was standing on top of the scorer’s booth immediately behind home plate.  With a microphone in his hand, and powerful speakers to broadcast his insight, he was talking non-stop.  I mean non-stop. 

His only breaks came between the half-innings.  Then he rested while lively Latino music entertained us.  In his first break after we arrived he came right over to us, and after determining we could speak a little Spanish, he asked a few friendly questions.  As soon as his microphone was live again he presented us to the crowd as baseball fans all the way from Alaska in the United States.  He, and the crowd, welcomed us as I waved my hat in acknowledgement.  After that most of the people returned to watching the game instead of us.

It was a very friendly crowd.  Much cheering, and no jeering.  No one ever yelled at the umpire—I appreciated that.  And such good behavior despite what looked like a more than ample flow of beer throughout the stands.  Beer and soup.  No hot dogs.  You could get an empañada if you wanted, but the soup was almost as popular as the beer.  Each bowl (of soup!) contained a nice piece of chicken.

The teams were all local.  We saw the end of one game and the start of a second, so we saw 4 teams in action.  It was adult league ball.  Lots of 20- and 30-somethings enjoying the activity.  The best of the teams was mostly young guys—much faster and a little less rusty.  Some of the men on each team had similar uniforms, but others wore completely different colors.  Like maybe at one time they had enough uniforms, but some had long since disappeared.

Of course I noticed the umpires.  The plate umpire was fully equipped and in a typical umpire uniform.  The base umpire wore the right pants, but the shirt wasn’t quite right.  Both of them seemed experienced, but their mechanics were clearly not learned at the Jim Evans Academy of Professional Umpiring.  At one point I was afraid the first base umpire was going to have to make a call at third base while still standing behind first base.  He was lucky not to have any close calls to make from so far out of position. 

I itched to get into the game.  Maybe in our next assignment I’ll find a place to umpire some games.  Baseball is the national sport of Nicaragua, you know.

When it was time to go, we waved goodbye to our fellow fans and hailed another taxi back into town.  What a fine afternoon.

It's For the Birds

29 May 2012.  Of course the main reason we came to Panama is to learn Spanish.  But we came to Panamá because it also has some fantastic birds for watching.  So we don’t just study Spanish here.  We are birders, after all. 

Some say the most beautiful bird in the world is the Resplendent Quetzal.  The “most” qualifier is debatable, but the “beautiful” part is beyond debate.  We can personally confirm that.  We’ve seen several now on three different outings.  It is a special bird to see.

Since leaving the USA six weeks ago we have seen 140 species of birds, and of them 101 we had never seen before.  Even so, we have barely scratched the surface.  Panama is about the same size as South Carolina.  In that area it has about 975 species of birds.  That is a greater number than exist in the USA and Canada combined! 

About a week ago we visited the home of two birders we recently met here in Boquete.  Would you believe they are from Kodiak, Alaska?  They took us out birding a couple times in the forest, but for a real treat they showed us how to see hummingbirds up close.  I mean really close!  Peggy took a picture.

We are now in our 6^th week of studies.  All along we have planned to take a one-week break after week 6, and now it is really close.  We will travel to some different spots and walk some new areas, experiencing Panama and looking for birds all the way.  Can we find another 100 new species in week of more intense birding?  I think so.  I’ll make it a goal.