A handful of reports have come in during the last week or so. The most interesting news comes from Garth Riley of Etobicoke, Ontario; Garth visited the Canal area in early January with his wife and two teenage boys, and stayed at both the Canopy Tower and the Gamboa Rainforest Resort. Garth gave me an excellent description of what he believed to be a Crested Eagle seen soaring above the village of Gamboa, observed on January 7th. 2007. I've studied his detailed notes (click here to see the exact words of Garth's report), and I have to say that I can't (as of this writing) eliminate the possibility that the bird was an immature Harpy Eagle from the reintroduction project on nearby Pipeline Road. Crested Eagle is too rare in the region to add to the record without absolutely indisputable documentation. Mind you, Crested Eagle sounds best based on the info at hand, and I certainly would welcome comment from more expert sources. Take good cheer, Garth; either one of these eagles is a wonderful sighting indeed!
By the by, Garth also reports a Fasciated Tiger-Heron from the edge of the Chagres River on the property of the Gamboa Rainforest Resort, seen on January 2nd. This is probably the same bird seen in the area a couple of weeks later by Edie Israel (see below).
David Mandell and Jay Withgott of Portland, Oregon, two fellows ambitiously taking an unguided tour of central Panama, found an Agami Heron on Summit Ponds on February 26th, in roughly the same spot where this regionally-rare species was found in September of 2006. Carlos Bethancourt of the Canopy Tower noted the same bird on March 1st. Carlos also passed on sightings of a few of the hard-to-find (although strictly speaking not rare) birds of the region. He found a Pheasant Cuckoo near the entrance of Pipeline Road on February 28th, and Alexis Sanchez found a Rufous Nightjar in the same area the day before. The latter species, a caprimulgid of the deep forest, is probably fairly common in this area, but is rarely reported as birders are not often out on Pipeline for nocturnal visits. David and Jay, and all of the Tower's guides, report that there has been a pair of Sunbitterns on the stream along Plantation Road in recent weeks. This splendid bird has been noted in the past from the Semaphore Hill area, but with decreasing frequency in recent years, so the possibility that a breeding pair has become re-established here is good news indeed.
