A mixed bag of reports have come in from the guides at the Canopy Tower and Canopy Lodge in the last week or so; June is an interesting month in Panamá, as the rainy season gets into full-swing, when adult birds grow suddenly silent, but juvenille birds are a big part of the mix. From the Canopy Tower: on June 12th Carlos Bethancourt found a Least Bittern at Tocumen Marsh, a somewhat rare find anywhere in Panamá. He amusingly noted that they brought home a trifecta of the "Least" birds of Panamá by finding Least Grebe and Least Tern on the same day! On June 13th Carlos found a Black-crowned Tityra at the Ammo Dump Ponds in Gamboa; this very local (and mostly Caribbean-slope) species is most likely, in the area, to be found at the Summit Gardens to the south, so this sighting is noteworthy for its location. Another good find at the Ammo Dump was a Collared Forest-Falcon found on June 13th, reported by Carlos Bethancourt but initially spotted by Sarah Davis of Atlanta, GA. Any daytime sighting of a forest-falcon is a cause for celebration, and finding one away from the deeper forest is quite a novelty indeed. On June 14th Carlos reported a Little Tinamou from the Summit Ponds; this shy species is always much easier to hear than see.
From the Canopy Lodge: on June 16th Moyo Rodríguez and a group found a Spot-crowned Barbet on the Chorro El Macho trail; this "Caribbean-slope" species is being seen with increasing regularity on the Pacific slope in El Valle. Also noteworthy was a Rufous-crested Coquette found by Moyo on June 17th (and a few days before), also on the Chorro el Macho trail, and always at the same set of flowers. This is the best time of year for this species in El Valle, but this is a new location for the bird, perhaps explaining its periodic disappearances from its usual haunts in the gardens around the Canopy Lodge itself.
Keep your eyes on these pages in the coming months; I'll be in Panamá for July and August, and, besides browbeating the local guides for information, I'll have a lot of firsthand sightings from central Panamá to share. The rainy season can be a fine time for birding in Panamá!
