Birds and Nature North America

Smooth-billed Ani at Gamboa wetlands

Birding Central Panama

– Gamboa, Pipeline Road, Metropolitan Park, and Kuna Yala

8-16 March 2025

large ship passes through the Culebra Cut, Panama Canal, Gamboa

As some readers may recall, at my retirement I made a pledge to confine my naturizing to the US and Canada (Alaska included, of course). David Wilcove, however, talked me into making a quick trip to the tropics during his school mid-term break. We settled on Panama. Great choice!

White-nosed Coatis were common at the forest-edge.

It turns out Panama offers accessible and species-rich old growth rainforest a mere 5-hour flight from DC. Also a grand rainforest hotel right at the verge of the 55,000-acre Soberanía National Park, just a 45-minute Uber from the airport! The hotel, Gamboa Rainforest Reserve, has great birding on the campus and offers an abundance of walks into the forest and down along the Chagres River. A short drive got us to the famous Pipeline Road (where I had camped with John Terborgh’s tropical ecology course in 1978).

Alberto and I gaze up at a giant Ceiba pentandra along the Pipeline Road. This looks like a botanical garden but is

a wild rainforest...

Wilcove’s big birding desire on this trip was to get a look at the Sapayoa (Sapayoa aenigma)—the evolutionarily mysterious sub-oscine that has befuddled systematists since it was described by Ernst Hartert in 1903. This unprepossessing songbird has variously been placed in the Manakins, or situated near the Old World Broadbills and Pittas, or even as incertae sedis [of uncertain placement]. It is today placed in its own bird family, the Sapayoidae, and seated at the very base of the passerines and of ancient Gondwanan roots. OK! So we had to go see a Sapayoa so that David could close out the last of the Neotropical bird families for his life list.

A Keel-billed Toucan pair. We would see this species in the Hotel parking lot trees in the early morning...

Hunting for the Sapayoa took us on a day trip to the San Blas hills east of the Canal. We visited Kuna Yala with our guide Alberto, who with his local compatriot Maxxie, took us into the wet hilltop forest to an upland stream valley that hosted a single pair of the birds. As the mid-day rains started, we located a single bird high in the canopy. Our two guides also pointed out last year’s nest for the species. Mission accomplished!

You say you want to see a photo of a Sapayoa? OK, here you go!

Other rambles of our weeklong visit took us to Metropolitan Park (superior rainforest birding right in town), Old Gamboa Road, the Gamboa wetlands, and back to reliable Pipeline Road. Our Panamanian sojourn produced one pleasant surprise after another.

White-faced Capuchin monkey female. We encountered wild primates on an hourly basis.

We bumped into Doug Robinson, a professor at Oregon State University and expert on Panama’s birds. With two students in tow, Robinson was repeating yet again his annual survey of the birds of Barro Colorado Island, documenting the slow decline of the avifauna of that intensively-researched island managed by STRI—the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. It was fun to catch up at the end of the day with Robinson and his team… (Wilcove, Robinson, and Beehler had all participated in the International Ornithological Congress in Durban, South Africa, so we had lot to chat about).

Rufescent Tiger-Heron in the Gamboa wetlands.

Take-home point: A trip to Gamboa and Soberanía National Park is a winner for anyone who wants to have an easy but immersive rainforest experience with an abundance of birds, mammals, and rainforest plantlife, with a minimum of muss and fuss. I thank Byron Swift for recommending the Gamboa Rainforest Reserve. And what follows is a photographic appreciation of our trip to Panama!

Agoutis were everywhere!

Yes, USAID supported important environmental projects on the Pipeline Road of Soberania National Park.

Two casts of army ants. We hunted for ant swarms in order to see the many species of ant-following birds.

Spotted Antbird female.

Bicolored Antbird--an obligate ant-swarm follower....

Female Black Howler monkey. The largest primate in the forest and a leaf-eater.

Male Black Howler. The tremendous growls of the males broadcast through the forest...

Black-breasted Puffbird.

Black-cheeked Woodpecker.

Black-crowned Antshrike.

Black-throated Trogon

Kettle of Broad-winged Hakws accompanied by Swainson's Hawks and Black Vultures. One would look up mid-day to see hundreds of migrating raptors! A remarkable scene!! Spring migration in Panama!!!