Section 1 - Introduction, logistics, itinerary and general information.
Section 2 - Birding sites (part 1).
Section 3 - Birding sites (part 2).
Section 4 - Birding sites (part 3).
Section 5 - Annotated checklist.
Cerro Jefe
Thirty kilometres east of Panama City, the 1,007 metre Cerro Jefe can be birded easily within a day, although one visit may be insufficient to find the chief specialities; Violet-capped Hummingbird and Tacarcuna Chlorospingus. Black-eared Wood-Quail is fairly common, but elusive, and both Speckled Antshrike and Russet-crowned Quail-Dove, although highly unlikely, have been recorded from Jefe.
The summit, on which several radio transmitters have been built (enclosed by a large barbed wire fence), can be accessed by road, although the last 5 kilometres are dirt (in a terrible condition when I visited) requiring a 4x4 vehicle. If walking the last stretch, it might be possible to hitch a ride up with maintenance engineers which occasionally work on the transmitters, although they are unlikely to be on the road very early in the day.
From Panama City follow the Intercontinental Highway east toward the Tocumen International Airport. After about 17 kilometres, just before the airport, turn left, north, at the Riande Continental Hotel. After a further 6.6 kilometres, in the small town, turn left at the crossroads. After another 1.9 kilometres turn left opposite the massive sign/advertisement for Cerro Azúl. (Rufous Nightjar occurs in the grassland at this junction). Zero the trip meter here and follow the winding road to the summit. At 17 kilometres, there is a small cafe which rather conveniently opens at 06:00. The small supermarket nearby opens at 08:00. Paved road ends at 19.8 kilometres.
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Habitat around the summit is elfin cloud forest and edge. The lower slopes have been extensively cleared, although remaining forest patches hold several species of interest - notably Rufous-winged Tanager (uncommon to rare). Both the Violet-capped Hummingbird and Tacarcuna Chlorospingus can be found by walking the upper stretch of the road, but the habitat in this area is somewhat limited. The best area to work is the elfin forest along a wide track behind the transmitters at the top. If anyone is working, ask for permission to walk through. Otherwise follow the fence around to the left (ie. clockwise) until you reach the track. (Although shorter, barbed wire blocks the right side). I found this track most productive if walking to the right, east. A particularly good area was the short, right hand fork after about three kilometres. A hundred or so metres before this fork a rough, but well defined, trail descends to the right, and was interesting. The only Tacarcuna Chlorospingus seen, was found low-down with a mixed flock about 1 kilometre before the fork. Violet-capped Hummingbird is probably fairly common in the elfin forest, but was difficult to find perched - though that may have been due to the poor weather and lack of flowering plants during my visit. Some visitors find the Tacarcuna Chlorospingus easily, but I struggled to find only a single bird in two days of effort. |
Another area to be explored (see map) is the track at 23.3 kilometres which passes through good forest edge, and may eventually connect with the track leading down from the north, or even farther. The area around Altos de Pocora, 20 kilometres to the northeast, is said to have good habitat, but requires a 4x4 to visit. Birding at lower elevations on the descent is also possible. Cerro Azúl is passed en route, and is now a private residential estate. By asking the guards on the gate you might be allowed to enter (accompanied). This area is interesting for it has many larger patches of forest, picnic areas and the like. As might be expected, the weather around the summit can change quickly. Be prepared for rain.
Species recorded from Cerro Jefe:
Turkey Vulture 10+ |
Long-billed Gnatwren 1h Lesser Goldfinch 2 Tennessee Warbler 1 Tropical Parula 1 Yellow Warbler 1 Blackburnian Warbler 1 Black-and-white Warbler 1 Chestnut-capped Warbler 2 Three-striped Warbler 1 Black-striped Sparrow 4+ Black-headed Brushfinch 2 Bananaquit 6 Tacarcuna Chlorospingus 1 Black-and-yellow Tanager 6+ Carmiol's Tanager c White-lined Tanager 3 Hepatic Tanager 4 Summer Tanager 2 Crimson-backed Tanager 2 Blue-grey Tanager 4 Blue-and-gold Tanager 1 Yellow-crowned Euphonia 2 Tawny-capped Euphonia 6 Bay-headed Tanager 2 Blue Dacnis 2 Red-legged Honeycreeper 10 Blue-black Grassquit 10 Thick-billed Seedeater 4+ Yellow-faced Grassquit c Buff-throated Saltator 4 Streaked Saltator 6 |
Cana and Darién National Park
The Darién region of eastern Panama is the largest and least developed area of Panama. This huge, densely forested barrier, separating Central and South America, is often called the Darién "Gap", referring to the "gap" in the Pan American highway which has never been completed through its jungles and swamps. Cana, situated within the Darién National Park (579,000 hectares; a UNESCO world heritage site) on the Panama/Colombia border, can probably be considered Panama's premier birding site. The park protects a vast area of montane, foothill and lowland forest, containing many speciality species restricted to the Pirre Massif and endemics of eastern Panama and northwestern Colombia. The region as a whole has many South American animals and plants that are here found at the extreme northern end of their range. Unfortunately, access is not straight-forward, so any trip must be planned, and arrangements made well in advance. Although it would be possible to make the necessary arrangements once in Panama, the process and logistics would be very time-consuming.
Although the area around Rancho Frío (Pirre Station) can be visited, the old mining camp at Cana, now an ANCON (Asociación Nacional para la Conservación de la Naturaleza) facility, has become "the" place to visit. ANCON maintains a small camp with a few staff who warden the area as well as keeping the facilities and trails open. Although these facilities can be used, they are not intended as a visitor centre, and permission to stay must be sought from ANCON. Due to its remote location all supplies and equipment must be flown in. As the very small grass airstrip is only open in the dry season, Cana can only be visited between December and April. The airstrip has no communications or navigational aids, and poor weather can mean the plane is unable to land.
The easiest way to make arrangements to visit Cana is to contact a local travel-agent specialising in such tours, either directly or via a specialised agent in Europe or the US. We made all our arrangements through Clockwork Travel in the US. This worked out very well. Depending on numbers and the package chosen the cost will be 1,200-1,500 $/pp for a six night package all inclusive. This will include obtaining permission and paying for the use of the ANCON facilities, arranging charter aircraft, acquisition and transport of all food and drink, arrangements for local porters, camping equipment, hiring local porters/cooks, setting-up the campsite on Cerro Pirre, and a professional bird guide who will accompany you. Group size should optimally be in the range of five to ten people. Less will raise the cost per head, more will stretch the facilities at Cana. These facilities comprise five bedrooms (each with two wooden cots and mattresses), and two separate bathrooms with cold showers. Sheets, blankets and towels are provided, but no mosquito nets, although we had no problems with mosquitos inside the rooms. The water supply is piped directly from the mountain, and is filtered for drinking purposes. Although there is a small generator, the difficulty of fuel supply means that electricity is unlikely. (We had about 30-40 minutes on a few evenings). Paraffin lamps are provided in the main eating area, but no candles were available - bring your own.
Other items that it is useful to bring are a sleeping bag for the nights on the mountain at Pirre, and I would consider in essential to bring a good first aid kit; complete with a good supply of dressings, and antibiotic cream for treating minor wounds.
One important item to consider carefully is footwear. Unless it is the height of the dry season you should plan on permanently wet and muddy footwear throughout your stay. Trainers (or sandals/flip-flops) are useful for evenings around the camp, but positively dangerous on the steep slippery trails where boots are definitely required. Good rubber boots are useful on the lower, level trails, but hiking boots are recommended for the trail up Cerro Pirre. I found gaiters very useful for keeping the worst of the mud off. Note also that a couple of the trails have streams, where the choice is to remove ones hiking boots (very refreshing) or have wet feet all day.
As only small aircraft are able to use the strip at Cana it places a severe restriction on the amount of personal luggage you can take. We were limited to about 11 kg each (including optical equipment!). This necessitates dividing up items such as field guides, scopes and recording equipment. Depending on the weight of passengers and/or cargo it is sometimes necessary to land first at El Real (see site below), off-load weight and shuttle the passengers to Cana. This might give the possibility to pick up Black Oropendola or Spectacled Parrotlet which are sometimes seen around the airstrip there.
Cana is situated at about 600 metres altitude and holds predominantly foothill and montane species. As a consequence a few of the truly lowland species cannot be found there (see El Real write-up below). The best chance of finding lowland species around Cana is along the Boca del Cupe trail which runs from Cana to the Indian village of Boca del Cupe 40 kilometres away. We only explored the first few kilometres of this trail, but for those with more time it might be very rewarding to travel further down the trail and camp out.
The other trails around the camp are the Setetule Trail and the Mining trails. The Setetule Trail follows the stream behind the camp through the open area below the camp and then, when dry, into secondary forest. We were unable to explore much of this area during our stay due to the heavy rain flooding the lower parts of the trail. However, the open area just below the camp, along the start of this trail, is an excellent area for observing feeding flocks of more open habitats, with Viridian Dacnis, and White-eared Conebill regularly recorded.
The Mining trails are a series of tracks and rail-roads, now 30 years overgrown, through the forest at a slightly higher elevation above the camp. Many forest and undergrowth species can be found along them. The ruins and abandoned steam engines are interesting.
As some of the rarest birds only occur above 1,200 metres., some time must be spent near the top of Cerro Pirre. To enable this, a level campsite is available in the forest at 1,250 m. The site has a pit latrine, but no water. For drinking we caught rainwater and treated it with iodine. If dry, presumably there is a stream nearby. Two, or better three, nights on the mountain are recommended. The climb from Cana to the campsite is strenuous and takes about 7 hours allowing for birding en route.
From the campsite it is another 350 m altitude (about two hours hike) to the upper ridge of Cerro Pirre. The elfin cloud forest at the top is very quiet much of the time and may require two or more days effort to find the Pirre Warbler, Beautiful Treerunner and Bronze-olive Pygmy-Tyrant which are restricted to this habitat. Other species restricted to the higher elevations above/around the campsite are Russet-crowned Quail-Dove, Blue-fronted Parrotlet, Greenish Puffleg (fairly common), Rufous-cheeked Hummingbird (fairly common, feeds on the "hot-lips" flowers), Tooth-billed Hummingbird, Rufous-breasted Antthrush, Pirre Tapaculo (uncommon), Pirre Chlorospingus (common), Sooty-headed Wren (rare), Varied Solitaire (common by voice), and Green-naped Tanager (common).
Although in our seven days at Cana we saw many of the speciality species, we missed several others; notably Russet-crowned Quail-Dove, Rufous-vented Ground-Cuckoo, Pirre Tapaculo and Choco Tinamou. Additionally, several of the rarer species were not seen by all observers. Probably the most impressive aspect of Cana is it's incredible array of antbirds. We saw a total of 28 species, including Wing-banded Antbird, Ocellated Antbird and all four species of antpitta. An as yet describe Columba sp. has been recorded several times recently above Cana, and the Pirre Tapaculo has yet to be classified (Ridgely and Tudor 1994).
In retrospect, with seven nights, I would recommend three camped on the mountain. Depending on cost, I would also recommend a stay of up to ten nights, with three to four on the mountain. It was disappointing that we had insufficient time to devote to searching for the elusive Choco Tinamou which occurs on the lower portion of the Cerro Pirre Trail.
Species recorded from Cana:
Great Tinamou ch |
Rufous-breasted Antthrush 5+ Black-crowned Antpitta 4+ Scaled Antpitta 1 Spectacled Antpitta 2 Fulvous-breasted Antpitta c Pirre Tapaculo 2h Speckled Mourner 1+ Rufous Piha 3 Blue Cotinga 5 Black-tipped Cotinga 3 Purple-throated Fruitcrow 6+ Sharpbill 3 Golden-headed Manakin Velvety Manakin 8+ White-ruffed Manakin 6 Golden-collared Manakin 1 Green Manakin 2 Ochre-bellied Flycatcher 2 Bronze-olive Pygmy-Tyrant 2+ Common Tody-Flycatcher 5 Sooty-headed Tyrannulet 6+ Brown-capped Tyrannulet 1 Forest Elaenia 1 Yellow-bellied Elaenia Grey Elaenia 3 Black-capped Pygmy-Tyrant 1 Scale-crested Pygmy-Tyrant 1 Southern Bentbill 2 Brownish Twistwing 4 Eye-ringed Flatbill 2 Western Olivaceous Flatbill 2 Bright-rumped Attila Yellow-margined Flycatcher 3+ Golden-crowned Spadebill White-throated Spadebill 1 Tropical Royal Flycatcher 1 Ruddy-tailed Flycatcher 6 Sulphur-rumped Flycatcher 9+ Black-tailed Flycatcher Black-billed Flycatcher 2 Olive-sided Flycatcher 1 Slaty-capped Flycatcher Empidonax sp. 1 Acadian Flycatcher Long-tailed Tyrant 5 Rufous Mourner 1 Dusky-capped Flycatcher 9+ Great Crested Flycatcher Tropical Kingbird c White-ringed Flycatcher 2h Golden-bellied Flycatcher 1 Sirystes Streaked Flycatcher 1 Piratic Flycatcher 1 Rusty-margined Flycatcher Social Flycatcher 2 Grey-capped Flycatcher 6+ Thrush-like Schiffornis 3 Sapayoa 1 Cinnamon Becard 10+ Cinereous Becard 3 One-coloured Becard 2 Masked Tityra 5 Black-crested Jay 8 Yellow-browed Shrike-Vireo 7 Yellow-throated Vireo 1 Yellow-green Vireo 1 Lesser Greenlet c Varied Solitaire 1 Slaty-backed Nightingale-Thrush 6+ Swainson's Thrush 1 Pale-vented Thrush White-throated Thrush 2 White-headed Wren 7 Sooty-headed Wren 2 Black-bellied Wren 5 Bay Wren c Stripe-throated Wren 3 Ochraceous Wren 2 White-breasted Wood-Wren c Grey-breasted Wood-Wren 8 Whistling Wren 5h Song Wren 2 Slate-throated Gnatcatcher 6+ Southern Rough-winged Swallow c Barn Swallow c Golden-winged Warbler 5 Tropical Parula 7 Chestnut-sided Warbler 5 Blackburnian Warbler 3 Bay-breasted Warbler 7 Cerulean Warbler Black-and-white Warbler 6 American Redstart 4 Kentucky Warbler 1 Mourning Warbler 1 Slate-throated Redstart 6 Pirre Warbler 1 Buff-rumped Warbler 1h Orange-billed Sparrow 3 Black-striped Sparrow 2 Chestnut-capped Brushfinch 12+ Bananaquit 9 White-eared Conebill 6+ Pirre Chlorospingus 12+ Yellow-backed Tanager 15+ Black-and-yellow Tanager 14+ Dusky-faced Tanager 8+ Lemon-spectacled Tanager 1 Scarlet-browed Tanager 2 White-shouldered Tanager 10+ Hepatic Tanager 5 Summer Tanager 10+ Crimson-backed Tanager 5 Flame-rumped Tanager c Blue-grey Tanager 2 Palm Tanager 1 Fulvous-vented Euphonia 6 Orange-bellied Euphonia 2+ Plain-coloured Tanager 20+ Speckled Tanager 10+ Bay-headed Tanager 10 Golden-hooded Tanager 15+ Green-naped Tanager 6+ Blue Dacnis 1+ Viridian Dacnis Green Honeycreeper 4+ Red-legged Honeycreeper 8 Variable Seedeater 10+ Yellow-bellied Seedeater 1 Yellow-green Grosbeak 6+ Slate-coloured Grosbeak 5+ Buff-throated Saltator c Blue-black Grosbeak 2 Crested Oropendola 6+ Chestnut-headed Oropendola 6 Yellow-billed Cacique Yellow-rumped Cacique 4 Northern Oriole Yellow-tailed Oriole 3 Shiny Cowbird Giant Cowbird 6 |
Section 1 - Introduction, logistics, itinerary and general information.
Section 2 - Birding sites (part 1).
Section 4 - Birding sites (part 3).
Section 5 - Annotated checklist.