Why Panama is a wildlife paradise
Panama ranks as among the finest birdwatching spots on the earth, however you’d be shocked what number of uncommon mammals additionally thrive on this tropical isthmus. I travelled to this slender strip of land that hyperlinks South and Central America final autumn and my journey took me by means of a variety of habitats.
From cloud forest to tropical jungle, lush lagoons and muddy swamps, every supported a wealth of wildlife whose unique names I needed to study.
Wildlife tourism
Tourism is important to the financial system right here and I stayed at eco lodges the place the homeowners had a eager understanding of the necessity to protect this area’s unbelievable wildlife.
Amongst them was a resort named Cover Tower. Transformed from a former army radar tower overlooking the Panama Canal, the homeowners had made essentially the most of its uncommon location to supply their company a chicken’s eye view of the forest cover and the myriad of birds that inhabit it.
Animals at eye-level
There’s nothing fairly like seeing every part at eye-level. You don’t even want to depart the resort to soak in all of the species that inhabit this unbelievable rainforest.
From the viewing tower I watched sloths dangling, soft-eyed mantled howler monkeys balancing on impossibly skinny branches, brown-hooded parrots preening each other, and even a colour-clashing squirrel cuckoo –the names of the animals and birds have been incredible.
Uncommon Sylvia leaf frogs
And if watching the wildlife within the tree cover wasn’t sufficient, a 10-minute stroll downhill from the resort and I used to be handled to a really uncommon sight: Sylvia’s leaf frogs. Even my information Eliecer had solely seen these jewel-coloured frogs in a single different place in Panama.
Unusually pale tamandua
Later, on a drive by means of the forest, my information and I noticed one thing much more exceptional. A tree climbing anteater, generally known as a northern tamandua with a really uncommon coat. Usually tamanduas are greyish in color, however a congenital situation generally known as erythrism, meant this one’s fur was a stupendous strawberry blonde color.
Like a lot of the wildlife in Panama, the tamandua was unimpressed by our presence and barely gave us a re-examination because it snoozed within the afternoon solar. It additionally ignored a path of ants, escapees from its newest meal, as they scurried over its head and alongside the department to freedom.
Unique wildlife
However you don’t want to identify uncommon creatures to really feel such as you’ve entered a brand new world in Panama. Right here every part is unique. The monkeys, generally known as Geoffroy’s tamarin, appear to be punk rockers with their Mohicans haircuts and share the treetops with porcupines – Rothschilds porcupine – that may climb.
The birds right here, nonetheless, are essentially the most magnificent. From double-toothed kites, to masked tityras, broad-billed motmots, yellow fulvous-vented euphonias, golden-hooded tanagers, blue topped manakins, and black breasted puff birds (did I point out the names are a pleasure!), it’s no shock that Panama has a status as among the finest bird-watching locations on the earth.
On the forest ground there was extra to identify. White-nosed coatis – which look a bit of like racoons – trundle alongside the grass like cartoon characters and by the rivers inexperienced iguana’s glisten. Watch the movie I made following my keep:
Panama’s tropical coast
On Panama’s tropical shoreline, there was much more unique species to get pleasure from, together with extra sloths hanging from the tree cover while within the blue waters of the bay, dolphins splash and deep within the mangrove swamps black hawks hunt for fiddler crabs.
I stayed at Tranquilo Bay on the island of Bastimentos which kinds a part of the Bocas del Toro archipelago, positioned alongside the Caribbean Coast of Panama, and once more the homeowners of the resort had designed the lodge to take advantage of the wonderful chicken life to be discovered right here.
A scaffold tower above the tree cover gave me a chicken’s eye view of rainforest and its exceptional birdlife. However much more fascinating at these dizzying heights have been the brown throated three-toed sloths.
I watched one mom sloth, a child clinging to her chest, swing from one leg, and my coronary heart leaped as she let go of her teenager to fulfill a scratch on her head. Fortunately child sloths are born with sharp claws and cling on to their moms from the second they’re born.
Beneath the sloths, white confronted capuchin monkeys crowded the branches and rufous tailed hummingbirds sat snugly in tiny cup-shaped nests.
Watch the movie I made about this area right here:
Chicken island
From Tranquilo Bay I took a ship journey to Chicken Island, the place floor nesting birds like magnificent frigate birds and brown boobies nested in rookeries removed from predators. On the way in which my host identified a migratory roost of turkey vultures, paused enroute to their American breeding grounds.
Pink-billed tropicbirds soared as we approached the island, their lengthy white tail feathers drifting under them like kite ribbons.
Within the blue waters of the bay, frequent bottlenose dolphins leaped alongside the boat and within the mangrove swamps that lined a deep canal main out to sea I noticed cuckoos, fiddler crabs and customary black hawks attempting to find mangrove crabs. This was a real tropical paradise.
Cloud forest
However while the coast provides tropical rainforest, Panama’s mist-shrouded mountains present a completely totally different habitat for an much more breath-taking array of wildlife.
The air right here was cooler, the rivers raging, and the forest a riot of noise and color. From noisy parakeets and vibrant toucans within the treetops, to leafcutter ants marching alongside the forest ground, this rainforest teemed with life.
I stayed at Cover Lodge, the place I realized to identify red-crowned woodpeckers, keel-billed toucan, crimson-backed tanager, orange-chinned parakeet, tawny-capped euphonia and gray-headed chachalaca.
In the meantime additional afield my information confirmed me a spectacled owl chick, a gray-headed kite and a super-sleepy three toed sloth swinging within the tree cover.
Beneath them a typical basilisk scudded over a stream and a characterful Central American agouti who by no means stopped munching made me chortle because it chased a brilliantly-coloured rufous motmot that flew too near its meals! Watch the motion right here:
My tour was curated by Wildfoot Journey. For extra data or to ebook an analogous tour comply with this hyperlink: https://www.robertefuller.com/journey/