This is the hut in the Embera village where we stayed during our Harpy Eagle adventure
In Chiriqui, Jose said “Quetzals and Harpy Eagles, two birds that cancel flights and change iteneraries.” I thought he was just referring to our plan change for the quetzal, but I was wrong.
After we flew back to Panama City, we were supposed to fly into the Darien region, take a boat up a river, and stay at a lodge in the jungle. But on the trip in January, they did not see Harpy Eagle, so Jose made some changes to give us a better shot. (Again, no guarantees, but he seemed pretty confident.) So to get our goal for Darien, we had quite an adventure.
Before heading into the Darien, Jeremy and I took one precaution for hte sake of wildlife: we disinfected our shoes. Darien is one of the last places on the planet without chytrid, a fungus that is killing off frogs and other amphibians. While it hasn’t been proven conclusively, people carrying it in on their shoes is strongly suspected as one of the main ways the fungus is spread. So we disinfected our shoes before we went.
Instead of a plane, we took the van to Darien. This was a 4 hour drive, which included 5 National Police checkpoints. We stayed in a town called Meteti, at a hotel that had air conditioning (and only cold water in the shower – woohoo, refreshing!). Then we took a boat (which was part of the plan already) up a small river that is only navigable at high tide. Our destination: the Embera village of Mogue, where we stayed with the tribe in an elevated hut for two days. It was definitely an adventure, which reminded me more than a little of reality TV. During this trek, including the drive, we stopped and looked for birds (of course), getting several Darien specialties, including a Golden-green Woodpecker which Jose had only seen once before.
The juvenile Harpy Eagle on the edge of the nest, taken at a distance
On our only full day in Mogue, we went on the Harpy Eagle hike. This was a 2.5 hour hike through hot, humid jungle to the nesting site of a Harpy Eagle. We started early, so the hike in was not too bad, and despite Jose’s warnings that the chick might not be there, we saw the eagle. A large juvenile bird, standing at the edge of the nest. We got close enough to see it through spotting scope and binoculars, but not close enough to scare it.
The nest was in the top of a Cuipo tree, the huge, deciduous emergents of Panama. The tree that held this nest would have taken three people to hug at the base, and the top stuck out above the canopy. The trees lose their leaves in the dry season, to conserve water, which made it a lot easier for us to see the nest.
This is where the patience part comes in: once we were at the nest, we waited to see if an adult would return. Waited, and waited, for over 2 hours. Of course, the chick was big enough that the adults didn;t have to come back while we were there – and they didn’t – but it did mean that we got lots of time to watch the chick. And time to rest – we got to hike back out during the heat of the day, which was very exhausting, and I was glad that I had been able to sit for a while before that part of the adventure.
Tour Travel Tip #4: Be flexible and accepting.
Without a change in plans, we wouldn’t have seen the Harpy, by far the best bird of our trip.
I am an admitted lister, focusing on getting the new bird, the species that I haven’t seen before. But I did learn one important thing on this trip: the most memorable birds are the ones that show you a bit about themselves. We saw a Black Oropendola calling (which involves leaning so far forward it looks like it will fall off the branch), a Golden-capped Manikin dancing (including his moonwalk impression), and we heard Keel-billed Toucans croaking like frogs. So yes, we saw 374 bird species and I added 291 birds to my life list. But I also got to learn more about the animals and habitats of a very cool part of the world.
