This huge hummingbird, a Violet Sabrewing, is only found in the highlands
Finished with the Canal Zone, we flew into David, in western Panama. Once we drove up out of David and into the highlands, I noticed several things that were very different from the canal zone. Forget that we were there in the dry season; there was mist every day and even some rain. This is where we got into some serious cloud forest. There were some exciting birds, but up away from the rainforest, there were fewer species, and we had to work harder to see them. We stayed in Volcan, near Volcan Baru National Park (it’s a dormant volcano), and our big goal for Chiriqui was the Resplendant Quetzal. (I also told Jose I wanted to see a Long-tailed Silky-Flycatcher, to which he responded, “We’ll see many.” This means about the same as “We’ll see more,” so I wasn’t worried.)
There are some impressive birds in the Chiriqui highlands, including giant hummingbirds and day-glo tanagers. We also saw a Tropical Screech Owl near our hotel, and the stars at night were just amazing! We did see several Long-tailed Silky-Flycatchers (always flying away before I could get a picture), but the Quetzal was a more difficult story.
In the dry season, especially from January to March, quetzal is a difficult but consistent bird. Consistent, because they feed on wild avocados – find a tree where they feed, and you are almost guaranteed to see one. The difficult part comes in getting to them, because they live at high elevations and spend their time up in the canopy. So they are a hike-up-a-hill, strain-your-neck kind of bird. But even if most guides don’t guarantee quetzal, they at least expect to see them. So quetzal should have been on the list the first day of Chiriqui, right?
Wrong. Last year’s rainy season was especially wet and windy, and the avocados fruited late. Typically the fruits are ripe enough for eating by January. This year, even by our trip in February, most of the trees were still unripe. Meaning the easy way to see quetzal was not an option. We hiked up a mountain the first day, hoping to see it, but no luck. (We did add 40 birds to the trip list by the end of the day, including some very cool woodpeckers, but no quetzal.) So Jose, our fabulous guide, contacted a local guide he knew, and we tried again on the second day. After hiking up the other side of the same mountain (the dormant volcano, in fact), guess who spotted a male quetzal high in a tree, pretending to be a branch. Yup, it was me! Every trip we go on, I get one awesome spot, where I find a bird and everyone says “how did you see that?” and this trip, I got quetzal. And I was really glad, too, because I was tired of hiking up the mountain (and honestly, that may have been my driving factor for detailed searching).
Tour Travel Tip #3: Be prepared to be patient.
You may have to look a while for a specific bird. You are birding with people of different skills, so you may have to wait while others find the bird. And you may have to sit and wait for a bird to show up, which we discovered in our final area, Darien.