SUNDAY WAS AN EASY DAY, as if Oscar wanted to test our mettle. Breakfast at 6:15 followed by three hours of birding on Sendero el Balsal. This isn’t primary rain forest—much of it is a teak plantation—so we all piled into the back of the pick-up, safari vehicle-style, clambering out whenever a good bird was spotted. The birding was pretty good—Connie added four new species including the striking Purple-Throated Fruit Crow. After lunch and a snooze-break during the afternoon heat, we went out birding along the highway where Connie logged No. 6400, a Black Oropendola.
Purple-Throated Fruit Crow
Black Oropendola, #6400
Today was Harpy Eagle Day and we were caffeinated, breakfasted and on the road to Yaviza by 5:45. Yaviza is the end of the Pan-American Highway in Panama, 12,580 kilometers from its start in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. Travel beyond here is by boat on the Chucunaque, Panama’s longest river.
Yaviza is the end of the road . . . literally
Everything travels by "panga" from here
The plan was to travel downstream by panga—20-feet of open boat powered by a 15-hp outboard motor—for an hour or so to El Real where we would take pick-up trucks for a bumpy ride to the Rancho Frio trailhead. Then a couple of hours of hiking into the forest would bring us to the eagle’s nest where the Harpy Eagle might or might not be waiting. Harpies are the largest and most powerful eagles in the Americas with only around 450 mature individuals left in the Panama. Females can weigh 20 pounds and have talons as long as a grizzly bear’s claw, ideal for snagging their favorite meal, sloths.
Red-Lored Amazon
Green Kingfisher
Keel-Billed Toucan
Oscar pointed out parrots, cormorants, egrets, kingfishers and a Keel-Billed Toucan on the boat ride while the mate pointed out snags and floating logs to the captain. After an hour we docked in El Real alongside other pangas overloaded with plantains, tires, household goods, groceries and everything the villagers could need.
Panga loaded with Plantains, El Real
This would be our 15-year old driver
We squeezed into two trucks of dubious ancestry with our 15-year old driver and bounced off. About twenty minutes later the truck slammed to sudden stop—Oscar had spotted a Harpy Eagle perched in a tree about seventy-five meters off the road. Judging by its size he guessed it was the larger female. The lighting wasn’t great but I took more than 100 shots, hoping for a couple of keepers. You don’t get to see a Harpy Eagle every day! This was only the second time Oscar had seen one here.
Our first Harpy Eagle . . . I hope she turns around
Spreading her wings . . . all 6½ feet of them
One of Panama's 450 Harpy Eagles
We had already accomplished our mission but there were still other birds so we soldiered on the along the muddy trail. After an hour of splishing and slashing, as if by mutual decree, we decided to turn back and eat lunch at the trailhead—a wise decision as it turned out. The threatening skies opened up on the trip back to Yaviza and the only protection the panga provided was a blue tarp to pull over our heads. The rain continued all afternoon back at Camp so we had free time clean up. At dinner the other group told us about their ordeal to see the Crested Eagle, a day one of the “Jersey Girls” compared to the Bataan death march. It will be our turn tomorrow!
Desert that evening was a birthday cake for Connie.
