View from the Tower, Panama

Our recently completed spring week at Panama's famous Canopy Tower was followed by a 5-day extension to the Canopy Lodge.  It is always a pleasure to return to these fantastic and unique lodges, surrounded by an excellent mix of habitats and a great diversity of birds.  Some of the avian highlights this year around the tower included an amazing passage of Mississippi Kites climbing in morning thermals around the tower, an astonishingly lengthy and close encounter with a Pheasant Cuckoo and a snoozing Great Potoo along Pipeline Road, a singing Rosy Thrush-Tanager near Gamboa, Bright-rumped Attilas feeding young, a parade of glittering hummingbirds at the tower feeders including excellent numbers of Violet-bellied Hummingbirds, and gaudy species such as Keel-billed Toucan, Emerald Tanager and Shining Honeycreepers.  

 The wealth of diversity here is certainly not limited to birds, and this year we enjoyed a range of other creatures, including an inquisitive pair of Western Night Monkeys peeking out of their roosting hole, lounging Mantled Howler Monkeys and an array of insects such as a stunning Red Pondhawk or an intricately patterned Marshall’s Ghost Skipper.