The day I didn't go birding on Pipeline Rd in Panama

In February 2020 my wife and I were on the Holland America cruise ship the Rotterdam which left from San Diego and travelled south along the coast of Mexico and Central America before crossing through the Panama canal into the Atlantic. The transit of the canal was very interesting but we never actually set foot in Panama itself and our self imposed rule for counting countries we have visited involves us walking around outside of ports or airports so we decided to jump ship in Curacao and visit a few more Carribean destinations before heading back to the US and the rest of our trip.

We flew into Bogota Colombia and stayed for a few days then onwards to Panama City. We were very surprised at how modern Bogota was (which is a testament to our ignorance more than any reflection on Colombia) and when we saw the modern skyline of Panama City we were expecting a step up from our other central america visits but scratch the surface and Panama still has a 3rd world flavour. Taxi scams at the airport, that sort of thing. Not a biggie given our travel level but still a surprise.

Biomuseo Panama City

This trip was not of course primarily about bird watching but I had spent a few days indulging myself birding in Hawaii and Colombia and on tours off the cruise boat so I didn't want to push my luck with the wife. So after checking out Panama City and the Biomuseo (arguably the best museum I have visited) on the first day, our second day was to head out to the Sloth Sanctuary at the Gamboa Rainforest resort.

You can't do a lot of advance planing when getting off a cruise ship part way as they can change their destinations and timings depending on weather and repairs and viral pandemics etc. So we sort of just winged it. We chatted to the Taxi driver outside the hotel and agreed on a price for the day to take us out to Gamboa and to the Rainforest retreat (he didn't wait for us but I didn't pay him either so meh. It was easy enough to get another ride from the resort). We were just in time to jump on a tour out to the forest canopy cable car ride. There was a tower at the end that you walked up in a very civilised fashion and looked out over the canal and the forest canopy. No birds though at around 3pm. We did see leaf cutter ants crossing the path on the way up though. Note to self, hold camera still.

We walked down from the cable car and went to the sloth sanctuary which is of course a zoo for tourists to look at sloths but still pretty cool but just outside the sloth shed was a butterfly enclosure and just outside that was a garden with lots of flowering plants and birds!

Many of these birds looked similar to the ones we had seen in Ecuador a few years ago. 

Pale-vented Pigeon

Southern rough-winged swallow

Thick-billed Euphonia

Ruddy Ground Dove

Blue-gray Tanager

The next, morning with a 3am start, before our flight to Cuba, I had a chance to head out to the famous bird watching location of pipe line road which was out near Gamboa where we were yesterday. Had I spent more time planning we could have stayed at the Rainforest resort overnight and got a lift out from there but in the end I was too scared of getting stuck in the middle of the jungle and missing the flight which would not have impressed the wife so I chickened out. And that was how I missed going birding on pipeline road in Panama.