I woke, got dressed and on my way to the pier, I spotted a coati walking up the river. I passed on and sat on the benches on the beach beneath the canopy. Bob soon joined me and we both noticed how the crab walk marks entirely covered the sand, crisscrossing and crossing many times. I was amazed how busy the little creatures were and how much territory they covered in just one night.
Soon, all our luggage was loaded on board and we headed off to El Morro (the snout?) which is a volcanic rock island broken off from the main coastline and which hosts many birding colonies. We didn’t see many birds home for the morning—I assume most were off finding breakfast. We first spotted a Bare-throated Tiger heron, then spotted Magnificent Frigatebirds, some with the red balloon just beginning to show their interest in mating. Around the other side of El Morro, a few blue-footed boobies had just taken up residence. Then we were off on the two hour passage back to El Quimbo, where we picked up the bus after waiting an hour. On the passage, I learned that Punta Patino had been a logging camp that was turned into a nature conservancy and logging banned. Punta Patino is a huge area, we were in just a small at the tip of a cone-shaped wedge of land set aside as protection.
The ride by bus back to Panama City has us all betting on our arrival time. Rachel and Dave kept up nonstop chatter about their visits to many people they knew in many parts of the world, with others interspersing their comments every now and then. I added a few tales with Bob supplying the words I couldn’t remember. We stopped once and tried to buy cachuatches but no one new what they were. We settled for potato chips and peanut M&Ms and Bob had a beer. When we climbed into the bus after using the bano, we found that Juan had pulled rank inside, talked to a manager and managed to buy Minas which is the local name for peanuts.
The Country Inn and Suites Panama Canal looked very safe and quite wonderful and I felt entirely miserable and ready for a steak. We went immediately to dinner and for once, I joined Bob in having several gins—I was never more ready to crash in my entire life. I took more pseudophed and Tylenol and by ten o’clock was dead to the world until morning.
Birds:
Bare-throated Tiger Heron, Smoothed-billed Ani, Laughing Gull, Blue-footed Booby, Sandwich Tern, Royal Tern, Snowy Egret, White Ibis, Tricolored Heron, Neotropical Cormorant, Little Blue Heron, Black Vulture.
Birds:
Clay-colored Thrush, Chestnut-headed Oropendula, Blue-gray Tanager, Yellow-rumped Cacique, Palm Tanager, Red-crowned Woodpecker, Thick-billed Euphonia, Chestnut-sided Warbler, Crimson-backed Tanager, Great-tailed Grackle, Yellow-faced Grassquit, Lesser Goldfinch (f), Cocoa Woodcreeper, Tody Motmot, Long-billed Starthroat, Squirrel Cuckoo, Orange-chinned Parakeet, S. Roughwinged Swallow, Turkey Vulture, Gray-capped Flycatcher, Western Wood Pewee, Boat-billed Flycatcher, Streaked Saltator, Rufous-capped Warbler, Yellow-backed Oriole
Insect: Praying Mantis--two leaves connected? One to look up when I get home.
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