Birdwatching in Panama

This video from the USA is about the king vulture at the Minnesota Zoo birdshow.

From the Denver Post in the USA:

Birders flock to Panama

Old radar dome’s bird’s-eye views draw eco-tourists to Canal Zone

By Maryann Haggerty

The Washington Post

Article Last Updated: 04/08/2007 12:08:44 AM MDT

“King vulture at 1 o’clock!” Winnie yelled down the steep stairs from the lodge’s observation deck. “King vulture at 1 o’clock!”

From throughout the rest of the building, a half-dozen or so other guests materialized, interrupting their siestas. One man wore only shorts, no shirt or shoes. Everyone aimed binoculars high into the sky.

Where? There! Up, up – against the big cloud – big, the biggest, the highest- up there!

Got him!

Someone pulled out a guidebook to Central American birds and read a description of the huge, white-bodied scavenger that soared far above the Panamanian forest.

It’s a bird you would never see in North America and only rarely even here, where the isthmus funnels in a remarkable avian variety. …

In the Galapagos, all of Darwin’s finches looked pretty much the same to me.

Nonetheless, there I was, binoculars in hand, on the observation deck of Canopy Tower, an old U.S. radar installation in the former Panama Canal Zone.

This place is legendary among birdwatchers. I’m definitely not one of those, but I’m married to a man who has owned a Peterson field guide since he was 6 years old.

After the United States transferred the radar tower and surrounding land to Panama as part of the handover of the canal, local businessman and bird-watcher Raul Arias leased it and converted it into an eco-lodge.

Perched at the top of a hill in a rainforest 30 minutes outside Panama City, Canopy Tower can be described only as a place where everyone falls in love with birds: here.

Birds in Panama, other tropical countries, live more leisurely than in colder countries: here.

Wildlife of Barro Colorado island, Panama: here.

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