Birds worth flying for.
Featured targets from the 528 species logged at the lodge. Each page notes when to come, how hard the bird is to find, and where.
Panama's national bird and the most powerful raptor in the Americas. It hunts sloths and monkeys from the canopy of undisturbed lowland rainforest. Sightings around Chagres National Park are irregular but real, with the best odds during the dry season when foliage thins.
Adult males are a startling turquoise blue with a purple throat; females are cryptic brown. They perch high in the canopy of humid forest and adjacent clearings, often on exposed dead branches at first light. Cerro Azul is one of the reliable sites in Panama.
A stocky, colourful motmot of foothill forest, with a rufous head, green back, and the classic racket-tipped tail. Voice is a low, hooting whoop. Reliable along the forest trails in and around Chagres National Park.
EasyMales glow a metallic turquoise-green with a black hood and yellow bill; females are grass-green. Regular visitors to fruiting trees and feeders around the lodge, often in mixed flocks with tanagers.
The most abundant hummingbird in central Panama and a constant presence at the lodge feeders. Green above with a bright rufous tail and a red bill tipped in black. Aggressive at feeders and easy to photograph.