We spent our 2024 leap day Travelling to Panama for the start of our 2 week adventure. After arriving at 8pm last night we arrived at the hotel and crashed.
The next morning after breakfast we set out to Metropolitan Natural Park in Panama City on an adventure to find some wildlife within the city limits. The Metropolitan Natural Park is the only city based natural park in Latin America. This isn’t and island of green in the city like Central Park is to New York, rather it’s joined with a larger natural area that extends well beyond the city limits.
We took an Uber from the hotel to the park. It was a quick ride and only cost $4. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that Panama uses USD as currency, so were able to pay to enter the park with the cash we had. It was $4/person to enter. At the visitor center they gave us an overview, showed us the trail map and described the difficulty of the trails which ranged from easy to moderate. They additionally charged $2 for a park map. We decided to start off along the moderate trails out to the furthest lookout and return on the easy path.
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| Park trail map |
Immediately on starting out we heard some birds, but it took a while to locate who it was. We eventually found a tiny Lesser Greenlet in the trees above us. It blends in really well with the leaves. When reviewing photos for this post I struggled to find this lil friend.
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| Lesser Greenlet perched in a tree |
According to
inaturalist, Panama is home to 1500 hundred species of butterfly! We saw several different types, although only a few were interested in being still long enough for a photo. The first we saw was a Banded-Peacock butterfly. It sat on this leaf for a while and refused to spread its wings. But I was able to capture its beautiful red body.
On the topic of butterflies, we also saw some orange butterflies fluttering around who we couldn’t get photos of. We also a Blue Morpho butterfly, which was huge and beautiful but it flew too close and few away too quickly for us to get a photo. I’ll have another different butterfly photo later in the post though.
As we were walking up the trail we saw an interesting bug that looked like a flower. After closer investigation we found that it was an ant carrying a flower! There was a long parade of ants with flowers and leaf pieces. They were incredible to watch.
Soon we arrived at the first lookout area in the park. These lookout areas were neat, you have a beautiful view of the city while walking through the rainforest. They got better was we climbed higher though the park.
Next we came to an area with a clearing in the canopy and saw what I believe were a few Common Black Hawks circling above the park. I identified most of the animals I saw while writing this post. The distinguishing characteristic for this bird was the light colored top of the wing along with the wing shape while they soared. They were fast and fun to watch.
Near that clearing we heard some birds that sounded very nearby so we started to look around. We found this bird, which Merlin is photo identifying as a Red-Throated Ant Tanager. It was just hopping around some vines fairly close by and didn’t seem to be bothered by us being there. In this photo you can vaguely see the red on the bird’s chest but it was definitely there.
There were plenty of birds in this area, but they were a bit difficult to capture photos of because my autofocus kept focusing on branches instead of birds (I need to adjust some settings or switch to manual focus) and it was a bit dark. In post processing I lightened the above photo quite a bit to capture the details of the birdo’s feathers.
Also in this area we saw many Plain Xenops, which despite their name had quite beautiful colors on its wings. Not so plain at all! I think these birds were the ones we heard calling very plaintively. We initially thought there must be a nest of chicks nearby, but upon examination we found all of these Plain Xenops just singing the song of their people. They didn’t seem nearly as distressed as they sounded.
Finally in this same area we saw a White Shouldered Tanager, a small black bird with a striking white stripe on its wing.
After this we made our way down to the connecting point with the lower trail and headed off toward the next moderate trail. On the way there we saw a dark blue hummingbird of some sort, but unfortunately I was unable to photograph it. This is also when we saw the Blue Morpho Butterfly. I was a little sad at seeing two extremely beautiful creatures who flew away before I could capture them but the forest was teaming with life, so I still had hope that I would see more amazing birds and butterflies.
Before too long, we came across another butterfly who also was kind enough to sit and pose for us. This looks like a Tigerwing based on which butterflies are here (so many!) and the wing pattern.
As we admired this butterfly, we heard someone clicking from the brush behind us. It took us a while to spot the movement, and many camera snaps to capture on camera the bird that was maybe trying to lead us away from a nest. It seemed to be trying to attract our attention while moving away from the very dense brush area where we first spotted it. This one was a Buff-breasted Wren. It is notable stripes on its tail and wing tips along with a white stripe behind the top of its eye. I was still using autofocus and quite happy with my camera’s ability to capture this bird through the leaves! Can you spot it?
Shortly beyond this point, I saw some branches moving. That didn’t actually mean there would be creatures to see as I was fooled by the wind of falling leaves several times throughout the hike. But I was rewarded by going to check, when I spotted a pair of Toucans! These are Keel-billed Toucans. Their beaks are so beautiful with purple, green, red and blue. They were a model of tropical beauty!
I’m posting two photos of the Toucans because in the first one the Toucan posed beautifully, but the colors of its beak are muted. The second photo is slightly out of focus but look at the rainbow in that awesome beak!
There’s more to post on this topic! But also I’m on a trip and we need to get catch our shuttle to Colon so we can begin our cruise through the Panama Canal! I’ll post part 2 of our journey through Metropolitan Natural Park as soon as I get some downtime and internet access!
