Canopy Lodge, Panama
Inside the ancient caldera of the vulcano El Valle, lies the town of El Valle de Antón. Here you can also find the Canopy Lodge, which offers comfortable housing in a private garden. And lots of birds.
After four nights at the Canopy Tower, we were transported to the Lodge where we were going to spend our last three nights of our stay in Panama before returning home to cold Norway. The transfer from the Tower took about 2 hours and 20 minutes, mostly along the highway. The last part of the road is a local one that crosses the ridge of the caldera, and sports the steepest stretches of road I have ever seen! The Lodge is nicely located within a private garden. A small stream cuts through the garden, and there is a natural swimming pool, a tree house and an open dining area surrounded by multiple bird feeders. The founder of the Canopy Family, Raul, has a private house in the far end of the garden, and if you are lucky, he will join you for lunch.
The fruit feeders are fed with bananas by the staff whenever there are guests in the common area. Which typically is around meal times. The pecking order on the feeders are rather interesting to observe and seems to follow this chain of events: The first birds to arrive at the table are the smaller ones like Bananaquits, Blue-gray Tanagers, Euphonias and Flame-rumped Tanagers. The commotion soon attracts the Clay-colored Thrushes which try to keep the table for themselves. Only the Flame-rumped Tanagers would challenge the Thrushes at this stage. Then the Red-tailed squirrels arrive and try to drag bananas down to the ground and off. But as soon as a banana hits the ground, an Agouti will arrive and steal it from the squirrel, effectively ending that supply chain. Back on the table, larger species will take over from the thrushes: The Collared Aracari is a frequent guest. The Rufous Motmot also visits along with more unusual banana-eaters like the Red-crowned Woodpecker (I really did not know that woodpeckers had an affection for bananas). Eventually the party is ended by the Grey-headed Chachalacas, which clear the table by sheer size.
The fruit feeders give great opportunities for close range photography. There are also lots of hummingbird feeders around the lodge. But surprisingly, there was little activity around these, maybe only one hummingbird every 5-10 minutes. This was a large contrast from the constant buzzing around the feeders at the Tower. There were quite a few hummingbirds to be seen on the trips in the area though, and the species are generally different from the Tower.
The stream that runs through the garden attracts Kingfishers and Waterthrushes amongst others. It is worthwhile to hang around there. The Grey-necked Wood Rail can also be reliably observed in the bushes right behind the entrance.
Although the garden has lots of interesting birds, it is the trips to the surrounding areas that are most rewarding. Mostly the trips are half day, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. Sometimes a full-day trip is arranged. We were happy to do only half day trips with a nice lunch break in between. Being December, the lodge was pretty quiet. Some of the guests we had already met at the Tower earlier, and some guest were heading for the Tower after the Lodge. The last day, we were the only two guest left actually. Most of the trips go to different areas within the Caldera. We had one trip going just outside of the caldera (again scaling those steep roads in and out of the caldera). The guides were very good and knowledgeable. There were some interesting mammals to be seen as well, the highlight being a Tayra (weasel family), that climbed a tree right above us.
Number of species observed during our stay at the Lodge: 123