A Couple More Terrace Birds

Three-Toed Sloth © George Griffeth 2009

Ok, the picture isn't of a bird. But, our amigo Jorge captured the essence of Three-toed Sloth. And we saw one yesterday from the terrace. Today (12 August 2009) we saw our first Squirrel Cuckoo in C.A., and it was just 10 feet off our terrace. A Thick-billed Euphonia chased it away, but not before we had a good view.

Also today we finally saw Swallow-tailed Kites from the terrace - we saw them every day we were at the big house on Castillo. We don't know why they don't pass over this house more often - there are plenty of odes for them.Vultures are also in short supply over this plot on C.A. Additional species for our Terrace list (since the original Terrace post)include Scaled Pigeon, White-tipped Dove, Dusky-capped Flycatcher, Boat-billed Flycatcher, Lesser Greenlet, Masked Tityra, Tropical Gnatcatcher, Buff-throated Saltator.

Tayra and Mantid

The past couple of days we've done a little of this & a little of that, without much to report. Yesterday a short walk on one of the trails in the forest was fun, with nothing unusual, but we did meet up with a couple of large, fast-moving passerine flocks that challenged us - they were in the highest tree-tops and we were on the ground. It was fun, and walking through the tropical forest continues to amaze us. There is just so much to see, discover, hear, and try to identify.

Today we were driving back up the hill toward C.A. when I saw a Tayra (Eira barbara) on a hillside. He was headed for the road (which he crossed after Les screeched to a halt so we could watch this beautiful beast) and then he disappeared into the forest. He was very dark brown or black, without the lighter-colored head they attain when older. We were really excited - our first mustelid in Panama!

This afternoon Les spotted a really cool mantid on the terrace. It's about 3 inches long and looks like leaves - see Les's video. We think it is a Hooded Mantis. It was walking toward the shade of the terrace. When it came to the wall of the house it began searching for footholds and made it up about two feet before falling back down. It sat for a few moments and then continued on it's walk.