April 2
For our first hike we drove to the beginning of the Quetzal Trail. It’s one of Panama's most beautiful trails and runs between Cerro Punta and Boquete, crisscrossing Río Caldera. You can hike from either direction, but west to east offers more downhill: the town of Cerro Punta is almost 1000m higher than Boquete. The 8km route takes between four and six hours. Getting to and from the trailhead takes another couple of hours either side (about 23km in total). We had no intentions of doing the long hike as both ends of the trails offer really good birding without going too far.
We were rewarded with tons of birds, most were new species for us. Plus, it was absolutely beautiful. On the return we saw our first Quetzal. WOW! It was nesting season, so we saw a lot of birds gathering nesting material.
farms
trail
Ruddy-capped Nightingale-Thrush
Collared Redstart
Collared Redstart
lizard
Wilson's Warbler
Ruddy-capped Nightingale-Thrush
Black-faced Solitaire
Black-faced Solitaire
Yellow-faced Grassquit
Resplendent Quetzel - male
Resplendent Quetzel - male
Resplendent Quetzel - male
Resplendent Quetzel - male
Black-faced Solitaire
Slate-throated Redstart
Common Chlorospingus
Then, we went in search of lunch. Despite the name it looked like a typical fonda, but we soon found out why it was called a “bistro”. We ordered the trout empanadas with an Asian sauce that was quite yummy. Oddly, we ordered Hamburguesas and they were actually fashioned into a wrap with a tasty sauce and grilled onions. Home-made fries topped it off. The whole area grows tons of strawberries and since we can’t get them (cheaply) here in Coronado we took every opportunity to have them. They served strawberry drinks that were good. One was blended strawberries & ice and probably some sweetner and mine was a batido. (milk or cream added). YUM!
Franny's Terrace Bistro
Trout Empanadas
Hamburguesa Wraps
view while eating lunch
Black Phoebe had a nest close to our table
Black Phoebe with a dragonfly to feed the young
After lunch we drove to a different area and despite the rain we managed to see a few birds. We took refuge under a tree when it started to rain hard. The road needed 4-wheel drive, so we parked our car and hiked. We have all-wheel drive which would have been fine, but we needed more clearance not to bottom out.
Wilson's Warbler
Wilson's Warbler
Green Honeycreeper - male
Green Honeycreeper - female
Silver-throated Tanager
Swainson's Thrush
Scarlet-thighed Dacnis
Scarlet-thighed Dacnis
Moo
We took a side road on our way back to town:
Piratic Flycatcher
We were still pretty full from lunch, but stopped at a place for Pizza. It seemed to be “gringo night” as there was a huge table of them getting together. I wanted ice cream, but the 2 places we found were closed, so we went to the restaurant in the hotel. No sundaes, so I ordered a brownie sundae and the brownie was so hard, you couldn’t put a fork in it. There was about a teaspoon of ice cream. Ah well, we learned to stick with breakfast at their restaurant.
Tomorrow we check out of the Bambito Hotel and plan on checking out a lake and then making the drive to Boquete.
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