Day 6: The Quest For the Quetzal: Part I
Saturday 30 November 2013
76 °F
Hi all,
After watching Panama's biggest Independence Day parade in Boquete this morning, our family went on our first quest for the marvelous Resplendent Quetzal.
The hike was at a beautiful coffee plantation that contained a large tract of old-growth cloud forest, perfect habitat for the quetzals. My mom and I hiked the quetzal trail while my dad hiked with Pearl to a waterfall, which they never found because the trail was in bad condition.
Suddenly, a large, quetzal-like bird popped out on front of us! I inspected it through my camera, but it turned out to be a female Collared Trogon, a close relative of the quetzal. Here is the picture of it:
Even after almost three hours of slowly hiking through the forest and inspecting every single tree, we had no luck finding the quetzal. However, we did find a few interesting birds. Here is a photo of a Flame-colored Tanager:
Other interesting avian species seen on the hike that happened to be life birds for me were Silver-throated Tanagers and Flame-throated Warblers, which area both very beautiful birds.
Here are some photos from back near the house in which we are staying:
Orange-billed Nightingale-thrush
Common Tody-flycatcher
Slate-colored Redstart (male)
Blue-gray Tanager
I am not up for doing a bird list tonight, although here is my current number of bird species I have seen in my life:
375 species
Before this trip to Panama, I had 265 life birds. Yesterday I had 361 life birds, and now I have 375 birds! You really get to see a lot of avian life in Panama.
So, no quetzal today. Strike one. On a happier note, the birds of the day were Collared Trogon, Common Tody-flycatcher, and Flame-throated Warbler.
The hunt for the quetzal will resume on Monday,
Show this blog to your friends and happy birding as always,
Henry
Henry, your photos are wonderful! The colors are so vivid. Panama is an incredible country. Keep the photos coming. Good luck with the quetzal!! Sarah
by Sarah Hoffman