Parque Nacional Soberania
Trip Start
Sep 28, 2007
1
32
33
Trip End
Ongoing
Panama City,
Panama
Thursday, November 29, 2007
On our last day in Panama we decided to take a trip to Soberania national park. The park borders the artificial lake created by the canal and is an essential watershed for supplying the canal.
This involved a trip with our tame and slightly strange taxi driver Rafael who would insist that we couldn't do what we wanted to. Firstly we were on the wrong road (we weren't), then we had to stop here because the park is an island (it may have islands in it but it certainly isn't one). But we got where we wanted to go in the end. We chose a 7km hike along a trial called la plantacion, because it was an early coffee and cacao plantation in the canal zone. At the end it connects with the remnants of the sendero de los cruces, one of the two trails the Spanish used to move loot from the Pacific to the Atlantic coast. If we had been a little more alert we might have chosen to go a bit further on to the world renowned oleoductor trail, or pipeline road but we hadn't realised that it was so accessible. This trail holds the world record for most species seen in a 24 hour period.
But it is very hard to regret our choice. We had a great day and saw an excellent range of birds and mammals, and some amphibians. I confess that I still take more interest in mammals than in birds, but the latent bird watching gene is slowly kicking in.
A 7km trail shouldn't take that long to complete, but as I have complained elsewhere, the problem with getting anywhere in in this part of the world is the distractions. We spent eight hours over our 15 km walk, along a pretty well graded and level track .
We overtook a small bird-watching group fairly early on, who were looking at invisible birds so we decided to move on, even though this displayed our amateurism.
camouflaged frog
But we saw a lot of birds anyway. Birds
One of the most spectacular was a motmot with an orange belly and very long racquet tail. We saw another on the way back, almost the same colouring but much smaller. Another impressive sighting was a large bird of prey that we hoped might have been a juvenile harpy eagle. It wasn't, and may have been a grey hawk: it was slight grey, with lighter underparts and distinctive black eyes.
We also saw another trogon (we think), this one grey with redbreast which we think makes her a female (but I forget the species, slate tailed?). The second one we saw was perched in a tree eating what looked like a lizard.
On the way back, we came across a perfectly posing brown mandibled toucan on a branch above the track.
Once we were a little further into the forest, there was quite a lot of chatter from very small ground dwelling birds who refused to sit still, and we were often surprised by the whirring of these birds' wings when they took off, and by the even louder whirring of something that looked like a brownish blackbird. I've never heard birds with such noisy wings.
Doubtless we came across many species that are unusual and exciting, but failed to recognise them, but there is only so much studying you can do.
Amphibians
We saw quite a few frogs, in variations brown, including one tiny creature about the size of a piece of paper from a hole punch. The most interesting were largish frogs almost perfectly camouflaged to look like a certain kind of leaf on the path, down to having a pointy nose like the stem and ridges mimicking the leaves' veins.
Mammals
We came across several families of coatis, although they are much shyer here than at Tikal and require much more stealth.
a trogon?
Nevertheless we were able to watch one group foraging for a while. Another one we just saw disappearing down the tree. Late in the afternoon we found an agouti, and we saw several squirrels.But the day really belonged to the monkeys and sloths.
We found two two-toed sloths curled up in their trees like classic mops. But we then saw nothing for quite a long time, although howler monkeys were making plenty of noise. But quite a long in to the walk were in an area of tall trees. There was a lot of noise: Twigs snapping, rustling and heavy things constantly falling through the canopy. It was a family of howler monkeys feeding, and the mess was just terrific. Both Nancy and I were nearly hit by half-eaten fruit several times. But while it was nice to soak up this atmosphere, there really wasn't too much to see, so we moved along the trail just a little along. Here the noise was even worse because the white faced capuchins were doing who knows what - but actual branches were coming down here.
As we watched, one large capuchin was calling (ruf ruf), while a female howler huffed back. Then he crossed trees over to her and snarled at her, long canines were fully visible. Then he scuttled back along the branch and then turned around and scuttled over again. Then there was a little scuffle (tag and release) and then they split up and the capuchin changed trees and then moped for a while. It appeared to be completely unprovoked, and quite pointless. I don't know what it was all about, but no one got hurt.
As we turned around we saw a three-toed sloth in a plantain palm, just a silhouette against the leaves. But he was moving.
After a short wander down the sendero de los cruces, we turned around. And it was on this leg that we came upon a bunch of little monkeys, that might be titis. Very cute and active little creatures. And as we looked back again there was a three-toed sloth sleeping in the fork of a tree.
It was interesting to compare the different calls. Howlers go "u u u oog" and capuchins "ruf" (the u is short, the way some English would say roof, neither roof nor rough). Titi's cheep.
And then there were the paw prints, all the way along the track! Some were very large, others' small, some with claws some not. I'm puzzled as to what they could be. I reckon there was definitely an adult and baby, and it is possible that some with claws were dog prints but I'm sure that others were more exciting, and I would like to think were jaguars.
So a pretty good day. Lots of birds, six species of mammals, several kinds of frogs. One strange incident occurred later in the day, we came around a bend and a man with two dogs ran away from us. I doubt that we had caught up with someone jogging, and the only explanation is that he was coming our way but turned around when he saw us. And the only explanation for that would be that he was out poaching. I hope I am wrong.
