Collared Aracari
A stay at Cana usually includes a trip to the Pirre Cloud Forest Camp. In addition to birds, at least three different kinds of
monkeys are encountered en route, including Howler, Capuchin, and Spider Monkeys.
Sometimes a fox, sloth, or group of peccaries is seen, as well as
squirrels, lizards and butterflies.
The Pirre Cloud Camp's crowning attraction is a bench situated at a
clearing with a view of hundreds of miles of northern Panama. Against
the morning mists, Howler monkeys gambol and groan in flowering trees.
Irridescent Blue Cotingas and Dacnis perch amidst Yellow-eared
Toucanets and Orange-bellied Euphonias. Cascading flocks of Pirre Bush
and Speckled Tanagers and White-ringed Flycatchers vie for your
attention amid
Rufous-cheeked, Greenish Puffleg, and Tooth-billed Hummingbirds, Chestnut-capped Brush Finches, Lemon-spectacled and Pirre Bush
Tanagers, Slaty-backed Nightingale Thrushes, Gray-breasted Wood and Sooty-headed wrens and Orange-bellied Euphonia.
Meals consist of
fish, chicken or barbecued porkchops, with rice, plantain, salad, and
fruit. Breakfast may be scrambled eggs with pancakes or nojaldres (frybread), a Panamanian delicacy.
You may have the experience, as we did, of a
blizzard of birds occuring as we arrived in camp. Toward the Pirre
summit, reached the following day, you see the rare endemics:
Beautiful Treerunner, Green-naped Tanager, and Pirre Warbler.
Photo by Jim Griffin
Wonderful birds appear in the forest as you hike. A Central American Pygmy Owl followed us nearly all the way on
our journey down.
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