Rainy Season

Golfo de Chiriqui, Pacific Coast & Peninsula de Las Palmas, Panama

Walking along this trail one thing becomes clear, we’ve been away from the tropics for way too long. Heliconias, red and yellow glow in a sea of green. Sweat runs in rivulets down my face, heat and humidity, the necessary ingredients for this untamed mass of life, hard to handle after years spent in Colorado. Howler Monkeys roar and howl from mid-level in the trees overhead, a misty rain drifts through the canopy, makes my shirt even wetter but doesn’t cool. Surrounded by an almost unbelievable diversity of life, plant, animal and insect make a dreamscape for a photographer.

Mantled Howler Monkey [Alouatta palliata] adult browsing canopy; Soberania National Park, Panama. Howlers are vegetarians feeding on leaves, fruit and flowers.

Mantled Howler Monkey [Alouatta palliata] adult male howling in canopy; Soberania National Park, Panama. Males make all the noise to define their territories.

Mantled Howler Monkey [Alouatta palliata] adult female carrying baby through canopy; Soberania National Park, Panama

After a 10 year absence from the new world tropics we decided on a trip to Panama to renew a love affair that started in Costa Rica (that affair ended up as a book on the common plants of CR) in the early ’90s and to see if living here full-time was imaginable. But also to be surrounded by the incredible medley of life, the colors, the sounds, the smells that mark the neotropics as a place that can immerse us in encounters that we cannot experience anyplace else.

Waterfall in rainforest; Soberania National Park, Panama

Beach on Pacific Coast; Playa Las Lajas, Panama

We come fully armed with the photography equipment necessary for working in the rainforest, digital cameras that allow speeds that were unthinkable in the age of film and a range of lenses. Our newest piece of gear is a Nikon D800, the much heralded 36.3 megapixel full frame (a 200mm lens is a 200mm lens) camera that has made landscape photographers swoon. It was never billed as a wildlife shooters camera but, with an excellent high ISO sensor (I shoot in low light at 2,000 ISO as well as using the high ISO settings for Hummingbird photography with little or no noise) and the ability to switch to DX mode (a 200mm lens is the equivalent of a 300mm lens) at a lower megapixel count (15.4) there is no reason the D800 can’t be used for all the things a nature photographer wants to work on. This is not a “fast” camera, 4-5 frames a second, so it isn’t a sports camera, but having never been a “spray and pray” photographer it is plenty fast for me. So we get to put a new camera through its paces in a country new to us.

Great Egret [Casmerodius albus] in flight over Pacific Coast; Playa Las Lajas, Panama

Green Violet-ear Hummingbird [Colibri thalassinus] nectaring; Bajo Grande, Cerro Punta, Panama. Shot at 2500 ISO.

After surviving the drive out of Panama City, something you really don’t want to do, surviving is good, the driving is not, we spent several days with the town of Gamboa as our base, an interesting little town along the Panama Canal and Soberania National Park (54,620 acres). Gamboa is one of the settlements that housed the workers during the building of the canal and has a great unique and historical feel. The park is home to an amazing variety of wildlife and is the home of the Pipeline Road (Camino del Oleoducto) one of the top birding sites on the planet. Soberania has some 525 species of birds, 105 species of mammals, 55 of amphibians, and 79 of reptiles; enough diversity to keep a lover of nature busy for a long time. Of course, the entire country has an abundance of species, some 972 species of birds, over 200 reptile and mammal species, nearly 200 amphibian species, and more than 10,00 of plants. Barro Colorado Island has 480 species of trees on its 15 square kilometers of land.

American Crocodile [Crocodylus acutus] living in inland lake, bearing teeth at rival? or potential mate; Soberania National Park, Panama. Crocodile numbers are increasing, occasionally attacking humans.

Mesoamerican Sliders [Trachemys scripta ornata] sunning; Chagres River inlet, Soberania National Park, Panama

Central American Agouti [Dasyprocta punctata] foraging; Gamboa, Panama

Rufous Motmot [Baryphthengus martii]; Soberania National Park, Panama. Mud on beak and feet from digging nest burrow under roots of a large tree.

Like macro subjects? There are estimates of 10,000 species of beetles and 16,000 of butterflies.

Flag-footed Bug [Anisocelis flavolineata] on Passionfruit vine; Casa Mariposa, Santa Fe, Panama.

Dead Leaf Mantis [Acanthops sp]; Pipeline Road, Soberania National Park, Panama. Trying to look inconspicuous.

With all of this life comes the realization that a great deal of it is under one threat or another with 112 species on the Red List of threatened species and many populations accelerating toward oblivion. Climate change and habitat destruction being the major drivers of species decline or extinction. Panama has about 29% of its area protected as forest reserves, wildlife refuges and national parks but many of these are “paper parks” with no infrastructure and no real ability to protect them from illegal logging, slash and burn agriculture and poaching. We hope that as the park idea matures these paper parks will get the protection they deserve just as some of the parks in Costa Rica went through much the same process.

Clouds dropping over mountains of Cordillera Central and Santa Fe National Park; north of Santa Fe de Veraguas, Panama.

Rain hammers down and the wind whips it back under the roof overhang we hoped would shelter us while thunder rumbles almost continuously, at first this is really refreshing but as the storm persists and water cascades off of roofs like waterfalls, the temperature drops and there is a distinct chill in the air. A gain of elevation translates into cooler temps, add rain and wind and it does not feel tropical at all. The rainy season (“green season”) is not constant or even consistent, some days have no rain at all and generally mornings are clear with the breath of the rain forest, like a gossamer film, sliding through and over the jungle.

Sunrise over misty mountain rainforests; Santa Fe de Veraguas, Panama

This trip took us to some of the towns whose elevation promised a little cooler experience. El Valle de Anton, sitting in the crater of an extinct volcano is home of the almost mythical Golden Frog housed now at the Amphibian Conservation Center (the only place you will see them in Panama) along with other critically endangered amphibian species, was our first highland stop. The hope is with captive breeding programs that these species will eventually be re-introduced to the wild.

Panamanian Golden Frog [Atelopus zeteki], critically endangered frog, extinct in the wild, captive in reproductive facility; El Valle Amphibian Conservation Center, El Valle de Anton, Panama

Santa Fe de Veraguas, a beautiful area near the national park of the same name (one of those “paper Parks”) with a new paved road heading toward the Caribbean, over the continental divide into the Ngobe-Bugle indigenous domain which will change the character of this area but will hopefully prompt the government to begin to protect the park. The highlands around Parque National Volcan Baru (35,00 acres) with Boquete (“gringolandia”) the most well-known town in the area and very popular with expats, west to Volcan and Cerro Punta, the farm center of Panama and bordered by both Volcan Baru National Park and La Amistad International Park (511,000 acres, shared with Costa Rica) have a lot of fascinating country to tempt the photographer.

Farmland encroaching rainforest above Cerro Punta, Panama

Panama has a number of indigenous groups living on traditional lands called Comarcas (semi-autonomous areas), the Ngobe-Bugle, Embera-Wounaan, Kuna, Naso working to gain Comarca status and a small population of Bri Bri. As is often the case today many of these people live in poverty while trying to live in a more or less traditional way subsistence farming, fishing and hunting. Some see increased tourism, especially eco-tourism as a way to improve their lives.

Traditional homes & farms of Indigenous people the Ngobe Bugle; north of Santa Fe de Veraguas, Santa Fe National Park, Cordillera Central, Panama

We spent a few evenings after dark chasing frog calls, always hopeful of seeing the singer and getting a photo (finding an ID comes later) while being distracted by constellations of stars in the trees and across the grass, watching a firefly flash from one perch to another releasing its cold fire into the warm night. The D800 has a built-in flash that some think is an “amateur” addition, I would disagree. I use off-camera flash for many things (fill light for wildlife and low light macros) but for ease of use when photographing insects and frogs this built-in flash does a great job.

[Smilisca sordida] Treefrog; El Valle de Anton, Panama

No sleeping in with parrots flying in pairs from roost to feeding areas calling constantly, Orange-chinned Parakeets chatter and screech back and forth from a Cecropia tree full of fruit. Howlers start up fairly early, prompting you out to see what wonders wait, always something new and intriguing.

Orange-chinned Parakeet [Brotogeris jugularis]; Gamboa, Panama

Mantled Howler Monkey [Alouatta palliata] adult with botfly lesions (warble), browsing canopy; Soberania National Park, Panama. Botflies don’t harm healthy adults but it sure looks uncomfortable.

Will we move to Panama? What we do know is that a couple of weeks only leaves more questions, but we have seen enough to warrant a return. The bigger question for now, is the Nikon D800 a camera wildlife photographers could use in the real world? You be the judge, I know my answer.

Collared Aracari [Pteroglossus torquatus]; Santa Fe, Panama

Blue-gray Tanager [Thraupis episcopus]; Gamboa, Panama. Shot at ISO 2000.

Rufous-tailed Hummingbird [Amazillia tzacatl]; Gamboa, Panama

Collared Aracari [Pteroglossus torquatus] takes flight; Santa Fe, Panama. Till next time!

 

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