2018 Panama Journal - Day 5 - Part 2

Wednesday 2/14/18 - Continued.

Carlos had split our group into 2 smaller groups.  Slower people at the back and the faster hikers at the front.  Mark and I were first in line for the fast hikers.  It was a very quick pace!  One of the local guides had hiked ahead to make sure the Harpy was still in the area.

When Carlos, Mark, and I reached the end of the trail I didn’t see anything but a very large tree.

 The nest tree.

Carlos set up the scope and told me to look through it.  What I saw gave me chills!  It was a Harpy. 

  

Click on pictures to enlarge.

This is an immature Harpy Eagle.  2 1/2 years old.  It is sitting at the top of its nest tree. The Harpy Eagle is among the largest raptors (Birds of Prey) in the world. With talons that are 4" in length and a wingspan of up to 8 feet, the Harpy is well suited to hunting its preferred prey, sloths and monkeys. 

As the parents will be nesting again soon, this immature will soon be leaving the nest tree.  It is occasionally being fed by its parents but they are coming around less often in order to encourage him to leave the area.  Although I call the Harpy a “him” it is unknown if it is a male or female.

Since the Harpy was staying relatively still in the tree, Carlos was able to take a movie through the spotting scope.

Eventually everyone from our group reached the end of the trail.  We stayed here for a couple of hours.  The bird never flew off and everyone was able to watch him all they wanted. We saw a few other birds in this area then headed back down the trail.

Also in the tree with the Harpy Eagle was another target bird for the trip, the Sirystes. This small, gray and white flycatcher was in the same tree, probably no more than 20' from the eagle. But at only 7" long it seemed tiny.

We had a bit of humor when one of the ladies grabbed her leg and said that she felt something in her pants. We all figured that it would be an insect, but she assured us that it was bigger than that!  Teri helped her unzip the leg off of her pants (thank goodness for convertible pants!) and out dropped a frog!!  She'd had her pants tucked into her socks, so couldn't figure out how a frog got in there.

Pants Frog

Next time:  Wednesday 2/14/18 - Part 3: More to see on the way back and our bird list for Day 5.