Sunday, March 26, 2017

Panama - El Cope

El Cope is tough to get to and we were glad of our 4x4 as the road up is very steep and basically a river bed.   We parked the car short of the park itself to walk in, hoping to see birds on the way in.   This is the view back down the road, as we got close to the park entrance in the still early morning:


On arrival we paid our fee and then asked if they had coffee, it was a bit cheeky but they did indeed give us a mug of hot, sweet coffee which was much appreciated.

While drinking and chatting one of the park staff pointed out this Orange-bellied Trogon sat in the trees by the entrance:


It moved on a bit but kept a wary eye on us tracking it:


The walks around El Cope, in the forest are quite tough, very narrow and not particularly maintained, except for the short concrete trail around the visitor centre.

We did some scrambling and some hiking but were quickly deterred from the first trail we'd chosen.  We did however get to see Golden-olive Woodpecker:


And a number of colourful butterflies in the sunnier patches of the forest:


Another lifer was this Spot-crowned Barbet:


We did see a good number of species but the visit was somewhat spoiled by a very noisy family who seemed intent on  staying fairly close, which made the sound-based birding in the forest tricky.  Anyway it was time to head off from El Cope, back down the tricky road and on to our next accommodation at Santa Fe.

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