Panama: Sierra Llorona

It defies logic and expectation alike, but each new site was better than the last! We fell asleep at Sierra Llorona to the grunting hoots of Mottled Owls, and awoke the next morning to find the feeders covered with hummingbirds and Chestnut-mandibled Toucans in the trees.

Sierra Llorona Lodge has a beautiful series of trails behind it, and we couldn’t resist heading down one of them before breakfast. White-tailed Trogons, which we’d heard along Old Gamboa Road, sang but refused steadfastly to let themselves be seen; suppose I’ll just have to go back someday….

At one point we were watching a Squirrel Cuckoo moving through the foliage, when a feathered form flashed in to land above our heads. A quick look at that median throat-stripe and it was obvious what it was.

The bird was utterly unconcerned at having landed on top of us, and perched long enough for all of us to admire the first juvenile Double-toothed Kite I’d ever seen, and the only member of the species we would see in Panama.

Breakfast called, the delicious spread we’d come to expect on our tour; but still we hurried, wanting to have a little time along the well-wooded entrance road before we had to leave. And I’m glad we did. A Black-breasted Puffbird perched unmoving above us, immediately propelling Sierra Llorona to the top of my world’s-best-driveways list!