Gamboa Rainforest Resort: Out Pipeline Trail

Pipeline Trail, one of the most famous birding sites in the world, disappointed me on my first visit, earlier this year. But the half day I spent there this month was spectacular, and I came away understanding why it should enjoy the reputation it does.

We started with a fine meal at Los Lagartos, where Great Kiskadees perched around our table and Greater Anis fussed at Purple Gallinules in the shoreline vegetation.

Royal Terns flew up and down the river from and to the Canal, and Yellow-crowned Tyrannulets, perhaps my “favorite” bird of the entire trip, worked the treetops and the shrubs nearby.

On then to Pipeline Road, where for more than 5 hours we were surrounded by constant avian action. It was the most amazing piprid day I’d ever experienced, with Blue-crowned, Red-capped, and Golden-collared Manakins rarely out of sight, and a couple of times all three species in a single binocular view! Normally shy and reclusive in their shady haunts, Dusky Antbirds and Western Slaty-Antshrikes gave excellent performances, and a Cinnamon Woodpecker, a bird that had offered only brief flight views earlier this year, tapped calmly at a nest hole while we watched. Blue-crowned and Rufous Motmots were utterly unconcerned, feeding just a few feet away from us just inside the foliage. Slaty-tailed Trogons were downright common, whistling as they perched right above our heads.

Too soon it was time to head back–and we suddenly realized that in the five hours we’d walked, we hadn’t made it even to the first bridge. Truly a miraculous day on the Pipeline Trail.