First full day birding Panama: Loads of birds! Tons of lifers!

It was a big day of birding today. We had breakfast at 6:30 then met our guide, Ito, and headed just up the road past where we are staying to the cabins, also owned by Los Quetzales Lodge. We took Ito’s truck since our little Hyundai SUV hybrid couldn’t make it on the treacherous road going up the mountain.

I have to say this was probably the worst road I’d ever been on. Ito took it very slowly and thank goodness he did. I thought we just might not make it out of there in one piece. It was a rocky ride both up and down.

Would love to give more details and be able to edit and post some more photos but we have a 5:30 start in the morning and I’m going to have to call it an early night.

Buenos noches everyone.
(scroll to bottom for badge and photo)

Here is our list of birds from today. The ones in bold are lifers.
Mourning Dove
House Sparrow
Domestic Pigeon
Swainson’s Hawk
Turkey Vulture
Black Vulture
White Collared Swift
Vaux’s Swift
Blue and White Swallow
Cattle Egret
Blue Gray Tanager
Great Tailed Grackle
Violet Sabre Wing Hummingbird
Scaly-breasted Hummingbird
Green Violet Ear Hummingbird
Striped-tailed Hummingbird
White-throated Mountain-gem Hummingbird
Magnificent Hummingbird
Volcano Hummingbird
Orange-bellied Trogan
Resplendant Quetzal (male and female; we sorta saw this in Costa Rica, but really only saw a tail feather sticking out of the nest there, so I’m calling today’s a lifer since we got full views today of several.)
Prong-billed Barbet
Blue-throated Tucanet
Red-crowned Woodpecker (only Steve saw this lifer for himself; I was inside downloading photos to the iPad)
Harry Woodpecker (This is the Panama race– looks much darker than the one we see in our backyard at home, so I’m calling this a lifer.)
Lineages Foilage Gleaner
Buffy Toughed Cheek
Ruddy Woodcreeper
Streak-headed Woodcreeper
Mountain Elaenia
Tufted Flycatcher
Ochraceous Pewee(RARE BIRD ALERT! We were so lucky. He just flew right in front of us and sat out in the open for awhile.)
Yellowish Flycatcher
Dusky-capped Flycatcher
Tropical Kingbird
Barred Becard
Yellow-winged Vireo
Gray-breasted Martin
Clay colored Robin/Thrush
Brown-capped Vireo
White-breasted Woodwren
Gray-breasted Woodwren
Black-faced Solitaire
Ruddy-capped Nightingale Thrush
Black-headed Nightingale Thrush
Mountain Thrush
Flame-throated Warbler
Slate-throated Redstart
Collared Redstart
Wilson’s Warbler
Black-cheeked Warbler
Wrenthrush
Sooty-capped Bush Tanager
Palm Tanager
Emerald Tanager
Silver-throated Tanager
Yellow-faced Grassquit
Yellow-thighed Finch
Slaty Flower Piercer
Large-footed Finch
Chestnut-capped Brush Finch
Rufous-collared Sparrow
Flame-colored Tanager
Black-thighed Grosbeak
Golden-browsed Chlorophonia
Yellow-bellied Sisken
Wedge-Tailed Grass Finch

Of course we saw more than fifty birds today, but there’s not a badge for any numbers between 50 and 100. Oh well!