White-throated Crake

Seeing - photographing!! - this bird was a major coup. These crakes are very easy to hear when you're in the right habitat, but they're quite small, and they stay in the grass that is over their heads and - we experienced this a couple of days ago - you can hear it right at your feet and still not ever see it. Well, this afternoon we saw four or five of them darting quickly in and out of the grasses in a wetland near the Canopy Tower outside of Panama City, and then this particular one popped up not 20 feet from us! Very exciting.

We saw it near the "ammo dump ponds" which - like Canopy Tower itself - were associated with the US military presence here in Panamá before the canal was turned over to the Panamanians.

We are now in the last two days of our trip - at Canopy Tower - which is an amazing and interesting place. And we have wifi in our actual rooms - so I can use my computer to post my blip!!! Yay.