Birding News and Features

New filters for eBird Panama

A new set of filters has been installed for eBird Panama. A filter is a list of the maximum number of  birds of each species expected to be seen in different parts of Panama.  These are used to identify unusual sightings so that details on the observation can be requested.  Originally there were 8 filters covering lowland, foothills and highlands in Western, Central, and Eastern Panama. Birders would often cross one of these boundaries during a day’s birding, the wrong filter would then be applied to their observations, and a message would pop up asking for confirmation.  To avoid this, the number of filters has been reduced to 3 covering Western, Central, and Eastern Panama.  The Central (or Canal Area) filter covers both the Atlantic and Pacific side from Cerro Campana and Punta Chame to Tocumen Marsh, Cerro Azul and Cerro Jefe. The other two filters cover from lowlands to highlands to the west and east of the canal area.

Welcome to eBird Panama

The Panama Audubon Society is proud to present eBird Panama, a country specific version of eBird, developed by the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology and the National Audubon Society in the United States.   By using eBird, you will be able to keep a personal list of birds seen in Panama and at the same time, make a valuable contribution to the study of local and migratory birds in North America.  The birds you and others report can be seen in several different graphical presentations that show when and where various species have been found. 

This website has been set up by the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology with funding provided by the Wolf Creek Charitable Foundation. The Panama Audubon Society provided maps and information on the distribution of birds by region, and will be managing the site, including verification of sightings.

Shorebird Census at the Bay of Panama

Bryan Watts and Bart Paxton from the Center for Conservation Biology of the College of William and Mary returned to Panama in October, 2008  to census shorebirds in the Bay of Panama.  They had conducted a more extensive survey in 1997 when they found that well over 1 million shorebirds relied on the site for their annual migration.  They were pleased to find that similar numbers were still to be found but warned that coastal development could be causing unseen damage to the population that might not be evident until it was too late.