El Valle Highlights.

The Canopy Tower's Carlos Bethancourt sent in the following report, illustrated with stunning digiscoped photos.

These photos of Cerulean Warbler were digiscoped with a Leica APO-Televid 77 scope and a C-LUX 2 Camera. The warbler was observed and photographed at Cerro Gaital, while doing a day tour to the Canopy Lodge. I think this is the second record of this bird observed at el Valle. There were three of them one female and two males. Another interesting bird observed in the same area was a Black-poll Warbler.



Another interesting and rare bird that hung around the Canopy Lodge from late July to early September was a Rufous-vented Ground-Cuckoo. This bird was first reported to us by Ken Allaire, who spent a good amount of time exploring El Valle and Canopy Lodge Grounds, and was seen often by the birders staying at the lodge.


I was very lucky to get this pictures on July 20, 2007 (10:00 am), while leading the first Tropical Digiscoping Seminar with Jeff Bouton from Leica Sports Optics. Well now you know where you may have a chance to see such a rare bird. I have been very lucky with this bird in Pipeline road but this was the first time I have seen it at the Canopy Lodge. There were actually three of them present: two adults and one immature.


This last picture is of a juvenile that I saw with Terry Moore, also from Leica Sports Optics, on late August. What was probably the same bird was seen by Samuel Britton on the first week of September.