Fortuna – Biodiversity

Birds of Panama

This year we were not studying birds and did not have any ornithologists with us, but we still saw some interesting species. Some highlights include several pretty little hummingbirds including the Black-throated Mango, Long-tailed hermits, and white-necked Jacobans. We saw several hawks, but had a difficult time identifying them. One beautiful one we got a good look at was the Pearl Kite. I had never been to Fortuna and saw 12 new species just sitting on the front porch one morning. One of the cutest was the Rufous-collared sparrow. Feeding with the sparrows were a pair of Lesser Seed-finches and a male Yellow-faced Grassquit. I also saw several flycatchers, including a Yellow-bellied Elaenia. We caught a Yellow warbler and a Ringed Kingfisher in the bat nets at Bocas. We saw a pair of Linneated Woodpeckers and both Yellow and Red-rumped Caciques, and a Fasciated Antwren on Pipeline Road. At BCI we were able to see Crested Guans and a Red-capped Mannikan. We only saw 2 trogons: Slaty-tailed and Violaceous. Of course we saw lots of parrots and both Chestnut-mandibled and Keel-billed toucans, as well as Collared Aracaris. Two birds with great names, the Chacalacas and Bananaquits, were everywhere in Gamboa. In total we were able to identify about 65 species of birds without even looking for them. And I learned that I definiely need to study those large and mid-sized Tyrant Flycatchers.

Vicki

A great dam tour with a great dam guide!

Hello everyone!
       I apologize for slacking a bit when it comes to this blog but it seems like a lot of the highlights have been summarized well by everyone else. The reefs of Bocas and the forests of Fortuna held amazing amounts of biodiversity, but some of the various engineering projects we have seen have been just as fascinating.
        Fortuna is home of the Fortuna Dam, a 600 m long concrete structure that has truncated a river and created a huge reservoir. At a typical dam, the hydroelectric facilities are inside the dam itself, but the Fortuna Dam is quite unique in that the reservoir water is channeled 6km in an underground pipeline to an underground hydroelectric facility before being channeled an additional 8km to a discharge location. The benefit of a setup like this is that the head (difference in elevation between reservoir and turbine level) can be increased to increase water speed and thus increase power. In the case of the Fortuna Dam, the head is 800m; so a lot of power can be generated using a minimal amount of water. The maxiumum power output of the 3 generators combined is 321 MW which doesn’t seem like much (the main coal plant in Green Bay produces 350 MW), but provides over 1/3 of Panama with electricity!
        We got to view the dam, tour the museum, take a (rainy) boat ride on the reservoir, visit the control center, and go 500m underground into the hydroelectricity facility itself (we got to wear stylish hard hats too!). In case it isn’t already apparent, I found the Fortuna Dam really interesting!

– Kassie

Next Stop Fortuna

We have had a great time in Bocas del Toro. We found a rare anteater and did a lot of surveys of marine invertebrates. We also recorded several species of bats. And in our spare time were able to do a lot of snorkeling. I’m sure someone willpost photos and more info on the anteater and the other things we saw. Thanks to Gabriel and the staff at the Bocas del Toro lab for their help and to our great boat drivers Sebastian and Eric. Also thanks to Ray Gabriel for his great talk on tarantulas and night time hike. And a huge hug and special thanks to Maurice Thomas, our collaborator on the bat project. We had a great time getting to see the bats up close and to help to create a library of their echo-location calls. There will be a future post about why these recordings are impoprtant. Unfortunately no fishing bats were caught this year, so that will be up to the next year’s class.

We are off to visit the cloud forest at Fortuna in the west central highlands and won’t be able to post for a few days. Mike Draney will be collecting spiders and John Katers will show us the hydro-electric facility. We are told there are no poisonous snakes in the cloud forest, so that is good. Last time we visited we had 10 inches of rain in 1 day. We’ll let you know if the dry season has arrived yet.

Vicki