Cobia Island Marine National Park, Panama
We dropped anchor early this morning at Panama’s most important Marine National Park. This location, Coiba Marine National Park, is part of a multi-country effort to create the largest protected marine corridor within the western Pacific hemisphere. This corridor extension of more than 1,000 miles includes Costa Rica’s Coco’s Island, Coiba Island, Panama, Manpelos Islands Columbia and the Galápagos Islands in Ecuador.
Our guests were elated with our arrival this morning to a tiny tropical island known as Granito de Oro (Grain of Gold). Although our weather was not optimal, Granito rewarded the birders with a variety of birds including blue-throated golden-tailed hummingbirds, Mangrove black hawk, Tennessee warbler, Wilson warbler, and yellow warblers. The snorkelers, meanwhile, reported sightings of white-tipped reef sharks, hawksbill turtles, Moorish idols, blue damselfish, and the list went on. It was quite a successful morning.
We repositioned for lunch on the main island. Our Hotel Staff prepared an awesome barbecue with ribs, hamburger, sausages, salads and desserts fit for a feast! Natural history sightings continued, literally during lunch, when the call came: “Tito!!” Cobia’s famous 12-foot saltwater crocodile who visits from time to time, Tito was in a prime sighting location just three feet from shore!
Later, after our lunch, the birds took over the rest of the afternoon. We had wonderful sightings of Red-legged Honeycreepers, Crimson-backed tanagers, Blue-gray tanagers, Bananaquit, Yellow-faced grassquits, Buff-throated saltator, and the list didn’t end here.
Coiba Marine National Park is a very important in the continuation of efforts to protect this area due to it endemism on land and underwater. The Panamanian Environmental Protection Agency (ANAM) and a private NGO, MarViva, are working on a master plan to create strong legislation to protect the 172,000 acres of Land and Marine National Park. The final goal is the unification of the multi-country marine corridor.
We dropped anchor early this morning at Panama’s most important Marine National Park. This location, Coiba Marine National Park, is part of a multi-country effort to create the largest protected marine corridor within the western Pacific hemisphere. This corridor extension of more than 1,000 miles includes Costa Rica’s Coco’s Island, Coiba Island, Panama, Manpelos Islands Columbia and the Galápagos Islands in Ecuador.
Our guests were elated with our arrival this morning to a tiny tropical island known as Granito de Oro (Grain of Gold). Although our weather was not optimal, Granito rewarded the birders with a variety of birds including blue-throated golden-tailed hummingbirds, Mangrove black hawk, Tennessee warbler, Wilson warbler, and yellow warblers. The snorkelers, meanwhile, reported sightings of white-tipped reef sharks, hawksbill turtles, Moorish idols, blue damselfish, and the list went on. It was quite a successful morning.
We repositioned for lunch on the main island. Our Hotel Staff prepared an awesome barbecue with ribs, hamburger, sausages, salads and desserts fit for a feast! Natural history sightings continued, literally during lunch, when the call came: “Tito!!” Cobia’s famous 12-foot saltwater crocodile who visits from time to time, Tito was in a prime sighting location just three feet from shore!
Later, after our lunch, the birds took over the rest of the afternoon. We had wonderful sightings of Red-legged Honeycreepers, Crimson-backed tanagers, Blue-gray tanagers, Bananaquit, Yellow-faced grassquits, Buff-throated saltator, and the list didn’t end here.
Coiba Marine National Park is a very important in the continuation of efforts to protect this area due to it endemism on land and underwater. The Panamanian Environmental Protection Agency (ANAM) and a private NGO, MarViva, are working on a master plan to create strong legislation to protect the 172,000 acres of Land and Marine National Park. The final goal is the unification of the multi-country marine corridor.
