The Canopy Tower - Ecolodge and Nature Observatory

• Awaken to a tropical chorus of motmots, toucans, and fruitcrows.Your bedroom is at treetop level, no more than 40 feet from the birds. In the cool Panamanian dawn you can feel Panamá's great rainforest awakening around you. Blue Cotingas and Green Shrike-Vireos, birds normally glimpsed high in the tops of trees, perch right outside your Canopy Tower room......Read more

Recent report from Canopy Tower.

The Canopy Lodge

• Inches from your bedroom window, the cloud forest canopy is riotous with early morning bird life.... Fruit, fresh-baked pastry, and hearty coffee (or tea) in hand, you sit on a veranda surrounded by hummingbirds and tanagers taking their breakfast and add to your life list......

Panama May/June - 2006 399 Bird Species recorded

• Moving on, just a few of the group got to see a Black-faced Antthrush which had run across the track between the group, but right beside us, literally six feet away we enjoyed fantastic views of a Stripe-cheeked Woodpecker which had no concern at all that we were even there!....Steve Bird reports

Travel & Site Guide to Birds of Costa Rica With Side Trips to Panama
Buy from Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk

• This is not a birding field guide, but a helpful guide to quite a few Costa Rica birding sites. Very good descriptions of sites included (including some information not available elsewhere) but many other places were not covered. The author's assessments are useful.

A Guide to the Birds of Panama
Robert S. Ridgely, John A. Gwynne: Buy from Amazon.com

• This is a good, standard guidebook with beautiful bird plates. Three chapters ("Migration and Local Movements", Recent Developments...", and "Finding Birds in Panama") were especially interesting and helpful. The chapter "Finding Birds in Panama" was very accurate and useful to me. I wish I had purchased this guidebook before my earlier birding trips to Costa Rica. It is an important book for the entire region.

Where to Watch Birds in Central America & the Caribbean
Nigel Wheatley, David Brewer: Buy from Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk

• This guide covers the best birding sites in Central America and the Caribbean. In a format familiar to readers of this very popular series, each site is considered in terms of 'Habitat', 'Timing', 'Access' and 'Calendar', allowing birders to plan excursions to maximise the chances of getting the best out of each site and each region. The book includes detailed maps of the larger sites, plus general maps of the regions covered, and it is illustrated with line drawings.

Lonely Planet Panama
Scott Doggett: Buy from Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk

• I have visited Panama twice. I found this guide book to be both useful and interesting enough to read from cover to cover. I read all the sections, not just those that pertained to my areas of interest. I especially liked the author's insights and comments about Panama's history, culture and society. I got a sense of what Panama is "really" like. The frank reviews, both good and bad, of the restaurants and hotels, are very helpful. Also, there is contact information for a number of local guides. I would recommend this book for first time visitors to Panama as well as repeat visitors wishing to have current information.