In their landmark book A Guide to the Birds of Panama with Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Honduras, Ridgely and Gwynne describe the Spectacled Antpitta (also called the Streak-breasted Antpitta) as “A plump, short-tailed, very long-legged terrestrial forest bird… a solitary bird which seems to favor areas of forest with relatively little undergrowth.” My own description would include other information, such as “plumage is exactly the same shade of brown as the fallen leaves that cover the Panamanian forest floor,” “can bolt in any direction from which it is standing without giving any prior indication that it was planning to move,” and “reasonably thought to possess the power of invisibility.”
Fortunately, on the day the group participating in Leica’s digiscoping workshop at Canopy Tower was birding along Pipeline Road, Carlos Bethancourt, Canopy Tower’s chief guide who was leading the day’s adventure, heard the distinctive call of this shy little bird emanating from the dense jungle foliage that borders both sides of the path. The group came to a halt while Carlos and Jeff tried to pinpoint the bird’s location so that all in the group could get a good – or in the case of this particular bird, a reasonable – look at it.
Their hard work paid off, for not only was the bird located through the dense wall of vegetation that shielded it from the group, but thanks to Carlos setting up multiple spotting scopes and keeping the bird in sight even when it made a dash out of view, everyone had an opportunity to capture a few digiscoped images of it as well.
I was personally so thrilled at being given the opportunity to see and digiscope an image of this secretive little creature that in the attempt to make sure that I snapped at least a passingly recognizable photo I didn’t even bother to straighten the camera before depressing the shutter. In retrospect, it was a good thing I did because as soon as this shot was taken the bird made one of its final sudden and silent sprint to a more secluded spot out of sight from our prying lenses.
