June and July 2026

 Dear everyone!! it’s been a while, so time for an update. Busy with all sorts of things; it is low season, of course, so we are doing some work around our house and cottages. And enjoying working in the garden, giving some extra attention to the horse, dogs, and husband :) , connecting with friends.

But naturally, birds and nature have also been on the agenda. The highlights in that regard were seeing some new birds. 

One thing I don't really aspire to is going out to sea on a boat. Were it not for the fact that a Waved Albatross had been spotted in the Gulf of Chiriqui, and besides that, there were also Inca terns, my heart started beating faster. And 7th of July, we hired a boat with a boatman and set off with Patricia and Bernie. We sailed off from Boca Chica harbor. 

We couldn't find the Waved Albatross; the boatman was very helpful and we took extra time. We saw the Blue-footed Boobies, not a new bird for me, having seen them before in Peru, but certainly a new one for Panama.

The sooty Tern and the bridled Tern...new to me...and of course some other seabirds.

                               The sooty Tern is in flight and the bridled Tern on the rock(above)

                                                Down below a nice bridled Tern:

And then the Inca Tern, super happy to see this bird!!

The weather was beautiful, not too many waves, but around the rocks it did get a bit more "up and down" as the day progressed. I held up well, but I was borderline seasick. The other girls were steady, and Bernie in particular is used to boats; she comes from the Dutch Antilles. I didn't mind having both feet back on dry land. But it was a beautiful day! 

Another thing....A Kelp Gull had been spotted on Barqueta beach in David; well, that was a new bird for me. So the next day, Patricia and I went to the beach.

When we arrived, there weren't many birds. But in David, there is often a beautiful sunset and people come to watch. Usually Panamanian families. And then when the people came... (around 5 pm) the seagulls came (just like in the Netherlands). People eat and spil and they know that :) And I did see a big seagull flying in, so I looked through my binoculars and sure enough, he came straight at me and looked at me intently; he seemed to be saying, "You need me." The Kelp Gull! And so, a new bird for me. Patricia had already seen it that week, but she was just as happy as I was. It is always nice to share a "lifer" experience together.

June and part of July is naturally immature time, lots of young birds, always quite an event. Also on the farm this year, many different seed-eaters in the meadows and for 3 weeks now, 2 orange-billed sparrows have been singing their hearts out from the edge of the woods.

Also on the Quetzal trail Hans and I did see a nice nest with an immature of the ornate Hawk Eagle.On the left is the immature(white) :

With Ann, we went birdwatching in Dolega, between Boquete and David. Great weather and a good list of nice birds. Dolega is really worth visiting.Even "down town" is surprising good  to see birds, also el caño Dolega.

With Ian Sanchez, I went to a farm belonging to acquaintances. Ian is the son of friends of ours. He lives in Panama City and when he is with his parents here in Boquete, we try to head out. Ian is working  in tourisme ...nature, rafting, and much more guide for years and he is my kind of birder. Saw some good birds and enjoyed it.

And the day before yesterday, I spent a day birdwatching with Matthew... he is married to a Panamanian lady and we hiked the Quetzal Trail with them a very long time ago. We have actually kept in touch(they live in the states) and whenever they are here in Boquete to visit the family (with their two children), we see each other at least twice, preferably more. It is so nice. And birdwatching with Matthew is fun... but his passion is insects and butterflies. So I went with him to a farm where there was all sorts of... birds, butterflies and crazy insects and very colorful ones too. He takes macro photos and I learned a lot again. And birds, of course. But I must say, that is almost impossible to combine; it is, of course, more staring into bushes and at and under leaves. But we did have a pretty good bird list, too. 

Proud of my pictures of the Wheelbug(Arilus carinatus)

and long-tailed Skipper:

All in all, we've had quite busy weeks, fun busy... with the World Cup and the Tour de France, of course also and nice guests in the cottages.

Oh  a fun thing was also that I was attacked by these southern Lapwings. I did run away..after taking this quick picture, because  one of them really touched me. Probably close to immatures or nest.

Well, that's about it...here as dessert a cute picture of thick billed Euphonia female with  her immatures on our balcony... they flew out half July. 

Until next time and best regards from Terry😊😊

https://coffeeadventures.net/tinamou.html

The white-tailed Eagles in the Netherlands

As you can read in my April story ...in April we were in the Netherlands and did see a White-tailed Eagle nest near the village where we lived before Panama. It is a successful nest; two beautiful, healthy immatures have been ringed!

The reason this makes me so happy is that when we lived there, not much was being done about nature conservation. Now, the dikes are still a mess, because they are currently being raised... this in connection with climate change and potential future problems with the water... But what is also nice is that this area has finally come to be recognized as very important nature and what they have also done is ensure that river water can overflow behind the dikes... to prevent problems as well... but at the same time, it is becoming a wet nature reserve, from which many birds, animals (and people) benefit. :)

Greetings from Terry

in Mei....in May....

 "In Mei leggen alle vogels een ei"

In May, all birds lay an egg... a Dutch saying about May... which rhymes in Dutch but not in English. But just as in Panama as in the Netherlands, it does work that way. All birds sing, too. May is always a busy time for the birds and high season for the insects as well... because they sing and mate with each other too. That means a lot of food for the birds, because they need protein.

It also means there is a lot of work for me in the garden and on the farm, because everything is growing fast. But I have to be very careful, because there are nests everywhere... on the ground, in clumps, in the trees. This morning I was transplanting some plants and putting them next to our creek, and immediately a "cocoa woodcreeper" was calling out behind me; it had a nest in a crevice in a tree. So for me, that means getting out of there quickly.

I’ve been scrolling through my photos from the past 2 months a bit and collected the cutest photos and videos. The winner of the cutest moment was in the Netherlands, in the Kennemerduinen. A Blue Tit was collecting nesting material there I will add them on my Youtube channel, because he is too long for Blogger.  But here is the picture:

Three times I have seen a nest that I had never seen before.

In our meadow, a nest of the "black-chested Jays." As with this type of bird, they are usually not the neatest nests; it survived, but when the immatures had fledged, the next day the nest fell apart with a bit of wind. It was also nice that the parents were being helped by another jay, probably one from a previous nest. I had seen them flying together for well over 3 months; I had a feeling.

The second nest was from a pair "buff rumped Warblers", never did see a nest of them, it was in the bank of the river on the ground on our farm and they were pretty upset when I passed by(singing and calling) I took a fast picture, but not a good one and walked very fast away... It was round , made from grass and the entrance was on the side. Went back 2 weeks later ..to take a better picture of the nest, the immatures fledged, the family was gone and the nest unfortunately flat and wet.

I always feel bad when I am in their space... as birdwatchers  we are indruders😐

Speaking of intruders... right now there is already a second nest in my plant hanger on the terrace; quite bold thick-billed Euphonias have taken them over... :)

I can even just water the plant, no problem!

Then the third nest that I had never seen before was at the Global Big Day on May 9th, and that was a nest of the Golden-browed Chlorophonia, never seen before; that was definitely one of the highlights of that day... I had to zoom in, because it was high up in a bare dead tree, so the light was a bit poor.

This was in the cloud forest at an altitude of 2020 meters.

Of course, I saw a lot more young ones and nests... here are some more photos.

A  just fledged Istmian Wren in Fortuna forest reserve

nest of a clay colored Thrush, next to our balcony.

And also in the Fortuna forest reserve a very cute just fledged scaly crested Pygmy-Tyrant.

When you see an adult ...they are already very tiny birds:

Did see two adults around the nest.

Only in case of the Chlorophonia...I did see only the female feeding, no males in the area.

Anyway, June will give more immatures and nests. I did hear this morning the blue ground Dove singing and also the ruddy Quail Doves are really very active.

I will update my youtube channel and you can check out more videos :)

Have a good month June!

Greetings Terry

https://www.youtube.com/@terryvanniekerktinamoucott7548

April 2026

 Dear all, here I am at last; it is already May and May is almost over. But let me just stick to April. April is one of my favorite months, bird-wise. Migratory birds pass through and head north, and "our" birds start singing and courting. The first rains start to fall, and everything turns green and lush again. Although that didn't really happen in April, which was a shame. I was still irrigating during the first weeks of April. Different weather has to do with "El Niño," and because we are dealing with climate change, "El Niño" is stronger. And so, a very different weather picture than we are used to.

                       We decided to go to the Netherlands earlier than usual, for 2 weeks.

I actually liked the idea of ​​going earlier, because the birds in the Netherlands are singing and active then too. And there is a good chance I will see some migratory birds passing through. And it had been a while since that happened. We stayed in a nice old farmworker's cottage from 1859; it is located 2 minutes from the entrance to the Kennemer Dunes National Park. 

                                          And we even had bicycles. So we did that regularly. 

A beautiful dune area on the North Sea

I grew up by the dunes, so for me it was wonderful to hear and see all those birds again. What was really weird, though, was that I was a bit confused about the names of the birds during the first week. I recognized them, recognized the song and calls... but because I naturally make my lists in English for E-bird, I had forgotten some names of "my" Dutch birds. That was SO weird. But anyway, by the last week I had it all back in my head. And well here some pictures of my Dutch cuties!

long-tailed Tit   Staartmees

northern Wheatear   Tapuit

the first Cuckoo   Koekoek

Bluethroat  Blauwborst

Redstart   gekraagde Roodstaart

Dunnock    Heggenmus

                                         cute eurasian blue Tit  with nest material  Pimpelmees

My goal for the dune birds was to see one new bird....and that was the Black-necked Grebe (geoorde Fuut) ; strangely enough, I had never seen one before, and yes, I did see one. 

                                            Had to zoom in, so not the best pictures...

When I was visiting my friend, who lives in the far north of the Netherlands, we did see a group of Redwings (Koperwiek)... that was really a while ago, those were migrating to Scandinavia, Iceland, Siberia, Finland. Such a beautiful bird.

We also went to our former village in the middle of the country on the river Waal. A friend of ours who lives in our old house had told us that a White-tailed Eagle (Visarend) was nesting there. We are going to see these Eagles more and more in the Netherlands; they are doing well. And I had seen them before, but not on a nest.

                                                                 That was special!

The weeks  did go fast and before we knew  we were home in Boquete, Panama. And that was wonderful again. Back to work immediately, because we had guests right away. But anyway, that helps to get over the jet lag... and the day after arrival I was already birdwatching in the Cloud Forest, which was lovely again too.

And so May had already begun... this week I will make the story of the month May...

Greetings from Terry

Highlights the first three months of 2026

 3th of April 2026....Oops 3 months later, helloooo! 

Time flies in these times, we had a busy high season, which is okay. Tomorrow the last guests are checking out and then we have vacation. So I thought now it is time for a update!

The highlights of the last 3 months... well of course every day there is a highlight in this country, in our lives. Never a boring moment. Positive and negative, but let me stay with positive...the negative, well just watch the world news.... :(

First of all, a new bird for me in this province, which is of course quite special after being here for 28 years. I had searched for this bird for a long time, and I really wasn't looking for it this time, but there it was... an ochraceous Pewee. I was absolutely delighted, and so were the birders who were with me, because it was a new one for them too.

We saw the bird at an altitude of 2,650 meters, in the cloud forest here in Boquete.

And a new bird on our farm... a White-vented Euphonia. I heard him singing and couldn't place the song at first—well,  did recognize the song—but anyway, when it clicked and I saw the bird, it was clear. It is actually a female and a male. Besides his song, he also put on a beautiful courtship display. Unfortunately, they have left, probably to their natural habitat, but all in all, they were here for over two weeks. That was fun!

male above , female below

A week before I saw them, a guest said to me, "Could it be that I saw a white-vented Euphonia in the meadow...?" So he was right. My answer was, "Oh, that would be nice."

The last 3 months were busy. I was with a lot of beginner birders and they did all use binoculars for the first time . 

And actually, they were all, without exception, very enthusiastic and many are going to continue with it. There is one I will never forget, a Brazilian who stayed in Boquete for two nights, traveling from Brazil via Panama City and went birdwatching with me one morning. For this occasion, he had bought a somewhat simple pair of binoculars that were difficult to use for birdwatching. So he really wanted to borrow a pair of binoculars from me. We first went to an open field to practice finding a bird with binoculars, but after fifteen minutes he got the hang of it and could even find the small "sneaky" birds, giving a description of what he saw. Okay! We went to a dense cloud forest and no problem, we saw all the birds and... as the "icing on the cake," a resplendent Quetzal male performing his courtship display in the air. The man said... wow, that one has a long tail... what is it? Loved it!!!!

Lot of big birds sightings this season,  as some of you know... I love more the tiny ..sneaky, hard to find birds, but I had some great Quetzal, Bellbird, ornate Hawk Eagle sightings.

The Quetzal view that will stick in my mind was the one with a friend of ours. He was visiting with his wife and really wanted to go out with me one more time. Preferably to see a Quetzal. They were only here for a few days and I had time one afternoon. Wouldn't you know it, the clouds gave us a heavy downpour too. A shame for my friend, not so many birds... but it was rain after a long period of drought. We were soaking wet, it was wonderful!!!!! Then I heard a Quetzal and more than that! The rain stopped, I saw one and another and yet another one... a display. We stood there, still dripping from the rain and saw males in the air, performing beautiful loops; the females were watching. I made a short video; sometimes it is just nice to simply enjoy yourself without the urge of the camera. And some things stay in your head and heart and remain there.

Today it is also cloudy  and the first rains of the wet season are falling. 

The birds are singing and I do say everyday good bye to migration birds, who are going to the north...see you next season!

Enjoying all the nesting singin birds around us!

Like this cute thick billed Euphonia male building a nest in the hanging basket on our balcony....

Summer in Panama is over, up to one of my favorite month(s) to come!

Okay...one picture of the hot Panama summer..a Panama Flycatcher taking a sun bath.

For most of the readers  "have a great spring!!"

Greetings from Terry

When you like to see more videos , I  am going to update my  Youtube Channel.(That is the plan:)

                              https://www.youtube.com/@terryvanniekerktinamoucott7548

highlights November and December 2025

 Hello all, 2025 is almost over. I wanted to share my highlights of the past two months with you. In November, birders discovered a white-crowned Sparrow on the Caribbean coast. It was a vagrant and this bird had last been seen in Panama in 1982, making it the second record. I thought it was quite special to find this bird, which I did with Patricia and yes, we found it. Not a new bird for me, having seen it once in the USA, but a new bird for Panama.

We were lucky because the next day it was not there anymore.

Another highlight... a Potoo on the farm. They've been living on our farm for quite some time, and I've seen them in the dark, seen them fly by a few times and of course, heard them a lot. But this time I saw the Potoo sitting on a branch above my head while I was birdwatching. I showed the bird to Hans, as you see in the video. 

 And that day I was waiting for it to open its eyes and fly.

 Fun to do that. I took a picture... after that, it wasn't possible anymore, too dark.

During these two months, I often went birdwatching, including a few days with Hans. Now I had the time and besides all the work at home, took advantage of it. I also decided to participate in the Christmas Bird Count (CBC). That was quite a while ago. Here in Boquete on December 14th and in Volcan on December 21st. In Boquete, we went out with quite a few people and we did quite well. It's not an official circle yet but I think that will happen, judging by the results. 

Lots of new faces and very enthusiastic people. The group I was in was fun...all people from healthcare, like me in the Netherlands. It was mentioned that there were two people there who were beginners, well, truly superb birders...they're passionate about it!

 What I found a real highlight was when one birder explained to the two "beginners" that it's absolutely unwise to use recording to attract birds. My birding heart leaped... finally, someone who sees and understands... because now that many more young people want to be... or become... bird guides, I'm increasingly seeing recordings being used. Unfortunately, even by experienced guides/birders. I understand that they often feel pressured by their clients or employers, but also because they don't want to "fail." I'm not going to explain why you shouldn't use it. Anyone can Google that and if you think wise  about it, you don't even need Google. 

Below is a video of the sound of a Costa Rican Pygmy-Owl. I was birdwatching in the forest and heard it. It was supposed to be a new bird in that forest, so I quickly went there to confirm it. (Then I'll pass it on to the owner of the forest, because it's private property and the owner always likes to hear when a new bird has been spotted on their properties.)

Long story short... it was a tape, an experienced guide was playing for clients who were with him. I was a bit shaken up afterward.

Well on a happier note.... this was our Christmas Boquete group...I really enjoyed it and we counted a lot of birds:

December 21st was fun in Volcan and the surrounding area. I was with Patricia and we visited two private farms. We counted quite a few birds. We had more or less the same weather conditions on both count days. In Boquete Circle, we saw and counted a total of 258 different species, and in Volcan Circle, 213. You can find the trip lists on E-bird.

Here's one good photo from the Christmas count... I didn't take many because I was too busy counting :)

It is the red faced Barbet..I think it is really a Christmas bird.

Just a few more days and then a new year with new stories and adventures!

Happy New Year!!

Greetings from Terry