Bona Island, Pearl Islands, Golfo de Panama
Today we visited Bona and Otoque Islands where we saw frigatebirds, brown and blue footed boobies and brown pelican nesting colonies. The strong trade winds from the northeast cross over the low mountains of the Panama Canal area and remove all the hot water from the surface of the Pacific Ocean. This water is replaced by cold and nutrient rich water from the bottom of the Gulf of Panama allowing the phytoplankton to explode in numbers, thereby igniting the food chain of this area of the Eastern Pacific.
This movement of water, known as upwelling, is the beginning of one of the most beautiful events for the Mesoamerican marine life. Millions of shorebirds come to spend wintertime in the enriched shores of the Panama City mudflats. Around 70,000 couples of brown pelicans will build their nests in the islands and islets in the Gulf of Panama, sharing their space with brown and blue-footed boobies and magnificent frigatebirds. Dolphins of several species as well as humpbacks, Bryde’s, false killer and pilot’s whales will gather in the waters around the Pearls Islands. But today we found something unusual: bats. There is about 120 species of bats inhabiting the Republic of Panama, however, I never expected to find land bats in a small cave in the middle of the Gulf of Panama where marine mammals and seabirds are the norm. Life hanging from the edge- not only physically but functionally. In very hard conditions but persistent. That’s what we look for. These are places and things that we rarely get to see.
Today we visited Bona and Otoque Islands where we saw frigatebirds, brown and blue footed boobies and brown pelican nesting colonies. The strong trade winds from the northeast cross over the low mountains of the Panama Canal area and remove all the hot water from the surface of the Pacific Ocean. This water is replaced by cold and nutrient rich water from the bottom of the Gulf of Panama allowing the phytoplankton to explode in numbers, thereby igniting the food chain of this area of the Eastern Pacific.
This movement of water, known as upwelling, is the beginning of one of the most beautiful events for the Mesoamerican marine life. Millions of shorebirds come to spend wintertime in the enriched shores of the Panama City mudflats. Around 70,000 couples of brown pelicans will build their nests in the islands and islets in the Gulf of Panama, sharing their space with brown and blue-footed boobies and magnificent frigatebirds. Dolphins of several species as well as humpbacks, Bryde’s, false killer and pilot’s whales will gather in the waters around the Pearls Islands. But today we found something unusual: bats. There is about 120 species of bats inhabiting the Republic of Panama, however, I never expected to find land bats in a small cave in the middle of the Gulf of Panama where marine mammals and seabirds are the norm. Life hanging from the edge- not only physically but functionally. In very hard conditions but persistent. That’s what we look for. These are places and things that we rarely get to see.
