Free Live Virtual Birding Tour at the Panama Canal

Enjoy the Beauty of Panamanian Biodiversity and amazing views of the Panama Canal.

This guided virtual tour will be broadcast live in HD via Zoom with our expert tour guides who are both naturalists and historians who can answer any of your questions while they show you our beautiful country.  We are equipped with Leica cameras attached to powerful spotting scopes.

This virtual tour will begin when the birds are most active at 6 am local time in Panama (see below for the starting time where you live) .  The tour will start at the Pipeline Road in Soberanía National Park.  One of the premier birding spots in the world, the Pipeline Road will give us an opportunity to watch birds in a mature rainforest that is full of an incredible mix of wildlife. A bird count here organized by the Audubon Society set a record when 385 species were observed in only 24 hours. We will walk along a series of trails that will take us to a panoramic view of Gatun Lake where we can see different species of waterfowl and aquatic animals.  We will spend around 2 hours birdwatching and looking for native wildlife that lives in the areas right next to the Panama Canal.  We will be stopping along the way as we discover sloths, toucans, monkeys, and the many other species that reside in one of the most bio-diverse areas on the planet.

Once we finish with our birdwatching at the Pipeline Road,  we will continue with a driving tour of the Canal Zone town of Gamboa, where we will see a small remnant of Americana that remains nestled in the rain forest. While your guides tell you about the unique history of the Panama Canal Zone, we will drive by sites such as the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, the Panama Canal Dredging Division, and see the houses that were left by the Americans when they transferred the canal to Panama in 1999.  We will then spend a few minutes next to the Panama Canal where the Chagres River meets the Canal and  watch the transiting ships entering and exiting the famous Gaillard Cut.

What this tour is:

• A live, interactive virtual tour with at least two knowledgeable tour guides. You can ask as many questions as you like and participate as much or as little as you want
• The tour will be conducted with the Zoom app, which is free to download and use
• This is an HD experience. Because we will be using the Zoom app to make this an interactive experience, we have to sacrifice a tiny amount of image quality.  That said, the video feed of the birds and wildlife has really good quality, much better than we anticipated when we started this.  We are confident that you will be pleased at how well you can see the wildlife through our scopes.  Please see the examples we have uploaded.
• This is a shared online experience that you will enjoy with other guests from around the world.
• If you choose the Private option, your tour will be with only those who you choose to invite
• This tour is in English
• This is a nature tour, and your tour guides will be equipped with powerful spotting scopes attached to Leica cameras
• During the driving portions of the tour the tour guides will stop to appreciate as many points of interest as possible. However due to restrictions in place by the Panamanian government due to Covid-19, we cannot enter any buildings or attractions.
• After the tour, we will send you an email with a list of all the birds and animales that we saw during the virtual tour
• This is a great way for you to see a new part of the world during this current crisis, as the tourism industry will be hit hardest during these trying times

What this tour is not:

• This is not pre-recorded.  You will see the birds and animals LIVE
• This is a live nature tour, so we cannot guarantee what we will see during the tour. We are entering a famous birdwatching area, so the odds are great that we see a lot, but nature doesn’t ever guarantee anything.
• This is no risk to you. We are offering this 100% free with no obligation as a way to promote what we think is a great experience.  We are so confident that you will love this unique experience and hopefully you will share it with your friends.

Starting times:

This tour starts when the birds are most active at 6:00 am local Panama time.  Here is the starting time for locations outside of Panama:

GMT -7 Pacific Standard Time (US and Canada) 4:00 am

GMT -6 Mountain Standard Time (US and Canada) 5:00 am

GMT -5 Central Daylight Time (US & Canada)  6:00 am

GMT -4 Eastern Daylight Time (US & Canada)  7:00 am

GMT +1 British Summer & Irish Standard Time  (United Kindom & Ireland) 12:00 pm

GMT +2 Central European Summer Time (France, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, Norway) 13:00 pm

GMT +3 Eastern European Summer Time (Norway) 14:00 pm

Here is an example of one of our virtual tours.  This video is just a recording for Youtube, the image quality during the live tour is a million times better.  When you sign up we will give you a link to join us live via Zoom where you will see the wildlife LIVE in HD with great clarity, you can choose which scope you want to view, and interact with the guides.