El Real

Spot-breasted Woodpecker is another bird that's probably reasonably findable in South America, but for Central America can only be found in Panama's Darien, and not in a ton of spots either.  I was happy to hear that Domi had a spot for this bird, traditionally found around El Real.  We didn't really have to wait very long either, the bird teed up pretty quickly in an isolated tree allowing distant but clear views.  We moved down the road to see what else could be found and one ended up landing right above my head.

This has to be one of the prettier woodpeckers I've seen, combining an (inverse) acorn woodpecker face with the gold of a flicker (only with the saturation of the gold boosted way past what any of our birds would show).

Domi picked up a Striped Cuckoo by ear.  It was actually one of the songs I'd learned prior to going down, but it didn't stand out until he pointed it out.

We soon moved a few miles down the road, picking up my lifer Zone-tailed Hawk in the process.  I checked my settings out on one of the abundant Rusty-margined Flycatchers...

... and was rewarded for having them zeroed in when another target, Black Oropendola flew by.

For me oropendolas were more difficult to identify on this trip than perhaps they should have been.  Their names aren't awesome since both Crested and Chestnut-headed have wispy crests and both birds can look quite brown overall.  Black Oropendola is the only local one that has the harlequin face shared with the Montezuma Oropendolas that are fairly widespread in the rest of Central America, so it was nice to have at least one that was easy to ID.