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On my first trip to Panama's Canopy Tower, in August of 2003, I had the pleasure of taking a boat ride around
Lago Gatún, the body of water surrounding the Canal, with Raúl Arias de Para. As we navigated the
tiny islands dotting the lake, our boat captain showed us this beautiful immature tiger-heron frozen in a bush along the
water's edge. I intially identified this very young bird as a Bare-throated Tiger-Heron, based somewhat on the relatively
nearby presence of an adult of the species, but have come to have second thoughts. Rufescent Tiger-Heron is considerably more common
in this part of Panama, and this bird generally matches the description of a juvenille Rufescent. But other details don't quite match, and I
failed to collect video of the back of the bird, which might have helped. Field guides for the neotropics offer mostly verbal descriptions
of non-adult plumages of most birds, and the creature pictured here is very young, beyond the limited scope of available
literature on the subject- I can only chalk this up as an unidentified Tiger-Heron, at least without help from a more knowledgeable
observer.
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