There are a lot of good reasons to move to Panama, the weather being one of the most compelling. Move to Panama and winters are a complete non-issue. It’s like summer all year long and retirees aren’t the only ones who relish the warm weather. The local tropical wildlife also thrives, especially birds, and a lot of them come right into the garden.

Literally hundreds of bird species occur in Panama including toucans, parrots, colorful tanagers, and glittering hummingbirds. The exuberant tropical vegetation makes it easy to see a lot of birds throughout the country, western Panama being one of the easiest places to enjoy a bounty of beautiful garden birds.

Folks with gardens in the Boquete area can enjoy visits from such hummingbirds as Lesser Violetear, the common Rufous-tailed Hummingbird, and even the spectacular Violet Sabrewing, a large purple hummingbird the size of a sparrow!

Feeder birds are pretty exciting too. Instead of putting out seeds, place bananas and papayas on a small platform and you will probably attract Blue-gray, Crimson-backed, and Flame-rumped Tanagers (as colorful as their names), migrant Baltimore Orioles, and many other species.

Keep watching and you might also see Fiery-billed Aracari, a  toucan species only found in southern Costa Rica and western Panama.

If you feel like venturing away from a beautiful garden, cloud forests just up the mountain are filled with birds including one of the most spectacular of all, the Resplendent Quetzal.

This stunning species is often sighted in the forests of Volcan Baru.

After enjoying the cool weather accompanied by exotic birds in the cloud forest, you can always finish off the day with leisurely looks at beautiful garden birds while enjoying a cold drink in your own tropical backyard.

Learn about and identify the birds in this post and hundreds of other bird species in Panama with the Panama Birds Field Guide app, a digital field guide designed for mobile devices. Pat O’Donnell guides birdwatchers, writes about birds and birding, and helps develop birding apps with BirdingFieldGuides for Costa Rica, Panama, and elsewhere.