Playa El Agallito is a mudflat created by silt deposited by the RÃo Parita and the RÃo La Villa, 9km north of Chitré. At low tide, it stretches more than 2km from the high-water mark to the surf, supplying a bounty of plankton and small shrimp to thousands of migrating birds. The mudflat is reached from Chitré via Av Herrera just past the airport. A taxi ride from town costs around US$3 one way.
Regular birds to the area include roseate spoonbills, sandpipers, warblers, black-necked stilts, white-winged doves, black-bellied plovers, yellow-crowned amazons, yellowlegs and ospreys. The beach is also home to common ground-doves, which are found only in this one spot in Panama. At high tide, birds congregate around salt ponds to the immediate east of Playa El Agallito. The artificial beach is a failed attempt to create a sunbathing beach by destroying a mangrove forest back in the 1960s.
A bus (US$0.50, 45 minutes) leaves the Chitré station for the beach every 15 minutes or so during daylight hours.
