makiling! it has been quite a while, too long, since i last went birding in makiling so adri and i decided last week at the very last minute that we go on a day trip. i had just submitted my students' final grades for the semester and i felt i needed to reward myself.
i woke up at 330am and while i was getting ready to go, i heard something that i knew would be a portent of things to come for the day. just outside my window in the quiet of the morning, was a loud three syllable growl: uerk, uerk, err. we had a philippine scops owl in the neighborhood! i doubted that we would get to makiling early enough so i was thinking that it could count as our owling for the birding day! other of course than the happy thought: we have an owl! we have an owl!
when we got to TREES the caretaker admonished us that we were twice late. late like, the sun's up late and late also because we had just missed the fruiting balite tree by a couple of weeks. we noticed though that the malapapaya tree was fruiting and sure enough, our first birds of the day were a pair of tarictic hornbills coming to the tree for a snack! aba, maswerte din pala kayo kahit late, said the caretaker. a lone grey streaked flycatcher was perched at the highest point of the dead tree. a glossy swiftlet still had a nest on the terrace ceiling.
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| i wonder if it's the same swiftlet year in and year out? |
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| standing on a giant you are even bigger |
the road up makiling was undergoing a major face lift. apparently, a pair of geothermal wellheads which were placed 35 or so years ago were being removed because there was not enough steam for them to generate any power. to accomplish that goal, the road had to be fixed all the way up to the sari-sari stores. to accompany us up the trail, a cat loader chugged its way past us even before we reached malkoha lane, and soon to follow was a cat roller, which would back-up every now and then (complete with backing up alarm beep beep beeps) upon encountering a bump on the flattened trail. every now and then a truck would pass us going up full of gravel, and then going down empty and later up again endlessly. *sigh*
still mariang makiling did not fail us! a white-browed shama singing cheerfully met us early on.
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| can you guess what bird this is hiding in the dark? by the way this is going to be the post with blurry bird pictures. |
a pair of spotted wood kingfishers soon followed, with the female quietly perched in full view, despite of the truck driving by.
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| mrs. spotty |
very still and...
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| ... very flighty |
while resting near spotty's bend, we came across a mixed flock as we rested by the side of the road. plain throated and flaming sunbirds, pygmy and buzzing flowerpeckers, stripe-headed rhabdornises, black naped monarchs, a yellow bellied whistler and even a philippine bulbul and a balicassiao all grabbed our attention and drowned out the sounds of heavy machinery operating farther up the trail. and suddenly there was a flash of orangey-red. a pair of rufous paradise flycatchers! finally, we see this species in makiling!
in the meantime we witnessed the drama of a small, squeaky frog escaping from a hunting skink.
this frog barely escaped being eaten by a skink
as we were calming down after the rapture of a mixed flock, we noticed a huge nest just by the side of the trail. too bad it was already abondoned, we wondered what bird could have made it.
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| a huge nest by the road. are those decoy entrances? |
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| a manuk- manok |
we snacked, rested and chatted a bit with the store owner, ate glo, about the roadworks before we decided to continue a bit on. it was already noon and the bird activity was dying down. up the road past the picnic grounds, we passed adri's regular driver during the tours. he had just come from harvesting dalanghita down the mountain and gave us a few to take home.
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| beautiful jade vines in bloom in the nursery |
an additional load of a kilo or so, but one we were happy to carry. as we had predicted, there were a few birds about, but i was happy to see several butterflies on the trail.
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| a very pretty caleta roxus |
as we walked down, a bit of rain caught up with us. unfortunately, only adri had an umbrella, which he very sweetly offered to me and the camera. i had lost my umbrella in subic a few months ago and had not remembered to replace it. a pechora pipit was walking very quietly by the side of the road and flew off as the truck carrying gravel passed it.
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| a lone pechora pipit in the rain |
in the rain, we debated on what we would do for the rest of the afternoon. it was past 3pm and the botanic gardens were only open til 4pm. should we just skip it and do our regular rounds around campus to check on some regulars before finishing the day at the agricultural fields?
it turns out our decision to spend half an hour at the botanic gardens led to my lifer for the day, one i had at the back of my mind, but which i had already crossed out since we didn't see it on the forest trail.
the botanic gardens were already empty on a weekday at 3pm. grey wagtails walked ahead of us on the road. we stopped by the bridge over molawin creek, more wagtails but none of the butterflies i had hoped to see puddling. perhaps it was too late in the day already.
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| a migrant grey wagtail at the botanical garden |
they moved about the dried leaves on the ground very quickly, well camouflaged by their pale olive brown backs and bibbed white breasts. as we watched them, a gust of wind blew suddenly, and off they flew into the vegetation back across the creek.
and with that wonderful sighting, i caught up with adri and closed the book on the four reported wagtail species in the philippines: the common yellow and grey wagtails, and the two rarer species- white wagtails from lmep earlier this year and finally the forest wagtails. i gave a little joyful dance (more like a wiggle really) and high five-d adri as thanks for the good spotting. just in time for the closing of the park.
the rest of the afternoon was filled with the usual suspects. an indigo-banded kingfisher was busy catching crabs and fish from the creek while several house swifts and striated swallows flew overhead.
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| bombs away! |
a drive through the agricultural fields which were golden and ready for the harvest added a few more species to our day's bird list including greater painted snipes, grassbirds, long tailed shrikes, whiskered terns and several cattle egrets.
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| an intense cattle egret a-hunting for insects |
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| even nearing evening the grassbirds continue to vocalize. loudly. |
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| last bird for the day: a bittern at dusk |
Super nice! Congrats on the Forest Wagtails! ang gaganda nila! =)
ReplyDeletethanks maia!
ReplyDeleteyes, ganda nga ng forest wagtails, even if they were moving around it was difficult to keep up with them kasi they blended well with the background.