on our second trip to anvaya in the space of 4 weeks, adri and i had plans to do another drive-thru birding break at subic. however, we got caught up in our r&r both on the trip going to (as we had spent the night in concepcion, and concepcion = provincial life = no urgency) and coming from anvaya (as we had been unable to resist lounging by the beach the morning after our birdwalk) .
we left anvaya at almost noon. it was dead-time for birding as the sun was high and so was the temperature. but we had nothing to lose by driving through the inner subic roads, so we decided to give it a go. our first bird was one we rarely spot at subic. soaring high up in the sky was a grey-headed fish-eagle!
except for a few philippine bulbuls, guaiaberos (still eating at the fig trees from 2 weeks ago), noisy rufous coucals and coletos, almost all the other birds were no shows. no surprise there, it was extremely hot, they were probably peeking out from the cool shade of the leaves wondering what WE were doing out in the heat, like this red-crested malkoha which was resting quietly in the shade.
we gave last times' goal of white-throated kingfisher on a natural perch another go. and once again: failure!
we didn't linger at subic any longer, as we were quite happy with the grey-headed fish-eagle and we didn't want to sweat it out birding which could ruin our relaxed mood. the hot afternoon was more appropriate for butterfly watching, but i will save that story for another day.
No comments:
Post a Comment