breathing space: tierrapura

Showing posts with label tierrapura. Show all posts

Sunday, February 28

new backyard record!

at last!

adri and i spotted a peregrine falcon flying high over tierra pura this morning! definitely a first for me since i started birdwatching 5 years ago! i LOVE these falcons! they're adapted to all sorts of habitats, including the city! i hope to hear more of (or see more of) them being spotted over metro manila!
(and i hope they find the city a safe and bountiful home to come back to every migration season.)

here's blurry proof of a peregrine falcon flying high (VERY, VERY high) over my quezon city neighborhood.

Sunday, September 27

the flood...

i would've never thought it to happen to us
.
one minute i was playing with the dogs, trying to clean pearl's ears (oh wait, who's pearl? that's another storm altogether). from the terrace i watched the water rise, until we all started getting panicky.

rugs started to be rolled. then it was already to late to bring out the cars to higher ground. we started grabbing everything in sight and carrying it to the second floor.
the last picture i took before utter panic was this:

the water about to breach the windows. (when we inspected the damage later, the water line reached up to about 3 inches above the horizontal grill). we gave up when we began to see snakes (tiny ones) swimming everywhere (yes,even inside the house).

absolutely helpless, we all retreated to the second floor (6 people and 3 dogs and 1 cockatiel). and the water continued to rise and rise and rise.

i tried not to think of my beloved car which had never, ever failed me, being swallowed by the dirty flood water. of my dad's car and my sister's car in the same garage. of the cockatiels, budgies and the lone lovebird who were probably in panic over the rising water. of the books and photos from fiji and concep that i was not able to save. of all the furniture floating around. (yes, it was amazing, everything floated: the dining table, the antique four poster bed, the upholstered sofas, the carved chests, chairs, shelves, kitchen tables, even the chest freezer).

from my bedroom window, i watched people swimming in the street (video later), a brown shrike relentlessly fishing out drowning insects from the water, and my niece's plastic slide and swing set floating in circles in our front yard.

and just before the flood waters could breach our 6 foot fence. it stopped raining. and the flood waters started to recede. in an hour we could survey the damage. it was heartbreaking.

but then the people on the street shouted that there was a dead body in the creek. and i saw that our next door neighbors lived in bungalows. and i heard the devastation all over metro manila on the news.

it will be a MAJOR overhaul, cleaning and tons of things to throw out. but for me and my family, tomorrow the sun will shine, and everything will dry out. i still have a lot to be thankful for.

i read in the papers that yesterday typhoon ondoy dumped 341 milliliters of rain on metro manila in 6 hours. the averag rainfall for metro manila for september is 391.7 millilters. ano ba namang laban natin dun?

Monday, August 10

neighborhood woodpeckers

These two philippine woodpeckers have been regular visitors to the ylang ylang tree in front of our house the past few days.

The Philippine Pygmy Woodpecker is an endemic.

Before joining the bird club, I never knew there were woodpeckers of any kind in the Philippines, much less in our very urban neighborhood!

Now, the sharp trills of these tiny woodpeckers signal their presence, and I find them amusing to watch climbing up (or down) and around tree trunks, sometimes even hopping backwards!

I think these two have a nest nearby (maybe the big acacia across the street) because yesterday, they kept flying back and forth to the ylang ylang from that direction.

Just one of the many non-maya birds in the neighborhood. Watch out for them in your backyard!

Tuesday, June 24

after frank

i came home early from school yesterday (hmmm... i shouldn't even have been in school really) and adri and i decided to take issa and sam for a short walk to the playground.
by then, most of the streets had been cleaned of fallen plants and branches, so there was barely a trace of frank's aftermath in our little subdivision. the height of the creek's water the day before was marked by plastic bags caught on plants growing on the stone wall.
there wasn't anyone at the playground, and just a few boys (and men) playing halfcourt basketball. sam and issa played at the swings, slide, monkey bars and seesaw (bakit walang playground nung bata ako?) for a bit and then we took the long way home.
barely a trace of frank's aftermath, no one at the playground, no classes...

we hardly ran into anyone on the street, no kids on bikes, no kalye badminton, no bouncing balls, no running kids in rubber slippers, no one. just a maid walking a dog, people cleaning the street and watering their plants and a few construction workers on their way home. all adults. wow, where were all the kids? at the risk of sounding old, i HAVE to say... dati basta walang klase nasa kalye na kami! patintero, bikes, or just roaming the streets. i suppose now the kids were inside playing some game, or surfing the net or watching tv or a (pirated) dvd; discovering the world from inside their rooms.

ay, iba na talaga. i suppose my nieces and nephews wouldn't know patintero from shato, or piko from agawan base. back then, indoor games meant scrabble or monopoly or pusoy or clue (which reminds me, adri was able to install clue on my computer.. so now you can play a game originally meant to be played by three or more people by yourself!).

oh well. the world turns. life goes on. ladida.