breathing space

Wednesday, January 5

the jewels of ipo dam

thanks to wbcp-er and up mountaineer fredd o. (http://upmencom.multiply.com/), ipo dam has become a regular on the bird club itinerary. around an hour away from the quezon city hall (at 530am), it is a very accessible location. the area has become a pet project for reforestation of the up mountaineers.

the angat and ipo dams and the la mesa watershed are the main fresh water sources for metro manila. informal settlers and deforestation pose the greatest threat to this important resource.

most of the birding is done on bangka (not the best platforms for observation with optics!) and 2 reasons i keep joining this activity are 2 species which are almost guarantees: the grey-headed fish eagles and the indigo-banded kingfishers.

grey-headed fish eagles are considered rare in the philippines. they were lifers for me when i visited the agusan marsh a couple of years back. in ipo dam they are regularly sighted perched on the tall trees by the riverbank, undisturbed by birders in bangkas going crazy with excitement at the sight of them. (do you suppose they regard our ministrations as odd?).

grey-headed fish eagles are often sighted perched by the river

before "discovering" the indigo-banded kingfishers of ipo, i had always thought that these sparkling endemics inhabited small, clear and shallow freshwater streams. i have memories of running up and down the endless stairs at the makiling botanical gardens to catch a glimpse at them at the molawin creek, of trudging through grassland at villa escudero (before of course the famous marikit at the restaurant), of brilliant blue bullets speeding AWAY from me. imagine on my second trip to ipo we counted FIFTEEN of them on the riverbanks of a wide, deep and open river! and these aren't the shy type. the bangka (take note motorised and therefore NOISY bangka) can get within a couple of meters of them before they feel an encroachment to their personal space. because of this unusual boldness the boatmen call them "ibong bingi" ("deaf birds"). even on a boat you cannot miss the iridescent plumage of these tiny birds, always on the lookout for small fish and crustaceans. truly gems of the ipo dam river system.

a female indigo banded kingfisher showing off its iridescent plumage

Saturday, November 20

giving in to the twitch

admittedly, adri and i had been resisting the urge to twitch for quite a while now. we passed up on the blue and white flycatchers at palay palay a couple of years back, a nesting besra at makiling, and we made no effort to pass by candaba for the grey-headed lapwing, mallard, spot-billed duck or even the record-breaking taiga bean goose early this year (in spite of the fact that candaba could be en route to subic, our fave birding spot in the vicinity of metro manila). all would-be lifers, but... we were just too proud (or maybe lazy) to give in to the twitch.

there had been recent reports however of a ferruginous flycatcher in up diliman, and we could not ignore something which was so close by, and, according to reports, seemed like a guarantee (of course there is no such thing as a guarantee in birding... except maybe the eurasian tree sparrow).

harry potter had us up til almost 1 am, but the next day, promptly at 730am, we were at the reported spot. wondering how we would find such a tiny bird, i stepped out of the car to have a look around when one of the construction workers asked me if i was looking for the bird. it seems that the bird photographers have made it famous! i was told that it was right there behind the fence and adri and i were invited to come in just as jops and maia (wbcpers) had driven up to park behind us.

once inside, the worker pointed out the non-descript brownish-red bird perched not 3 meters away from where we were standing. he said that they had been seeing it for several weeks now, since october. as i showed him and another worker the picture of the bird in the bird guide and explained that it had come all the way from mainland asia to spend the cold months here in our wonderfully warm country, the older man mentioned "eh grasya pala ang ibon na yan eh. siguro kahit kalahating kilong lamok at langaw kinakain nyan araw araw" (that bird must be a blessing. it probably eats half a kilo of mosquitoes and flies every day). it was a pleasant surprise to hear their appreciation for the bird which lived right beside their make shift shanties. they probably thought it strange that so many people would actually come to see this little brown job.

the ferruginous flycatcher: a rare migrant

the ferruginous flycatcher is described by kennedy as a rare migrant and "not shy". definitely not shy at all! it perched nearby and surprised us by hawking for insects not an arms length away (literally). we were joking that we should hold out a finger in case it decided to perch in mid-flight. i guess it takes it name from it rusty brown color (or in birding colors "rufous"). its white eyering and round dark eyes reminded me of japanese anime characters... definitely a cutie. we stood patiently watching it for over an hour, briefly distracted by other birds flitting in the acacia branches high above our heads. gerygones, several arctic warblers, white-eyes, even an immature brush cuckoo!

an immature brush cuckoo flitted about silently above us

eventually adri got a good photo and we decided to go back home (for breakfast!). i have it in my head that i could actually check on this guy everyday to or from school if i wanted too! as long as it stays that is.

with the almost non-effort we gave to finding this lifer, i must say that this is our most satisfying twitch to date.

(thanks to adri for the photos!)

for the non-birders, here's an excerpt from Birdwatching for Dummies (which i got at book sale for a mere 45 pesos!) written by Bill of the Birds:
"Listing has become an obsession with some bird watchers. They live for the chance to add a bird to any of their various lists... In Great Britain, listers are called twitchers because of the uncontrollable twitching that takes over their bodies at the prospect of adding a new bird to the list. Listers and twitchers take themselves very seriously, which is good because if they didn't, who would?"

Wednesday, October 27

sablayan tales: the one that didn't get away

nothing was going as i expected, birding-wise. we had spent the last 4 rainy, rainy days in the siburan sub-colony of the sablayan penal colony and farm hiking up hills (with me avoiding the dreaded limatik), trudging through mud and water-logged lake shore, rivers and streams, clambering up rocky trails, sitting helplessly in huts while the rain poured. "nicky, no birds!" i could hear mr. stone's famous one-liner echoing in my head. but this time it was true! sigh.

it was our last night. so far, i had "only" seen the mindoro tarictic, and possible splits philippine coucal mindorensis and philippine bulbul mindorensis. other lifers where the black-bibbed cuckoo shrike, pechora pipit and blue-crowned racquet-tail. the black-hooded coucal was driving me crazy with its constant calling but invisible presence. the mindoro bleeding-heart... just that one picture that seemed to be plastered everywhere in mindoro, including the guesthouse wall behind the dining room table. the scarlet-collared flowerpecker... nothing. i was happy to see other birds of course, plus a plethora of butterflies, but i just wanted more!

this was really our last go at it. the only evening it wasn't raining. the target: philippine hawk-owl mindorensis. definitely a future split. it sounds really different, it looks really different. nicky chose our location, adri and i kept our fingers crossed and our guides curiously regarded our owling mode.

success! this has got to be the nicest pairs of owls i've encountered (and we are probably the only humans they've observed so closely)! and as with other wonderful birding moments, time seemed to dilate and we savored every moment. the pair of owls were easily illuminated by the flashlight, flitting from branch to branch.

you win some you lose some. i suppose it could've been worse, birding in the wake of a typhoon which devastated northern luzon.

but that one bird can make the difference and make your trip worthwhile.

see more pictures of our adventures here: http://katrinket.multiply.com/photos/album/94/sablayan_stories

Thursday, September 9

M ... moth. M ... mmda.

of moths and the mmda...

the mmda has planted several ficus benjamina saplings along the length of commonwealth avenue and elsewhere in the metro in an effort, i suppose, to green the city. i don't really know why they chose this particular plant (fast growing? none destructive? pollution tolerant?) but i'm glad they chose ficus, the birds love the fruit. and adri & i discovered another creature which loves the plant.

the mmda has lined many of the metro's main roads with ficus benjamina. here's one on busy commonwealth ave.

one day, after i dropped off adri at commonwealth i received a text message from him describing how one of the ficus plants was covered with white caterpillars. during the weekend, i got the chance to see the cats myself and to take photos. we parked at the shell station beside the INK hospital and inspected the bush, right there on the sidewalk of commonwealth avenue. i suppose the pedestrians and the hospital guard found our behaviour a bit strange. after our "it-turned-out-to-be-a-sphinx-moth-caterpillar-eating-the-rosal-bush" incident, we figured out that these tiny caterpillars eating up the ficus were moth caterpillars, and their little horned backs indicated they were probably some sort of sphinx moth. not wanting to agitate my mother by bringing home a slew of caterpillars (again), we decided to just wait and see. we hoped that they would not require burying underground in their pupal stage... there was a bit of exposed ground where the ficus was planted, but it didn't seem very hospitable right there on the sidewalk.

several plain looking "horned" caterpillars: a very recent expereince tells me these will become moths!

anyway, a couple of weeks later, adri announced that the cats had indeed metamorphosed into moths, and strange-looking moths they were. i couldn't go and see them until the next day, a saturday, and i hoped that they would stay in place. sure enough, there they were... we counted more than 20 small moths on the ficus.

a newly eclosed moth next to its cocoon

that single ficus (and even its fence) was adorned with these funny-looking moths!

it was a bit strange that they stayed in place, i wonder why they didn't fly off. anyway, there was a pair already starting the next cycle.

a pair starting the next cycle already

here's to the greening of metro manila for the crawlies!

Tuesday, September 7

care for invasive species with that?

kuya ramil was carefully snipping of the whiskers of the very fresh river shrimp(lets) my mom had bought from the market when he asked me, "gusto mo ng janitor fish?" sure enough, in the half kilo of very fresh, still jumping shrimp, he had found 4 baby janitor fish, 2 still very much alive, inspite of being out of water for probably several hours.

it makes me wonder just how much ecological havoc these creatures have caused in our rivers and lakes.