breathing space: tanay

Showing posts with label tanay. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 21

The Tanay Honey Buzzards

On the same trip to the Tanay Epic Park Rainforest Camp where we were treated to a bird buffet in the form of a fruiting Tuai tree, we also had several fantastic views of a Crested Honey Buzzard (Pernis ptilorhyncus, formerly Oriental Honey Buzzard), both perched and flying.

A Crested Honey Buzzard flying just above the tree line at Tanay Epic Park,
December 2016

While birding around the property, we would encounter the Honey Buzzard flying over head or at eye level in front of the forested hillside. We even had a long look at it when it perched on a palm tree quite near us. It was quite thrilling to have a large raptor perched in full view.

Balancing on a palm tree frond swaying in the wind! December 2016

The wind was blowing the palm tree fronds back and forth but the raptor balanced with no effort, its pale yellow eye glinting under the noon sun.

Look at that long neck and pale yellow eye, December 2016

Alex was able to take great video documentation with his phone through the scope.

In my opinion, the Tanay area, situated at the foothills of the Sierra Madre mountain range, is one of the best places to see this raptor. During our raptorwatch migration surveys, we would often see one or a couple flying around the Pag-Asa Synoptic station which is our base.

A Crested Honey Buzzard soaring at eye level at the Pag-Asa synoptic station.
February 2013

They are much larger than the migrating Grey-faced Buzzards or Chinese Sparrowhawks.

Soaring beside the much smaller migrant Grey-faced Buzzards, February 2013

Once, we were even treated to the sight of (not one but) a pair of Crested Honey Buzzards coming in over the ridge to land on a tree just across the field from the station!

A pair of Crested Honey Buzzards perched near the raptorwatch site, September 2014

Both EPIC park and the synoptic station are located in Barangay Sampaloc.

Often described as having a long, pigeon-like neck and long tail, the Crested Honey Buzzard looks a little awkward (at least to me). When flying, its small head is often held down from the body making it easily identifiable from the Philippine Hawk Eagle which has very similar plumage and often occupies the same habitat.

The characteristic small head and long neck in flight, taken in Mindanao, March 2015

This small head and long neck is advantageous in obtaining its main source of food: bee larvae and honey comb wax and honey!

Favorite food (from which they got their name)! Giant Honey Bee (Apis dorsata) hive.
This one was taken at the Ateneo Campus, unfortunately no Honey Buzzards there!

It tears apart the beehive suspended on branches or in tree hollows with its claws and sticks its neck in the broken honey comb to get to its food. Surely a high protein (larvae), high lipid (bees wax) and high sugar (honey) diet!

Forests, bees, and birds of prey: it's truly amazing how all life is connected.

Here's another short video clip of the Crested Honey Buzzard from Alex as it takes of from its perch to soar high above us.

Hooray for the Tanay Honey Buzzards!

Thursday, December 15

Tuai bulbul buffet

A few Saturdays ago, Adri and I joined Alex and Tere birding at the Tanay Epic Park Rainforest Camp. I had birded here a few times before but it has been a couple of years since my last visit. It was a relaxing trip (I even got a lifer - Blue and White/Zappey's Flycatcher, just within a few minutes of our arrival!) which allowed me to escape the end-of-sem work I had in school.

One of the highlights was the huge, fruit laden tree right in front of our cottage. It was a frenzy of Philippine and Yellow-vented Bulbuls gorging noisily on round fruit dripping in large bunches from the branches.

Even early in the moring, before the sun came up, a few bulbuls were already around as if to lay their claim. But the tree was so heavily burdened with fruit I am quite sure that the territoriality was unnecessary!

As we watched, amused by the birds seemingly endless appetite, we wondered what the tree was. A small sign at its base identified it as Tuai, and a quick text message to Anthony A. confirmed that it was a native tree, Bischofia javanica.

Aside from the bulbuls, other birds were quick to pass through: a beautiful pair of skulking Scale-feathered Malkohas, a few flowerpeckers, Naked-faced Spiderhunters and Elegant Tits. A White-throated Kingfisher and a Brown Shrike would also fly in from their lookout perches nearby.

But it was really the Philippine Bulbuls that kept at it, hanging at the base of the mass of fruit and picking patiently at the drupe to get to the white flesh.

Also spotted at this magical tree were several cuckoos! A pair of Philippine Drongo Cuckoos flitted about the large canopy.

A Rusty-breasted Cuckoo kept on quietly moving from the tuai to a tree behind our cottage and back.

Our excitement peaked every time a female Violet Cuckoo arrived, teasing us with a fleeting view or perching just behind the cover of leaves at the tree's apex!

But the cuckoos were there for another reason. The tree seemed to be crawling with tiny hairy caterpillars! We could hardly see them even with our binoculars, but the cuckoos were obviously eating their fill of the hairy larvae!

Watching them and realizing that they were just picking off the caterpillars as they crawled past their feet was enough to make us feel itchy!

See how many caterpillars this drongo cuckoo picked off the branch (while ignoring a couple right beside it) in the span of a few minutes - thanks to Adri for the video!

The tuai, another native tree to consider planting!

Tanay EPIC Park Rainforest Camp is located at Sitio Bayucan, Tanay, Rizal. Visit their website at http://tanayepicparc.weebly.com/ or their facebook page at www.facebook.com/www.TanayEPICPARC/

Sunday, September 20

autumn movements

As the months grow colder in the northern hemisphere, birders in our part of the world begin the lookout for the fall migration. And what better way to officially start our migratory season birding than with raptorwatch!

We hitched a ride with the indefatigable raptorwatchers Alex and Tere to the Pag-asa Station in Tanay where we were joined by a motley crew of birders, all excited to check if the migrant raptors were moving down south.

It was a warm morning, but the weather changed quickly back and forth from cloudy to sunny back to cloudy then to rainy and then sunny once again! We watched rain clouds move over the mountains of the Sierra Madre, eagerly looking for little dots in the northern skies which would hopefully be the awaited Chinese Sparrowhawks.

Around the watch tower, we spotted the more familiar migrants: a Brown Shrike was creating quite a racket, calling out loudly.

Later, a female Blue Rock Thrush caught our attention as it flew back and forth, perching on the electrical wires, fences and the roofs of the adjacent buildings.

Our first raptor sighting was not a migrant, but of a resident Rufous Bellied Hawk Eagle. It soared high above the valley, and would perform spectacular stoops, suddenly disappearing out of view as it dove towards some unseen prey.

The Chinese Sparrowhawks began appearing slowly, strangely travelling solo and not in large kettles that we expected. Still we were happy to get a few sightings, a good signal to the onset of fall movements.

One of the nearest kettles to fly over was a flock of 8 Sparrowhawks, quickly rising with the thermal and gliding from one to another, forming a loose kettle.

Even though the sightings were far in between, we found ourselves entertained by some of the residents. A pair of Purple Needletails performed their supersonic swoops and glides close to the tower, their white "horseshoe" pattern underparts shining brightly in the sun.

Every know and then someone would spot a Chinese Sparrowhawk, prompting everyone to get up from their seats and leave the shade for better looks. Also spotted were some unidentified falcons, a Peregrine Falcon, an Osprey and Crested Honey Buzzards.

Our lunch hour entertainment came in the form of a Philippine Serpent Eagle being dive bombed by a White-breasted Woodswallow.

It is always comical to watch the audacious woodswallows attack the larger raptors in flight. Why do they do it? Is it a territorial dispute? Sometimes it seems that they just want to annoy the much larger birds!

This woodswallow kept on coming from behind the serpent eagle, hitting it on the rump or back before flying off and circling back again for a follow-up attack.

All the stately raptor can do is give an annoyed glance at the pesky little attacker!

Later in the afternoon, as we were wrapping up, eagle-eyed Linda spotted a few kettles of around 20 Sparrowhawks forming in the distance. The distant specks were sooo hard to spot and follow!

It was a great afternoon to jump start the raptorwatch season for the fall. Hopefully we'll get to see more of these migrants in the coming weeks!

Sunday, March 24

grey-faced buzzards on the move

raptorwatch is unlike any other birdwatching activity. it sort of reminds me of the asian waterbird census (i.e. migrants, counting, many birds) but it's a whole different thing too!

"One problem is that hawkwatching requires a different technique from other forms of birdwatching. Most field and woodland birding is stalk and stab. You walk quietly and, when you come upon a bird, snap your binoculars to your eyes for a quick look. The drama is played out in a few moments, and you either get the bird or you don't. Hawkwatching, especially at lookout sites, is more like reeling in a fish. A raptor appears off in the distance, swimming in the sky. You must find the bird in your binocs and hang onto it-- for a long, slow, wrist-trembling, neck-crinking, eye-straining diagnosis. If you're lucky, you may pull in a bird close enough for its field marks to become obvious. More often, the hawk breaks away by dropping below the trees or soaring into the sun."

Jack Connor, The Complete Birder

counting waterbirds is done in january and february, where the migrants are presumably at their peak numbers, gathered at various wetlands feeding. counting migratory raptors is done in march and april, when the normally solitary birds gather together as they move up north. they use rising columns of warm air, called thermals, to help them soar up to higher altitudes without having to spend so much energy flapping their wings. many birds are seen at these thermals, and the flocks are called "kettles".

those dots in the sky are actually raptors riding on a thermal, forming a "kettle"

alex has attempted to find good raptorwatching sites (remember our failed dingalan adventure here?) but so far the most reliable site for raptorwatching so far is in tanay, rizal. the view of the sierra madre mountains stretches out all around, and thermals abound. in the past few years, the club has been lucky enough to have been allowed by pag-asa to use their weather station which has a lovely open air deck on its second floor giving a 360 degree view. this is a far cry from when i first joined the bird club and we would spend mornings and afternoons getting burned by the hot sun in an open grass field by the side of the highway!

the pag-asa station in tanay has become our home base for raptorwatching,
thanks to permission for us to use it

a huge shout out to pag-asa for allowing us to use their deck for raptorwatching!

wbcp raptor-boss alex t. had been counting almost daily the past two weeks. among the first migrants to leave are the grey-faced buzzards, or the tikwi. he had counted almost 10,000 birds heading north the past week, and i decided to join the raptorwatch group on palm sunday to enjoy the awesome sight of raptors spiraling up into the heavens.

the grey-faced buzzards are among the earliest raptors to start migrating north

we arrived at the tanay pag-asa station at nearly 8am, and alex and jelaine immediately took down weather info: wind speed and direction, relative humidity, temperature and cloud cover. and we all settled down and waited. the great thing about raptor watching is that you can talk and laugh (and eat) as much as you want, it really doesn't matter much, if the birds are there, you will see them!

raptorwatchers on the lookout for migrating birds of prey

we didn't have to wait long, and raptor-guru-in-the-making jelaine quickly spotted our first kettle of raptors! the grey-faced buzzards were on the move!

can you spot the kettle of grey-faced buzzards?

here, the grey-faced buzzards spiral upward,
rising with the hot air of the thermal, with barely a wing flap

raptor id can be quite tricky, but with practice, the "jizz"
(general impression, size and shape) will help with pinning down the species

sometimes the raptors soar so high they get lost in the cloud cover!

a couple of hours and several kettles later, the wind picked up and we could see the cloud cover thickening over the northern mountains which we were watching closely. it turned out to be a good thing because the raptors, avoiding the rain, made their way to us and began flying over the station!

when they reach a high enough altitude or lose the thermal, the raptors start streaming. if they lose altitude again they can move on to another thermal and begin to form an new kettle. here the grey-faced buzzards are all streaming in one direction, breaking up the more disorderly kettle.

once in a while, we would spot a different species of raptor, a larger oriental honey-buzzard with its long chicken neck, or a resident philippine serpent eagle with its broad wings curled up at the tips. another resident, a rufous-bellied eagle, would skim the top of the a nearby ridge barely in sight. as the morning progressed to noon, we noticed the grey-faced buzzards were being joined by the much smaller chinese goshawks!

most of the raptors we counted were grey-faced buzzards
but there were other raptor species as well...

an oriental honeybuzzard soaring quite near us at eye level

the oriental honeybuzzard joined by grey-faced buzzards
rising on a thermal on a nearby ridge

another honeybuzzrd being mobbed by a much smaller chinese goshawk

a resident philippine serpent eagle taking advantage of the thermals too

we all stood in awe excitedly, as someone would shout out and describe where to spot the rising raptors over the mountainous horizon.

raptorwatchers watching a kettle rising (on the upper right quadrant of the picture)

raptorwatcher award goes to jelaine:
spotter, records-keeper and environment note-taker!

we finally packed up at 3pm, more than a dozen kettles and 2,370 raptors later! hopefully the raptors we counted make their way up north to taiwan and beyond, and will be back again next season!

the rolling hills and mountains of the sierra madre:
a lovely site for raptorwatching

what a great and leisurely way to spend sunday. birding friends, good conversation, lots of food and many, many (big) birds! until the next raptorwatch!