The Candaba Trilogy, Part II - Far 'n' Near

Never have opposites been more pronounced than that morning at the Candaba Bird Sanctuary. Cynthia and I were standing on a berm gazing at tiny flecks floating on the huge pond seemingly a thousand miles away. These flecks are actually ducks. Thousands of them. Mostly Philippine Ducks, as best as we could tell, not benefitting from the aid of a spotting scope. A smaller group of darker spots were on the right side. My binoculars tell me, even insisted upon me, that they were Tufted Ducks. I, after much persuading from my mesmerized eyes, finally admitted that I got a lifer. I even managed to convince Cynthia that yes, we have an addition to our lifelist.

Trust me those are ducks out there.

Tufted Ducks! Tufted Ducks!

Compare that with our teasingly close encounters with the bird kind - those of the Zebra Doves and Red Turtle Doves. They were so unaffected by our presence that at various times our vehicle almost run over them. They would be inches away from our car before they would take off, land a few meters ahead and repeat their almost suicidal actions.


What was absolutely surprising and really took the cake was that very same derring do routine done by those nonchalant doves was done by, get this, an immature Lesser Coucal! It was casually walking ahead of us that I thought a Roadrunner miraculously appeared in the Philippines. We were so entranced by this impossibility that I barely had time to take its picture  - through the windshield at that - resulting in a frustrating extremely bad photo.

The Philippine version of a Roadrunner :)

Near or far, birding was quite electrifying that cloudy morning in Candaba