Cloudy with a chance of Woodswallows

Bad weather = bad birding. And if you're into bird photography, it's even worse! With grey clouds covering the skies, what could be the chances of seeing birds?

Such was the case when my wife and I made an impromptu decision to go birding in Antipolo. Surprisingly, there were quite a number of birds taking advantage of the pre-rain atmosphere. The few species we photographed that were not black images in our screens were shaking off the dew from their feathers:

Pied Bush Chat - male

Tawny Grassbird

The rest were mostly silhouettes and were quite a challenge in post-processing (of which I am admittedly not very good at).

Perhaps it was because of the gloomy weather that of the once plentiful Scaly-breasted Munias, only one individual showed up and didn't stay long even. 

What surprised us was the great number of Artamus leucorhynchus. We've seen several of these birds snuggle together on an electric wire or on a bare branch..only to suddenly fly off as soon as we approached. Nevertheless, we were glad that the White-breasted Woodswallows were there inspite of the cloudy skies.

An hour-and-a-half later, it started to drizzle. Time for us to head back home as we're sure that the birds would themselves seek shelter from the oncoming rain.