Wednesday, August 30, 2023

Birding Between Rains

It drizzled as we passed by Antipolo on our way to go birding in Baras. Thankfully as we reached our destination the rain stopped. Upon reaching the rotunda, we saw Rufous-crowned Bee-eaters and Whiskered Treeswifts perched on eletric wires. It had been a while since we saw both species so Cynthia and quickly took out our cameras and took shots at them. We did get passable photos considering the lighting wasn't so good with the skies still being dark and cloudy.
From there we went to where the huge water tank is and surprisingly there were no birds! We then proceeded to the hilly area hoping to see the regular resident Long-tailed Shrike. Along the way Cynthia spotted a Barred Rail and was lucky to get some shots at it.
Further down the road we got another regular - the Paddyfield Pipit.
In one of the side roads we were able to finally get a picture of the skittish Spotted Dove.
As expected the Long-tailed Shrike was at its usual domain.
Perched on the wires were a bunch of White-breasted Woodswallows.
Along Nebres Road, we got the Pied Bush Chat.
Perched on the road was a Zebra Dove that looked like it was trying to warm up.
At the creek we were surprised that the Green Sandpiper was there because we thought it was a migrant and it wasn't the time for migratory birds to arrive yet.
Near Jeres we got really good shots at the Brown-breasted Kingfisher.
We then went to the falls area to look for the Indigo-banded Kingfishers (three individuals had been seen there) but we didn't see even one. It was strange that we didn't see a lot of birds this time. Perhaps it was due to the gloomy weather. It did rain while we were driving back home.