Subic Birding - Day 2 - A Lifer to End the Year

We were hoping for a bleeding heart but got fowled instead. Yesterday, Chris Chafer, a birding friend, told me via PM that there were Luzon Bleeding Hearts at the Nabasan Trail. Bright and early in the morning Cynthia and I began our search for the rare pigeon. Halfway inside the trail I saw them - no, not the bleeding hearts but a family of Red Junglefowls. In my excitement (this was a lifer for us!) I forgot to adjust the settings of my camera and so I only got one documentary shot of the male.

After negotiating the entire length of the trail and dipping on our target species, we returned to the junction where we saw the White-bellied Woodpecker yesterday. It wasn't there this time. In its place was a Balicassiao and a pair of Green Racket-tails.

Surprisingly, there weren't a lot of birds. We moved on and went to Hill 394. Again it wasn't birdy at all although we were lucky that a Luzon Flameback dropped by.

From there we tried the area across the Treetop Adventure Park. Here we got good shots of a nesting White-bellied Woodpecker.

Philippine Bulbuls were quite active here as well.

A huge flock (about 20 individuals) of Ashy Minivets passed by stopping at the pine trees for a few minutes.

After lunch we went to the Waterfront area. Other than a couple of Lesser Sand Plovers (?), there were no birds on the seashore.

On the way to the Volunteer's Park, we encountered a Crested Myna along the way.

At the park, the hoped for Brahminy Kites were absent. I'm sure it was because some people were already exploding fireworks by the lake and a Karaoke system was in full blast. As a consolation, my wife was able to photograph a Clamorous Reed Warbler.

To end the year, we had an obligatory shot of the migrant Brown Shrike.