Imus Go There

 When our friend, Linda Gocon, posted photos of some unusual birds taken in Imus, Cavite, I thought "I must go there."

Early Saturday morning (June 26) my wife and drove to the place not that far from SM Center. Only to discover that the "birding" place was teeming with joggers, cyclists, and even motorcyclists. Forget about the Grass Owl I whispered to Cynthia. Thankfully, despite the abundance of human beings, there were still birds that inhabit the nearby grasslands. The most common of which (aside from the Eurasian Tree Sparrows, of course) was the Zitting Cisticola!

Something really weird happened next. We both saw some movement on the ground. So we both took pictures of the bird that was roaming around. I knew that my subject was a Paddyfield Pipit and I assumed that Cynthia was photographing the same species. However, when I was processing our photos at home I discovered that the bird my wife was taking pictures of was an Oriental Skylark!

Paddyfield Pipit

Oriental Skylark

Next came the doves: A Zebra Dove was also foraging among the grass.

Cynthia was lucky enough to get a shot of a Spotted Dove making a landing.

We then moved to a place where some trash had been piled up. From there my wife saw a Cinnamon Bittern in a distance. Eventually it flew off and of course, Cynthia got a perfect BIF (bird in flight) shot! 

To console myself after failing to get my BIF shot, I took an obligatory photo of a Eurasian Tree Sparrow.

Speaking of BIFs, a couple of Oriental Pratincoles were flying around providing a challenge for us.

Cynthia's sharp eyes got her a White-browed Crake.

From the roundabout, we proceeded to a road nearby. Feeding on the grass stalks were a horde of Munias - both Chestnut and Scaly-breasted.

Chestnut Munia

Scaly-breasted Munia

I also saw an immature Striated Grassbird preening on barbed wire.

Near the narrow road, we were surprised to see an Intermediate Egret!

Perched on the electric wire were some Pacific Swallows

Past nine o'clock and we were soaked in our sweat, so we both agreed to call it a day. As we were about to leave, we got our "lifer" - penguins!!

Candaback

After a rather long hiatus from  birding, my wife and I decided to return to our hobby. The place we agreed to go back to was the Candaba wetlands. The last time we visited this place was in early January of this year. We were disappointed that time having photographed a total of only 13 species. We hoped we would be luckier this time.

The very first bird we encountered was the Purple Heron. As it turned out this would be the bird of the day - having encountered it at different places.

As I negotiated the challenging deeply rutted dirt road, we were frustrated by surprising skittishnesss of both the Zebra Doves and Red Turtledoves. We would see them feeding on the grounds ahead of us but everytime we stopped to take their photos they would fly away. And this happened a lot of times! Rather surprising because in our previous trips here both species would remain on the ground unperturbed by our presence.

At least one of their cousins, a Spotted Dove, posed long enough for us to be able to take a shot at it.

The area near the entrance was a fallowed farmland and completely devoid of avian population. As we neared the "wetlands" the Whiskered Terns were as usual flying around. Again, we only saw a few individuals where there used to be hundreds of them before.

Good thing a family of Common Moorhens were out searching for food.

We also encountered three species of bitterns but only managed to get photos of two: the Cinnamon and the Yellow. The Black Bittern made a quick flyby, landed on a clump of tall grass and completely disappeared from view.

Cinnamon Bittern

Yellow Bittern

A White-breasted Waterhen walked across the road and stopped just before going in the shrub.

A little further up the road, Cynthia noticed some movement by the tall grass. "Coucal!" she said softly. Unfortunately, the large bird skulked behind the reeds and never showed itself in full view.

As we approached the pond which was now almost dry, we were glad to see several members of the Ardeidae family: the Cattle Egret, Little Egret, and Intermediate Egret. 

Cattle Egret

Little Egret

Intermediate Egret

Since there wasn't that much water the colony of Black-crowned Night Herons was no longer there. Actually we were surprised when we saw one juvenile fly over.

When we were just about to get to the "mayor's house" I noticed that the ruts on the road was definitely not accessible, especially since our car isn't a 4-wheel drive. So we thought it prudent to just turn around.

At the provincial road, we got photos (and not so good ones even) of two of four regulars usually seen here: the Striated Grassbird and the Long-tailed Shrike. Unlike before, the Pied Bush Chat and Chestnut Munias were too far off for us to even get a decent shot.

Striated Grassbird

Long-tailed Shrike

After about 3 hours we decided to call it a day. A few meters down the road I saw some waders in the shallow waters. Let me just say that we got some bonus albeit all photos were only of the "documentary" type inasmuch as our subjects were too far off from the roadside. At least we know that some migrants such as the Marsh Sandpiper, Wood Sandpiper, Black-winged Stilt, Long-toed Stint and even a Little Ringed Plover still come to this place.

Marsh Sanpiper

Wood Sandpiper

Black-winged Stilt

Long-toed Stint

Although we got better results now than we had early this year, it was still heartbreaking that the number of species and the quantity of birds had declined sharply this year.

From our home to this place took us about an hour-and-a-half when we left at around 4:30 in the morning. The return home took almost five hours as we had to endured the horrendous traffic situation in MetroManila, particularly along EDSA. It was such a traumatic experience that we probably would never come back to Candaba again.

Ricefields Forever?

Gone are the ponds. The place can no longer be referred to as "wetlands". In its place are ricefields, as far as the eye can see. Because of that thousands of migrant ducks and waders no longer come here. This is Candaba now.

In fairness, there were still birds. Chestnut Munias, Red Turtledoves, and Zebra Doves were plentiful.

Our trip with birding buddies Peter Ting and Wenxing Pan last Saturday was like a roller coaster ride. There were ups and downs. The downside being the absence of the ducks and waders I mentioned earlier. The whole time we were there, we only saw two Wandering Whistling Ducks, two Black-winged Stilts, one Long-toed Stint and one Common Greenshank. Wood Sandpipers, on the other hand, seemed to be more in numbers. Perhaps it was because now they tended to flock closer together in the watery gaps between the rice crops.

The upside was being rewarded with really close views of two kinds of bitterns: The Yellow as we were entering the site and the Cinnamon as we were leaving.

Yellow Bittern

Cinnamon Bittern

Then we had the up-and-down experience of trying to photograph birds in flight. First was a pair of Eastern Marsh Harriers. Each time we saw them they tended to fly farther away from us. We had to either wait for them to fly back or we leave the place then return when the raptors felt that there were no more people around and got more confident to fly closer.

The other challenge was the Oriental Pratincole. Surprisingly, there were lots of them, maybe close to a hundred, all ceaselessly flying overhead. Trying to focus on an individual is a test of patience and skills.

Without the ducks and waders, we had to cut our trip short. It was about this time last year when we twitched some rarities here: the Baikal Teal, Falcated Duck and Spot-billed Duck all seen at the pond close to the Mayor's house. Now there were just ricefields. Is it going to be like this forever?

JIF

JIF is the number one peanut butter brand in the United States. Lately, however, JIF acquired a new meaning here in the Philippines. Now JIF stands for Jacana In Flight - photos of which had become a common posting in Facebook the past several weeks. Like most bird photographers, we wanted to be a part of this growing community. Our friend and regular birding companion, Peter and I contacted Jonet T. Carpio - he is "the man" who rules over the Jacana territory. So it was arranged - we meet up at the Camella Homes in Bulacan between 6:30 and 7 Saturday morning.

At 6:30 we were there. Jonet gave us a detailed description of what to expect, where to look, and the best time to photograph our target species. For the next hour and a half we endured the scorching sun as we attempted (most of the time unsuccessfully) to get our JIF shot. I said unsuccessfully because the long-tailed birds were so unpredictable in their movements. You'll never know when they will decide to fly and if they did it was only for a short distance - oftentimes too short for our cameras to focus properly on the fast moving subject.

Thankfully, there were some passable photos that would be good enough to be included in the JIF posting in Facebook.

In between lulls when the Pheasant-tailed Jacanas were not up in the air, other species provided a respite, thankfully so. Interestingly, we were provided with BIF opportunities. Normally, BIF would mean "Bird In Flight" however, in our case that morning, BIF turned out to be Bittern In Flight. All three species went flying by, albeit at varying distances and at different times.

Black Bittern

Cinnamon Bittern

Yellow Bittern

Around 9 am, the jacana activity quieted somehow. A birding couple, Gilbert and Wilma Go, came and joined us. We stayed with them for another half hour with still very minimal activity from our target bird. 

At 9:30 with the heat becoming unbearable, we bade goodbye to our new friends and to our host. Our deepest gratitude goes to Jonet who took time off from his schedule to show us where the jacanas were and providing very important information about birds in the area and even setting up a hide for us photographers.

One of the slogans for the famous peanut butter I mentioned above goes: "it's terif!" That's exactly how we would describe our experience with our version of JIF.

Bittern to the End

My wife and I went to La Mesa Ecopark for just one purpose: to take better pictures of the Brown-headed Thrush! At 7:30 am we positioned ourselves in front of the fruiting MacArthur palm tree. Our friend, Bong, joined us thirty minutes later. As if on cue, our target bird appeared at 8:30 - the exact time we expected it to show up just as it did last Monday. After fifteen minutes our mission was accomplished!

We decided to go to the pond by the horses' stables to wait for the Indigo-banded Kingfisher which was Bong's target bird. We were joined by two Singaporean birders, Yam Tee Yong and Ben Quek, both of whom are my friends in Facebook. Unfortunately, the tiny kingfisher was a no-show and so was its' cousin, and another target bird for Bong and our Singaporean friends, the Spotted Wood.

At around 10:30 we returned to the Brown-headed Thrush milieu hoping it would make an encore appearance. It didn't.

Next place we went to was the Spillway and maybe, just maybe, at least one of the three raptors we saw last Monday would still be there. Not a single one showed up.

We got a couple of bonuses instead - a Barred Rail and a surprise appearance of a juvenile Cinnamon Bittern.

And with that, our visit to the La Mesa Ecopark came to a bittern end.

A Field Guide

The ricefields inside IRRI in Los Banos is a haven for birds. However, it being a place for experimental rice farming, access is limited to their employees and their guests. Luckily our friend, Prof. Tirso Paris, has that access privilege. It was a beautiful, sunny Saturday morning when my wife and I together with friends, Irene and Bong, met up with Prof. Tirso at the IRRI gate.

All four of us were excited to go birding at this place because we hadn't done much birding for almost three months now. As I mentioned in my previous blog, blame the burning hot summer days then followed by the season of torrential rains for that. Prof. Tirso warned us not to expect too much because migration wasn't in full swing yet. Still, photographing any bird in the lush fields of IRRI would be enough for us.

Although we missed taking pictures of our target birds: the Greater Painted Snipe and the Barred Buttonquail, we were nevertheless thrilled at the birds we photographed. Foremost of these were the Wood Sandpipers which were practically all over the place. Irene counted almost a hundred of them!

Next would be the Zitting Cisticolas. Their incessant twittering filled the morning air.

As expected in any ricefield, both Chestnut and Scaly-breasted Munias were busy feeding at some of the ripening grains.

Chestnut Munia

Scaly-breasted Munia

The usually skittish Buff-banded Rails were sunning themselves, trying to get rid of the moisture from the early morning dew.

A surprise was a Pied Bush Chat.

Another surprise was when we saw a Cinnamon Bittern performing what we presumed to be a courtship display. Inasmuch as we didn't see the female maybe this was just its way of drying itself from the previous night's dampness.

The usual denizens of IRRI brightened up our morning. The Paddyfield Pipit was diligently hunting for food.

While the Oriental Skylark was already feeling the heat of the day as midmorning came.

It was a fruitful day of birding for us. We owe it all to Prof. Tirso who was our "guide" to the field birds of IRRI.

photo taken by Irene