Muniastery

It was a couple of hours past our lunch. The group was getting even more boisterous. Cynthia and I wanted some peace and quiet even for a short time. 


It had been a hectic couple of days with two more days to go in my high school's 50th year class reunion. My wife and I were really enjoying the company of my classmates some of whom I met for the first time in half a century. However, Cynthia and I were both a bit under the weather lately and keeping up with the hyper activities of my batchmates were draining us of what little strength we have.


So it was on that balmy afternoon that my wife and I sort of sneaked out of the resort grounds, now filled with shrieks of delight and peals of laughter as my co-graduates played some games. We wandered around the area enjoying the relative peace and quiet when as we turned a corner, I saw a flock of small brownish birds settle on the stalks of some tall grass on an empty lot. Initially I thought it was just those uber common Eurasian Tree Sparrows. I moved closer. My eyes nearly jumped out of their sockets when I realized I was looking at Scaly-breasted Munias AND White-bellied Munias. White-bellied Munias! I thought this species preferred higher elevations since the two times I saw them were in the mountains of Davao and Antipolo. Even more surprising was that they were not skittish at all. And I did not have my birding camera with me!


Make the most of the circumstances, somebody said, so I used my cellphone camera. Then I remembered I had my point-and-shoot with me. The resulting images were not even of "documentary" quality. 

Trust me there are birds in them thar grasses

A closer look. Scaly-breasted on top, White-bellied on the left.

The important thing, I guess, was that my wife and I saw them and padded our year list from 74 to 76. More than that we were able to get a welcome respite from the rambunctious celebration of my friends. It was like entering a monastery to experience some calming of our souls even for a few minutes.


Strengthened by this experience we returned to the resort. Party on!

As Munias You Can See

Finally recovering from the adrenalin rush better known as the Dumaguete trip, Cynthia and I inserted a birding trip in between typhoons.


Our friend Boboy Francisco took us inside the Beverly Hills subdivision in Antipolo and acted as our birding guide. Gray skies and an abbreviated sortie did not yield the species we hoped to find.


We started off by meeting Henry Calilung, a biologist from the University of the Philippines and his band of young volunteers, including Boboy's daughter, Moira. Henry and company were doing a monthly mist netting of the birds found in the subdivision for census and DNA analysis purposes. They haven't caught anything yet when we met them early that morning but when we saw them again after our birding sortie, he informed me that they just caught a Mangrove Blue Flycatcher.


Birding the forested areas of Beverly Hills yielded nothing much except Brown Shrikes which can be seen every 500 meters or so. Every so often we would catch glimpses of a large brown birds - at different places. We presumed them to be cuckoos of some sort. One of those was a bigger than most skulker which Boboy concluded to be a Scale-feathered Malkoha. Too bad it didn't show itself even when we waited patiently and motionlessly for a good 15 minutes.


What was rather common were the munias. They were just everywhere! The Scaly-breasteds were feasting on the fruiting grass stalks while the White-bellieds were surprisingly up in the trees. 

A puzzle was an active brownish olive bird which was busily hunting for insects. For now, I would say that it was an Arctic Warbler although I hope that it would be one of those less common species.

Finishing the loop in about two hours, we were all sweating from the humidity and from the strain of walking the undulating roads of this subdivision. We bade Boboy goodbye and assured him that we will be back and try our luck once more. Maybe when the rains finally stopped coming.