GPS Location

The term "GPS" is a device generally used for tracking and navigation. In our case, it had a different meaning, particularly on Saturday, April 1, at the Ninoy Aquino Park and Wildlife Center (NAPWC). It had been quite a while since we visited this place and our expectations weren't that high. After parking our car we walked to the edge of the pond. There we met three young ladies (Aly, Ria and Anj) who were doing some bird watching. After introducing ourselves and doing some bird talk, I looked at the pond and some birds of the Ardeidae family. Then at a distance, I noticed some movements and got excited when I realized what they were - a pair of Greater Painted Snipes! (Henceforth refered to as GPS). We did not expect this species to be seen here since they are quite uncommon. The last we saw some GPS were at the Camelia Homes Subdivision in Bulacan way back in 2017. Unfortunately they were a bit far that I only got some documentary shots. The female is the more colorful one.

After a while the pair of GPS left. It was then that took shots at the members of the heron family - Black-crowned Night Heron, Little Egret and Yellow Bittern

A pair of Pacific Swallows even landed not too far from us and offered some photo ops.

Happy that we got into the GPS location, our young lady companions took a group shot with us.

When Things Don't Go As Expected

Saturday morning Cynthia and I planned to go birding in Infanta. It's been a while since we've been there so we were expecting to see some species that we have not seen for quite some time. As we approached Baras the skies were dark and looked like it would be raining soon. So we decided to just go to Palo Alto - our usual birding spot in Baras. At the gate, the guard informed us that birdwatching is no longer allowed there. There had been complaints from the local residents he said without specifying what the complaints were about. He was very apologetic about it and requested us to turn around. With that unexpected situation my wife and I both agreed to continue going to Infanta inasmuch as the sun was beginning to peep through the clouds. As we approached the town of Tanay, we were surprised at the long line of vehicles. Was there an accident ahead? was our initial thought. As we inched closer to the front of the line we realized that there was checkpoint and the military was asking the drivers the reason for going to Infanta. Apparently "pleasure trips" were not being allowed to go through. Another unexpected snag to our birding plans. As we drove back I told Cynthia that our only option would be Taytay. 

When we arrived at the usual bird stop in Taytay, we were glad to see fellow bird photographers Mon Quisumbing, Joel Dayao and his wife, Gemma. With them was Bing Santos and her husband Arnel. They were all waiting for the resident Black Bittern to appear. Since the said species was still a no show, my wife and I photographed the birds in the area.

Whiskered Terns, surprisingly, were quite plentiful.

 

There were also some Intermediate Egrets and Little Egrets.

Intermediate Egret

 

Little Egret

 

All of a sudden a Black Bittern did a very short fly by. It disappeared among the tall grass before we could point our cameras at it. Again, we concentrated on the "friendlier" birds. One of which was a White-browed Crake.

 

Another surprise was when a Purple Heron flew over and landed at some distance.

 

We then saw another bird fly at a distance and landed on a banana tree. At first we thought it was our target species but it turned out to be a Yellow Bittern. And we only got a documentary shot at it because it was so far away.

 

Then a single Wandering Whistling Duck flew by but unfortunately we were unable to get a good shot at it.

Around 9:30 am and the hoped for Black Bittern still not appearing, we decided to call it a day. It wasn't that fruitful birding trip since we had some unexpected glitches in our plan but just having the opportunity to be out in fields was refreshing for me and Cynthia.

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.

Driving me Mad

My wife and I are quite passive when encountering life's inconveniences. At our age we've gone through so much vicissitudes that we normally would not allow such things to bother us. But, and this is a big BUT, there are those occasions that get us fuming mad. So please allow me to vent out some of the frustrations we experienced in our latest birding trip.

The Candaba Wetlands is one of the prime birding areas in the Philippines. Or I should now say, "used to be".  Whereas before hundreds, if not thousands, of migrant waders and ducks can easily be seen here, now there was an obvious disparity since the birds we saw yesterday were much lower in number. Sure, there were hundreds of Black-winged Stilts but that's just about it. A few Wood Sandpipers here and there, fewer Long-toed Stints and a couple of Grey and Purple Herons. We did not even see a single Common Kingfisher! There were ducks, mostly the endemic Philippine, but they were too far off for a decent photograph. Good thing some Wandering Whistling Ducks found a place to settle that was within photographic range.

The primary reason for this, I believe, was because the watery area where these migrants settle are now rice fields, newly planted even. The local Black-crowned Night Heron colony population seemed to have dwindled as well.

Thankfully, the local avifauna was thriving well. The most ubiquitous among these were the Pied Bush Chat, Striated Grassbird, Chestnut Munia and Long-tailed Shrike.

Pied Bush Chat

Chestnut Munia

Long-tailed Shrike 

Striated Grassbird

The Rallidae family was well represented with the Barred Rail, Buff-baded Rail, Philippine Swamphen, White-breasted Waterhen and White-browed Crake.

Barred Rail

Buff-banded Rail

Philippine Swamphen

White-browed Crake

White-breasted Waterhen

Now let me tell you about the Bitterns. It was as if they were in connivance with each other because all three species - Yellow, Cinnamon, and Black - teased us in exactly the same way. While we are focusing on some other species, one of these sly birds would suddenly leap from where were looking, fly a short distance then dive into a clump of vegetation and completely vanish. That this happened about 10 times left us bitter. It was only when we were already on the way out and while enjoying the cooperativeness of some Blue-tailed Bee-eaters that one Yellow Bittern finally obliged to be photographed. It was a Bittern end to our birding in Candaba.

Blue-tailed Bee-eater

Yellow Bittern

What made Cynthia and I upset was the traffic we encountered on our trip home. We've birded Candaba many times for the past five years but this was the first time that we got stuck in such a horrendous jam. Candaba is some 60 kilometers from our home in Quezon City. It took us only one-and-a-half hours that morning to get to the wetlands whereas it was a maddening three-and-a-half hours on the return trip! I mean where did all these trucks come from? They were everywhere! - from the narrow two-lane roads in Bulacan to the streets from Mindanao Avenue to Katipunan Avenue. Trucks! 

When we finally arrived home my wife was so exasperated. She told me that this could be our last birding trip because we don't want to go through this nightmare again. "It's for your own sake," she said, "because you're the one driving." I'm afraid I had to agree with her. At my age - a year less than 70 - my physical endurance is no longer what it used to be. Considering that we had to wake up early, go birding (which involves standing for long periods, walking while carrying my heavy camera equipment, and sometimes even trudging over uneven trails) then having to sit for seemingly countless hours inside our vehicle waiting for the traffic to move inch-by-inch towards home, I don't think I can handle that on a regular basis. And that drives me mad.