And here is something for all the backyard birders out there, a cross-post from Birding Adventure Philippines' blogger Trinket Canlas. Original post can be seen here.)
As the wind and rain of back-to-back typhoons pedring and quiel blow and pour, there is an uneasy truce in the backyard.
the migrant brown shrike has arrived in the garden, much to the dismay of the current ruling species, the pied fantail (well, at least i imagine the pied fantail must feel something akin to dismay). yesterday, i saw a pair of fantails still whizzing across the garden to catch insects from their favorite pot perches, while the brown shrike picked at something it had caught and impaled on the kafir lime bush. a noisy skirmish would transpire when they would meet up at the gumamela bush and the swing base, ending with both parties retreating to their secured territory. the bulbuls must be amused at this tug-of-war for dominance over the backyard.
unfortunately, if all goes the way of previous years, the resident fantails will be relegated to the next door empty lot and the high canopy of the mango tree while the brown shrike will rule over the yard for the rest of the season until summer.
the pied fantail's days of lording of the backyard sill soon be over... until summer that isthe brown shrike, the new boss of the backyard, back with his old murderous ways
hardly a week since it arrived, adri and i already caught the shrike with a victim. another poor tree frog slaughtered into choice meat sections strung up on the thorns of the kafir lime. once again the small head was pierced thru its eye socket, and limbs suspended at the joints. flies and the stench of death surround the crime scene.
flies hovering over a poor decapitated tree frog's head, pierced thru its eye socketspindly legs, still with a lot of muscle, blood vessels and skin...
the brown shrike making the most of its latest victim/meal
(try to ignore the panting dog in the background... it's just maggie, my cute lab. 🙂 )
small animals of the backyard beware. the butcher is back.
A sure way to rouse a sleeping birder out of his/her sleep is to yell out a sighting of a special endemic nocturnal like this stunning Philippine Frogmouth. This uncommon Philippine endemic is a regular in Mt. Kitanglad Range National Park in Bukidnon, Mindanao, Philippines but can also be found in Luzon and satellite islands, Bohol, Leyte and Samar, and Negros and Panay.
Philippine Frogmouth, Batrachostomus septimus
July 2011, Mt. Kitanglad Range, Bukidnon, Mindanao, Philippines
It is a strictly nocturnal bird and has a smallish hooked bill and a wide mouth like a frog (check it out at around 1:05 in the video) used in hunting for insects, flying out from a perch to catch its prey on the wing. The long bristles extending from the face (seen clearly in this photo) as well as the base of the bill are thought to protect the eyes from prey and also to detect subtle movements in its forest environment.
Sometimes, you get really lucky and find the classic daytime frogmouth pose on a nest! This photo of the frogmouth trying to look like a broken branch was taken in Raja Sikatuna Protected Landscape in the laid-back island of Bohol in South Central Philippines.
Hope you enjoyed this video. If you are looking for more videos using our Swarovski Digiscoping Setup be sure to visit this page.
From the very colorful Philippine Trogon video, we now have this all black Philippine Drongo Cuckoo.
The Philippine Drongo Cuckoo is a fairly common lowland endemic found in most Philippine islands except Palawan. It is all black in plumage but has a nice, greenish-blue gloss when hit by sunlight at a certain angle. It may often be confused with the Balicassiao, (an endemic drongo) in Luzon or the Hair-crested Drongo in Mindanao as both of these species have a somewhat splayed tail but the diagnostic that separates this bird from the real drongos is its small, thin, slightly decurved bill.
It is often heard in the forest with its melodic whistles but it can be shy and difficult to see. Similar to other cuckoos, the Philippine Drongo Cuckoo is believed to be a nest parasite - laying eggs on other nests, and letting the other bird take care of its offspring.
Philippine Drongo Cuckoo, Surniculus velutinus
May 2011, Mt. Makiling Forest Reserve, Laguna, Luzon, Philippines
(Blogger's note: Sorry, a long overdue post, we have been busy with the upcoming 7th Philippine Bird Festival. Try to come and join us. Visit www.birdwatch.ph or click here for more details)
This is a Philippine Trogon, a strikingly beautiful endemic found only in the islands of Luzon and its satellites, Samar, Leyte, Bohol and Mindanao. It is very colorful bird, probably more than 7 colors in the male - with its bill yellow-tipped with a pea-green base, cobalt blue facial skin surrounding a dark brown eye, a black forecrown while the hind crown and nape purplish maroon; back and rump orange rufous, and a deep red belly. And we did not even include the highly-debated "colors" black and white for the wing coverts and the primaries. 🙂
This endemic inhabits forests up to 2000 meters and is usually seen singly or in pairs with a more drab-looking (but still beautiful) female. It feeds on insects and fruits and nests on holes in dead hollow trees similar to woodpecker nests. The call is described in the field guide as a soft nuu nu nu nu nu nu nu nuuu rising and accelerating with the first few notes m then gradually descending and slowing to the end. For me, it is similar to a neighing horse. 🙂
Philippine Trogon, Harpactes ardens
July 2011, Mt. Bulusan, Sorsogon, Luzon, Philippines
This is a Mindanao Tarictic Hornbill, one of the 10 endemic hornbills of the Philippines. It favors forest and forest edge up to 1500 meters and is usually found in pairs or small family groups.
Hornbills are amazing creatures - Tarictics are known to lay 3 eggs in tree cavities with the female individual completely enclosed in the cavity during incubation. So when a male Tarictic dies during the breeding season, the whole family is in danger since it is the male who will bring food for the female and its chicks.
They are also efficient re-foresters of the mountains. They are excellent seed-dispersal agents: they are known to gather several fruits and store them in their crop and can transport them over cleared forest areas or plantations, from one forest patch to another, in the process spreading seeds more efficiently than rodents and primates.
You want to save our forests? - Save our hornbills! They are our allies in keeping our rainforests healthy and diverse.
Mindanao Tarictic Hornbill, Penelopides affinis
September 2010, Mt. Kitanglad Range, Bukidnon, Mindanao, Philippines
This Little Pied Flycatcher is a fairly common inhabitant of the forest canopy, understory and edge usually in montane forests. This video is of a male individual taken in Mt. Kitanglad Range National Park in Bukidnon, Mindanao, Southern Philippines. The female is more drab with greyish head and back and lacking the black and white plumage of the male.
This bird can also be seen in the high elevation mountains of Negros (belonging to the endemic subspecies rabori), so it is also possible to see this bird in one of the post-birding trips of the 7th Philippine Bird Festival: BIRDS IN THE WILD HELP FORESTS THRIVE!
Thanks for viewing and Happy Birding!
Little Pied Flycatcher, Ficedula westermanni
September 2010, Mt. Kitanglad Range National Park, Bukidnon, Mindanao, Philippines
The 7th Philippine Bird Festival is the Wild Bird Club of the Philippines' annual birdwatching and bird conservation event featuring lectures, exhibits, children's activities and a bird forum with resource speakers coming from various government and non-government agencies and the academe. This annual event hosts foreign birders from birding clubs from Taipei, Thailand, Malaysia, Japan, Singapore and other Asian countries as well as local participants from non-government organizations (NGOs) working for wildlife conservation. This year the 7th PBF will be held this 23-24 September 2011 in the beautiful city of Dumaguete, in partnership with Silliman University and the local governments of Dumaguete and Negros Oriental. This year's theme is BIRDS IN THE WILD HELP FORESTS THRIVE! and will focus on the role of birds in keeping our forests intact as well as the conservation of critically-endangered birds found only in Negros.
Wild Bird Club of the Philippines' 7th Philippine Bird Festival will be held this September 23-24, 2011 in Dumaguete, Negros Oriental
There will be before- and after-Bird Festival trips that will showcase the amazing avifaunal diversity of Negros Island. The main target would be to see the Festival's logo in the wild: the rare and highly-endangered Negros Bleeding Heart as well as other specialties like White-winged Cuckoo-shrike, Negros forms of Balicassiao (a type of drongo), Blue-headed Fantail, Spotted Wood Kingfisher, White-browed Shama, and this Flame-templed Babbler, probably the best-looking endemic babbler in the Philippines. If you're still wondering if you should attend the Festival and its birding trips, maybe this video will persuade you to go. 🙂
Flame-templed Babbler, Stachyris speciosa
April 2011, Mt. Kanlaon, Negros Occidental, Philippines
Many thanks to Arnel Telesforo for the wonderful PBF logo!
This week I was rewarded with a lifer - a nesting colony of Bridled Terns on San Bernandino Island, an isolated rocky islet in the Pacific, off the coast of Sorsogon, Southern Luzon. The Philippine field guide lists this seabird as a rare resident and was previously recorded only in Apo Reef in Mindoro, Maturin Rocks in Catanduanes, Sulu Sea and in other isolated islands off the coast of Mindanao, Palawan and the Batanes and Babuyan Islands in the northern extremes of the Philippines.
It is a medium-sized tern with long wings and a deeply forked tail. The upperparts are dark brownish grey and the head is black with a distinctive white "V" on the forehead. It is mostly a pelagic species but returns to rocky islets to roost and to nest. Eggs are scattered in the inaccessible cracks on the islets' sheer cliffs.
Bridled Tern, Sterna anaethetus
July 2011, San Bernandino Island, off Bulusan, Sorsogon, Southern Philippines
Bridled Tern, San Bernandino Island, www.birdingphilippines.comBridled Tern, San Bernandino Island, www.birdingphilippines.comBridled Terns restingBridled Tern, San Bernandino Island, www.birdingphilippines.com
It was an exciting trip, we had to take a 1 1/2 hour boat ride from Sorsogon to reach San Bernandino island. The waves were quite big considering there was no storm and we left early in the morning (when the Pacific Ocean should be relatively calmer). We rode a big, stable motorized outrigger banca designed to fit 30 people (we were only 4 plus the 3 boatmen) because at these times of the year the seas can become rough due to the monsoons. But when we reach the islet, we were rewarded with an awesome sight: a beautiful lighthouse on top of a hill surrounded by rocky cliffs, clear and wonderful reefs supporting a variety of marine life and of course the magnificent colony of seabirds roosting on the island. We were greeted by Eastern Reef Egrets in dark and white phases, then came the Bridled and Black-naped Terns. Our team was able to count around 220 Bridled Terns and 100 Black-naped Terns. Unfortunately, eggs of either the Bridled or the Black-naped Tern, or both, were being collected at the time of our visit from the larger island (with the lighthouse) by one man. Our boatmen reported that eggs are gathered regularly from the island. We reported the incident to the authorities since nesting colonies of this rare species are highly uncommon and this site should be protected at all cost.
San Bernandino Lighthouse "Parola"San Bernandino Lighthouse / www.birdingphilippines.com Black-naped Tern, Sterna sumatrana
July 2011, San Bernandino Island, off Bulusan, Sorsogon, Southern Philippines
Black-naped Tern/www.birdingphilippines.com
Many thanks to our hosts for this trip: World Bank - Philippines and the honorable Mayor Ronnel Lim and the Municipality of Gubat, Sorsogon.
Next week, something for the upcoming 7th Philippine Bird Festival!
Happy Birding!
Adri Constantino
www.birdingphilippines.com
Introducing the Philippines smallest raptor: the cute (but can be mean) Philippine Falconet.
The Philippine Falconet is only 6 1/2 inches in length and is found in most Philippine islands except Palawan. Its serrated beak and enormous claws are its most potent weapons in catching dragonflies, other insects, lizards, small invertebrates and even small birds! The field guide describes it as "feisty" and it has been observed mobbing the Great Philippine Eagle. Definitely, a meanie!
Philippine Falconet, Microhierax erythrogenys
December 2010, Subic Bay Forest, Luzon, Philippines
The White-eared Brown Dove is the most common brown dove in the Philippines. The soft hoot-ho hoot-ho hoot-hoot-hoot-hoot-hoot-hoot is often heard once you enter second growth lowland and montane forests. It feeds on small fruits and berries including peppers and ranges in most Philippine islands except the Palawan island group.
White-eared Brown DovePhapitreron leucotis
September 2010, Mt. Kitanglad Range Natural Park, Bukidnon, Mindanao
