Birding Adventure Philippines birder Trinket Canlas shares her recent experience with a pair of Greater Flamebacks in Subic Bay, Luzon, Philippines.A male Greater (Luzon) Flameback minding his own businesswhile the female violently pecks away at its own reflection
"On the wall, flameback," Adri communicated to me in a low voice. He was standing maybe 10 meters away from me, having come down the stairs while i stood on the sloping asphalt driveway.
We were at the parking lot of the (former) legenda suites at cubi-triboa district in subic, having left local birders drew, kitty and ivan at the street corner looking at blue-naped parrots on the agoho trees.
I looked at the tree beside the hotel wall, and saw a male woodpecker creeping up and down the tree trunk going about the usual woodpecker routine.
"yup, male!" i answered adri.
"SA WALL!(ON THE WALL!)" he said again.
"oo nga! male! (yes! male!)" i wondered what the insistence was about.
"tignan mo SA wall! (look ON the wall!)"
and then i saw it...
the female flameback was actually perched on the vertical concrete wall of the hotel!
"ahhhh... oo nga no! (oh, yes there it is) "
Talk about un-natural perches. not only that... the female seemed quite agitated. she seemed greatly threatened by another female flameback mirroring, literally, her every move.
She would swoop, fly in, attack, peck. a huge display of aggression... at herself! i could feel her hostility with her every charge and dip. it was of course, just her reflection on the large glass windows of the building she was threatening/threatened by. it was pretty comical to watch, this display of non self-awareness. by this time, kitty, drew and ivan had joined us in our observation.
It was also interesting to note that while this was going on, the male calmly went about his business pecking away at the tree trunk, up and down, peck peck peck. Initially i would think that the male of the species would be the sole aggressor. but then again...
... apparently not.
After all, we each have our own antagonists... (and maybe like the woodpecker, once in a while we don't realize that our greatest antagonist is our self!)
hmmmm....
