Tag: wild bird

The Indigo-banded Kingfisher is one of the most-striking and sought-after endemics in any birding tour in the Philippines. This beautiful kingfisher needs clean freshwater rivers and streams where it hunts small fish and crabs. It perches on rocks or on branches and dives head first to catch prey. It is restricted to Luzon and its satellite islands, and Mindoro, Cebu, Negros and Panay. The usual spots for the Indigo-banded Kingfisher in our regular Philippine birding tour are the small streams inside the green campus of the University of the Philippines Los Baños or inside the Makiling Botanical Gardens in Laguna, south of Manila. There is also a spot on the way up to Banaue, Northern Luzon where one can scan the Lagawe River for this small kingfisher. Another very good spot is Villa Escudero, www.villaescudero.com, a resort two hours south of Manila. This close encounter, however, was captured in Ipo Dam in Bulacan. The Ipo Dam serves as one of the fresh water sources for Metro Manila. Most of the birding is done on bangkas or motorized outrigger boats (not the best platforms for observation with optics!). Here is an excerpt from Trinket Canlas' blog, a birder from Birding Adventure Philippines. A complete story can be found in her blog here. Before "discovering" the Indigo-banded Kingfishers of Ipo Dam, i had always thought that these sparkling endemics inhabited small, clear and shallow freshwater streams. I have memories of running up and down the endless stairs at the Makiling Botanical Gardens to catch a glimpse at them at the Molawin Creek, of brilliant blue bullets speeding AWAY from me. Imagine on my second trip to Ipo Dam we counted FIFTEEN of them on the riverbanks of a wide, deep and open river! and these aren't the shy type. The bangka (take note motorized and therefore NOISY) can get within a couple of meters of them before they feel an encroachment of their personal space. Because of this unusual boldness the boatmen call them "ibong bingi" ("deaf birds"). Even on a boat you cannot miss the iridescent plumage of these tiny birds, always on the lookout for small fish and crustaceans. -- For the love of birds, Birding Adventure Philippines