Sorry for the late posting this week. After being away for the week it has taken me this long to catch up on e-mails etc.
If you have read my blog from last week you will know that last Monday morning I jetted off to find some more sites to survey for one of my PhD chapters. Without going too much into detail, I was looking at an agricultural scheme that they use on their rice and trying to find different sites to see how this affects the bird life in an island Eco-system. The island that is running this scheme is Bohol.
The 10th largest island of the Philippines, Bohol is known for its jungles, Chocolate Hills and being one of the homes of the world’s smallest primate, the Tarsier. It is located approximately 450km South-East of Manila and takes around an hour to fly there. The North East quarter of the island is comprised of a lot of rice terraces/fields and this is where I spent the majority of my week. I left Friday morning free as a back-up in case I needed to meet someone/see something that I couldn’t in the previous days but, as luck should have it, it stayed free and I was able to organize a quick excursion before having to fly home. With the exception of a Pied Harrier seen out of a window on Wednesday, I hadn’t managed to see many birds, so as the alarm went off at 4am on Friday morning I jumped out of bed and was looking forward to my quick trip.
Because of its geographic location the diversity of birds on Bohol is different than that I am use to in the forests of Luzon. Some birds are similar, but a lot are those that can only be found in the Southern Islands of the Philippines. This gave me a great chance to see some new birds as well as some variations on others that I had seen already. I had done a little research, as well as spoken to Paul about his experiences on the Island, and had two species in mind that I really wanted to see. I was picked up from my hotel by a driver that was recommended to me from someone at work. He had a whole half-day planned but I was just interested in the birds (I only had a few hours, I had to make them count). As Clare had work this week she could not have joined me, the result of this being that I wasn’t going to try and see a Tarsier as this is something we are going to do when she is able to accompany me of a future trip.
After leaving the hotel at 4:30 we got to the site around 5:45. We had traveled to Camp Magsaysay the nature center of the Rajah Sikatuna National Park. I was informed that it was not an ideal time to bird as it was rainy season (though the island as a whole is suffering from a terrible drought) and that some of the birds were still nesting. I said I understood but was here because of work and thought I would take advantage of the free morning.
The first bird I came across is an odd case…whilst waiting for my guide a chicken seemed to run out of the underbrush, into the middle of a clearing and bellowed out an almighty “cock-o-doodle-do!!” Then was gone again. At this my driver turned to me and said “Junglefowl”. Now I was a little reluctant to call this one. The Red Junglefowl looks like a bird that I would call a ‘classic-cockerel’, from a farm. Having spoken about them before, I was told that they have bred with domesticated chickens and now it is very hard to distinguish between them. The only real clue is their behavior, with the domesticated chickens not being too afraid of humans. I still wasn’t convinced and pointed it out to the guide. He confirmed it was in fact a Junglefowl, even when I asked if it was ‘just a chicken?’, he swore it wasn’t So there we have it, I have seen a wild chicken!!
Even before we left the nature center my guide pointed out a bird in one of the trees close by. It was sitting in the classic “I’m not a bird but a tree branch” pose, so took me a little while to find it. When I did it was beautiful. A small (but it was far away), brown hawk with bits of white speckled in. The light wasn’t great but my guide called out “Changeable Hawk-Eagle” (Nisaetus cirrhatus). The thing was just hunched there in the light misty rain we were having. It was also probably due to the rain that I could not make out its feathery quiff. It sat long enough for us to walk around it and see its face before it took off and flew into the canopy.
We left the site and started to walk down the road. With some vegetation on the road, as well as the rain, it was like walking on ice. I have mentioned before how unsteady I am on my feet with very poor balance. So to avoid embarrassment I spent a lot of time staring at my feet, walking slowly and trying not to fall over. We stopped under a tree and my guide said
“Frog-mouth Nest-” I looked up all excited, but he closely followed up with
“-but it went, short time ago”
So no frog-mouth for me. However I am informed the site gets them regularly at night, so I will have to plan another trip once I star data collecting here.
We walked along the road, passing many joggers from the forces base nearby. One of the main issues I had that morning, apart from just trying to stay on my feet, was all the birds tended to spend a lot of time at the top of trees, so it was a lot of vertical bird watching. At a road junction we spent forever trying to see some Drongos which were fluttering among the branches at the very top. Fortunately the rain had passed on, so at least I wasn’t distracted by rain-drops on my lenses.
We circled around and started up the side of the hill. It was called the ‘Tarictic Trail’ after the hornbills and it wasn’t long before they made their presence known. Again at the top of the trees, we kept hearing the noisy “ta-rik-tik”. These are a separate sub-species than the ones found on Mt. Makiling, though the most views I got were of dark shapes quickly moving through the canopy and away. At one point we were stood on the side of the hill with the hornbills clearly circling above us (we could hear them). We tried to hear where they landed for a better view but they just disappeared. Ah well.
It was here that I saw something fantastic…my guide turned to me and said
“You see flying Lemur?” I said no, because I haven’t. He then pointed to a nearby tree.
“There” he says, then takes my shoulders and points me in the right direction. Now I must admit at first I thought it was just a lump on the side of a tree. But as I studied it through my bins, I noticed the lump was furry.
“You want it to move?” my guide asked as I was desperately getting a camera out so I could take a picture*. I kept protesting that I could see it fine and to leave it alone but after a second the guide shook some leaves and branches and out of the furry lump came a face! It seemed to stare at the guide for a second with sleepy eyes (they are nocturnal, so it had probably just settled down). The guide shook the branches a little more and the lemur ran up the side of the tree. The only way I can describe how it moved would be to ask you to imagine Spiderman running up the side of a building wearing a light-brown (ish) slanket! That is what it made me think of anyway.
It climbed up until there were no branches close to it and settled down again. I told the guide we should get a move on, leaving the thing to get some well deserved rest. We were then distracted by a number of shapes moving through the forest. After a long trek, as well as trying to see through the leaves again, we saw a number of Coucals and Orioles. The day was starting to look up. Then as we turned a corner, my guide in front, he let out an excited “oh” closely followed by a let down “ah”. He turned slowly with a smile of his face
“Pitta. We missed it. Flew up and away”. Damn!! This was one of the species I really had wanted to see and I had missed it because I was in the back. I was gutted.
For those that don’t know, Pitta’s are small ground dwelling birds that are amazingly beautiful. There are a number of species here in the Philippines but I have yet to see one. On Bohol they have a couple of species but the one that I wanted to see was the Steere’s Pitta (Pitta steerii). A Philippine endemic, this individual is found in the Southern Islands and I was hoping to get it once I was here but I had missed it by being just a little behind. With a stunning blue/turquoise wings (that seems to give it the appearance that it is wearing a loud dinner jacket), a black cap and a slight bit of red between its legs. It had been in the middle of the path as the guide had turned the corner and taken off. As the guide walked on I waited patiently, hoping that my luck would stretch to a return visit, but it did not. I walked on…
To say this distracted me was an understatement. I was really (mentally) kicking myself for missing it when we started on the final descent back into camp. Then the whole world seemed to slow down and to my surprise I could see both of my legs stretched out in front of me. It was during this moment of slow and calm that I realized that the distraction of missing the Pitta and wet, slippy stones had gotten me again. Then came the realization that shortly gravity will claim me as a victim and I would greet the earth like a sack of potatoes! Sure enough, a split-second later my whole left side hit the stone steps and I slipped down the remaining steps until I rested on my bum in camp. Not really elegant.
I dumped my bag back in the car and checked for injuries. Aside from a sore side and a bump on my arm, that was the size of a large chicken’s egg, I had gotten away with it. Even my trousers (which I am also very good at ripping whilst birding) had survived. I was semi-impressed. The guide hunted for some ice, eventually finding some remaining ice cubes in a beer cooler from the night before. So I cold-compressed my lump whilst watching the guide and driver feed the fish in a small pond in camp.
Once the lump had started to reduce in size we set off. The guide offered to take me to the Tarsier center but I had to explain that Clare wouldn’t be happy, so he had a better idea. We drove down into the rice fields and parked next to an irrigation canal (as if I hadn’t had enough of these during the week!). We then started to scramble down the edge of the waterway, we were hunting the second bird on my wish list…
Similar to before, my driver kept seeing individual birds disappear further up the waterway. I was convinced that it was the same bird and that we were just chasing it further away. The path was muddy (I almost fell in again) and very thin, so I had to go behind again. We got a good way before it became un-walk-able, so we headed back. When I saw the car, my heart sunk, I had not seen either bird that I had wanted to. My driver convinced me to walk up a little further in the other direction to a head where I could scan with my bins further down the waterway. It was a great plan, so I agreed and moments later found myself stood on a little bit of land, in the middle of the waterway, scanning the nearby vegetation. The driver walked on and just as he vanished I saw a quick burst of movement and there it was…
Sat on a branch of a bush that had no leaves, overhanging the water, was a Silvery Kingfisher (Alcedo argentata)!! It had flown up from the waters edge, out of sight, and not noticed me there with my bins. At first all I saw was his back as he sat ‘bobbing’ his head in a classic kingfisher movement, looking at the water. He then did a quick jump and turn, ending up looking at me. He took my breath away.
Another small endemic kingfisher of the Philippines, the Kennedy et al. Bird Guide illustrates it as a small black and white bird with a dark bill, but in reality it is SO much more. A generally dark blue bird with a small white throat patch that seemed to really highlight the length of its dark bill. The feathers around its crown had a light blue, metallic speckling on the end of the feathers that, to me, gave the impression of a small bright crown. Finally, once it had turned around I got great views of its tiny, bright florescent orange legs. It either didn’t see me or I just didn’t bother it because I was able to crouch down and watch it for a long time before, what I can only assume as a fish, caught its eye and he was off.
We returned to the car and raced our way across the island (I had a flight to catch as well as wash, change, eat and pack). So I had driven many hours, trekked, only got glimpses of birds in the canopy and even fell (which is still sore now, in the middle of the following week) but was it worth it?? Of course!! The flying lemur was brilliant and I almost declared it a mammal day but at the very end the King-of-Fishers flew out and let itself be seen. Only occurring in the Southern Islands, I was VERY happy to have seen this amazing bird. I am going back to Bohol for work and will definitely drop in again…though hopefully next time it won’t be so literally.
*Unfortunately my pictures didn’t come out as the second I took my camera out of my rucksack it steamed up. Who knew the inside of my bag was so cool?!?
This picture (taken from http://www.arkive.org) showing what a stunning bird the Silvery Kingfisher really is!!
Ricebirder 
Wow the Kingfisher is beautiful!!