Last weekend, I had the chance to do some bird watching in Subic. Friends from Haribon and colleagues from Sri Lanka, India, Japan and Singapore who were all part of the Asia Executive Committee of the BirdLife Asia Council were with me. We were up at dawn, drove to Hill 394 and waited for light. Somewhere in the dark, we heard a nightjar (layakan or tahaw) calling. At the first glimpse of light, it flew above us, our first bird sighting for the day. It was probably the great eared nightjar which is common and is the largest Philippine nightjar usually found in the forest and forest edge and gives a very distinctive call. In a while we saw a Tarictic hornbill (kalaw), solitary on top of a tree. This hornbill is the smallest hornbill in the Philippines and is very noisy. They usually fly in pairs or in small groups and it is really a joy to see them. Although we all had binoculars, we enjoyed taking turns viewing the bird up close through Kim Keang’s Swarovski spotting scope. Kim Keang, a keen birder and naturalist from Singapore, was in the Philippines for the first time and was only too eager to get lost in the forest and discover the various natural surprises he could find. As I write this, Kim Keang and his friend Jimmy Chiew, a professional photographer and bird enthusiast, are in Sablayan, Occidental Mindoro, hoping to find the endemic Mindoro bleeding heart pigeon.

Farther on another tree, we saw several green imperial pigeons (balud) which are commonly found throughout the country. I find their iridescent green feathers very attractive. Two hours into the trek, we heard many birds and were able to see about 20 different kinds including the Coleto (koleto), distinct for its bald pink head, and the following endemics: several Philippine bulbuls (palang-gang gubat), a white-eared brown dove (kurokuro) feeding on a fig tree and a male Guiabero (batotok) which was so inconspicuous as it was the same color as the leaves of the tree.

The following day, we enjoyed another morning of observing birds just along the road where the Haribon staff house is. We told our visitors that the birds got the memo we sent them, thus, they all appeared! Kota from Sri Lanka and Asad from India are also keen birders and were expert spotters. Again, we saw endemics or species that can only be found in our country, which pleased our visitors very much. One of them is the Rhabdornis which are very active birds found in canopy and middle story of forests, forest edge and second growth forests usually in groups. Another is the Balicassiao, a bird with metallic black feathers. We were like voyeurs keenly watching it groom itself by picking ants off a branch and rubbing them into his feathers. We spotted a pair of Ashy Minivets which are migrant and uncommon on top of a tree together with several Blue-tailed Bee-eaters (parik-parik) with their very colorful plumage. Bee-eaters are residents and fairly common and at this time of the year, a colony of this bird can be found nesting on an elevated portion of a garden in one houses in Cubi.

It is encouraging to know that the Tourism Secretary Joseph Ace Durano has recently declared that birdwatching will be promoted as a tourist product. The implication of this is that there will now be an incentive to protect our remaining forests. Globally, birdwatching is a multi-million dollar industry. Birders around the world will only be too happy to come to the Philippines and see for themselves the 195 endemic or unique bird species, including the majestic and critically endangered Philippine Eagle, our national bird.

I am not an expert birder nor was keenly interested in it several years ago. But when I started observing them with the help of binoculars, I couldn’t help but be amazed by their beauty and by the different personalities they exhibit.

Birdwatching Weekend

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