The only unfortunate part about it is that most of the best sites are somewhat far from the city center, and in most cases quite difficult to reach via public transportation. As someone on the *ahem* budget end of the birding spectrum, that means that I don't get to visit the good spots unless I have someone I'm guiding who can provide transport. Thankfully, that's happened a few times for me this summer, giving me the opportunity to head up Mount Talomo, the extinct volcano that looms over the city, blocking most of Mount Apo (the tallest mountain in the Philippines) from view.
Easily my favorite outing was with Bim Quemado, who was in Davao for a weekend and wanted to see some of the mountain specialties. We started out our first day in Eden Resort, the luxurious tourist playground midway up the mountain, looking for owls, unfortunately without much success, with Giant Scops Owl and Everett's Scops Owl calling but never seen. We headed a bit up the mountain to look for Cryptic Flycatcher, a Mindanao-endemic flycatcher that's essentially only reliably seen in a few river gullies up above Davao. It took a bit of trying in my favorite Cryptic spot, but we eventually had amazing views of a very friendly flycatcher perching right in front of our faces!
The next thing to look for was
Whiskered Flowerpecker, another tiny Mindanao endemic bird that's also generally only seen in a couple of favorite hangouts (really a couple of trees only) in Davao City. We tried for them at the lower site, and while we saw a couple of them up in a tree, they were high up and against the light. That would have been fine for me as a birder, but Bim is a photographer, and far away and backlit just won't cut it. Birding and bird photography really are separate disciplines, though for both the important part of it being able to spend the time with the wildlife- or at least I hope it is.
We continued further up the mountain, making the steep climb to the second flowerpecker tree. It's a bit of a difficult trail, especially if one is carrying heavy camera gear, but we saw more than enough to keep us busy, starting with a flock of good-looking
Scarlet Minivets of the mostly-yellow endemic
johnstoniae subspecies, as well as an
Olive-capped Flowerpecker, another Mindanao mountain endemic.
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| Female Scarlet Minivet |
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| Olive-capped Flowerpecker |
At the second flowerpecker tree, we had a few more
Whiskered Flowerpeckers, this time giving us slightly better views, but still a bit far away. It doesn't help that the birds themselves are only a few inches, the size of fat hummingbirds. The same area also held a migratory
Eyebrowed Thrush and endemic
Coletos, strange-looking as always.
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| Whiskered Flowerpecker |
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| Eyebrowed Thrush |
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| Coleto |
We continued on up the mountain, getting into the true forest as we went higher. The forest along the Mount Talomo trail is good for photography as the trees are rather low, meaning that the birds are a bit closer and easier to photograph. Regardless, this was a banner morning on the trail, with some of the best views of endemic passerines I've gotten, starting with this friendly
Turquoise Flycatcher.
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| Turquoise Flycatcher |
A bit further up we had our first real mixed flock, with
Black-and-cinnamon Fantail, Negros Leaf Warbler, and best of all a very cute pair of
Sulphur-billed Nuthatches. The Nuthatches seemed to be engaged in courtship, with one bird finding small bugs and feeding them to the other.
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| Sulphur-billed Nuthatches |
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| Impressive pandanus we passed under on the trail. |
Further up was another mixed flock with Mindanao-endemic
Grey-hooded Sunbird, more
Scarlet Minivets, and a few
Negros Leaf-warblers. "Negros Leaf-warbler" is a bit of a terrible species name, since they're obviously found outside the island of Negros, and show enough variation that they're probably actually several species to boot. Whatever they're called, this was the first time I'd managed to get decent pictures of any, which was nice. Another treat was watching a female
Scarlet Minivet with a huge cricket she'd just caught, beating it into submission against a tree branch before doing her best to swallow it despite the fact it was bigger than her head.
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| Grey-hooded Sunbird |
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| Male Scarlet Minivet- the males of the Mount Apo subspecies are just a bit more orange-colored than the females, while the males of west-central Mindanao are all lemon-yellow. |
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| Female Scarlet Minivet |
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| Negros Leaf-warbler |
As we got further up the mountain and later in the day, the forest got rather quiet, as forests in the Philippines often are. I was excited to get up to 1500 meters above sea level, as that's the beginning of the range of Apo Myna, one of the few Mindanao endemic birds I still haven't seen. Unfortunately, even at the highest part of the trail we got to, the damn things were nowhere to be seen. Nonetheless, there was more than enough wildlife to be seen besides the feathered stuff, giving me a great opportunity to expand my lepidoptera life list, among other things. The benefit of being one of the few butterfly-watchers on Mindanao is that even a casual like me can see some good things- in this case, the first online photographs of three different endemic butterfly species. Not bad for a day's work.
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| The first online photograph of the Mindanao-endemic Striped Ringlets (Ragadia melindena melindena) |
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| Redspot Duke (Dophla evelina proditrix) |
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| Acridoidea sp. |
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| Pretty trumpet vine of some sort |
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| Ophicrania sagittarius, a psychedelic stick insect that was discovered only in 2009! |
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| Muscidae sp. |
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| Stalk-eyed Fly (Diopsidae sp.) |
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| Giant Millipede |
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| Lagriini sp. |
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| Spilomelinae sp. |
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| Schaus' Crow (Euploea blossomae), considered near-threatened, and another first online photo! |
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| Common Cerulean (Jamides celeno lydanus) |
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| Koh-i-Noor (Amathuxidia amythaon perinthas), the first photo I know of of the Mindanao-endemic subspecies |
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| Lecithocera sp. |
After lunch and a quick nap on the trail, we hiked slowly down the mountain. The birds were quiet around mid-day, but we did run into one final mixed flock, this one holding
Cinnamon Ibon, Philippine Pygmy Woodpecker, Yellow-bellied Whistler, and
Philippine Leaf-warbler, much higher than that species is usually found.
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| Philippine Leaf-warbler |
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| Cinnamon Ibon |
The next morning, we decided to try again for the Giant Scops-owl and Whiskered Flowerpecker. We did have a bit more luck with the
Giant Scops-owl, as a young bird flew in and perched directly above us. Unfortunately, "directly above" isn't a great position to photograph an owl in, so all we ended up with were good pictures of scops-owl butts.
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| The south end of a Giant Scops-owl |
Things were much better with the Whiskered Flowerpeckers, as we saw a pair males chasing each other through the thick vines at eye-level, an extremely rare view of a bird that likes to perch in the worst-lit possible locations.
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| Whiskered Flowerpecker |
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| Bonus Mountain White-eye |
A few weeks later, I got another opportunity to head up the mountain, showing around Bernie, Harry, and Ben, a few photographers who wanted to try for the Davao specialties. There was no owling this time, instead starting a bit later and heading to the ravine with the Cryptic Flycatchers. Once again, we had a number of great views of a
Cryptic Flycatcher before it flew to the opposite end of the ravine and hid, being cryptic as usual.
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| Cryptic Flycatcher |
Unfortunately, the Whiskered Flowerpeckers in their lower site were not as confiding as they had been the last time, so we walked up the mountain once more to the upper flowerpecker tree. There were lots of interesting birds at the upper site, including
Stripe-breasted Rhabdornis, Philippine Falconet, Coleto, Whiskered Flowerpecker, Coppersmith Barbet, and a young
Philippine Serpent-eagle being chased by
Large-billed Crows, but the all seemed to want to hang out in the most backlit spots possible- not ideal for photography, though I was happy just to see them.
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| Philippine Serpent-eagle being chased by a Large-billed Crow |
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| Stripe-breasted Rhabdornis |
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| Coppersmith Barbet with a very large meal |
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| Whiskered Flowerpecker |
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| Philippine Falconet |
On our way down through a bit of forest, we were able to get one decent mixed flock of mountain birds, with good views of
Yellow-bellied Whistler and
Elegant Tit.
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| Yellow-bellied Whistler |
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| Mountain White-eye |
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| Elegant Tit |
Back at the lower flowerpecker site, we had better looks at
Whiskered Flowerpeckers, along with the added entertainment of watching the family in the nearby house preparing a massive hog for a lechon roast (alas, we left before we had a chance for a taste).
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| Whiskered Flowerpecker |
As it usually is up on the mountain, anytime there weren't birds to look at, there were other things to keep me busy...
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| Luzon Grass-dart (Taractrocera luzonensis luzonensis), a Philippine-endemic skipper |
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| Wandering Glider (Pantala flavescens) |
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| Opaque Sixline Blue (Nacaduba beroe) |
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| Beautiful katydid nymph |
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| Common Three-ring (Ypthima sempera sempera) |
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| Faun (Faunis phaon pan) |
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| Common Five-ring (Ypthima stellera stellera) |
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| Not sure of the ID of this damselfly, which is a shame because it's beautiful. |
Overall it was another excellent day up on the mountain, a place I don't get to spend nearly as much time in as I'd like. Perhaps when I return to the Philippines after graduate school I'll have to invest in a motorcycle to get me to the out-of-the way spots...
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