Following our epic climb up to Lake Holon, the trip was over for most international delegates from the Philippine Bird Festival. A few of us,
however, got into a different van and headed back north towards Tacurong City,
then west into the seldom-traveled mountains of western Sultan Kudarat. It was
a long, winding road through limestone mountains, on a road that seemed to
collapse regularly, perhaps due to being built on soft, porous limestone- not
the proper material for road building. Joining us also was Emelie Jamorabon from the tourism department in Tacurong City, who's done wonders for promoting birding and the environment in Region XII.
Once we reached
Senator Ninoy Aquino town, the mayor picked us up from our hotel and treated us
to dinner at his house. The food was delicious, and symbolic of the diverse
cultural heritage of SNA and Mindanao in general; fern salad (known locally as
“fako-fako"), a delicacy of the local Manobo tribes, and inasal-style native
chicken, a favorite of the Ilonggo people who settled this area in the last
century. Mayor Ecija of SNA has his hands full managing a new,
quickly-developing municipality; electricity only recently started running 24
hours a day, and a new road is being built to connect it with the western coast
of Sultan Kudarat. Still, he’s remarkably active and involved in his community,
and has been quite attentive to the concerns of newly-arrived birders and
conservationists, even recently passing a municipal ordinance banning the
trapping and hunting of wild animals, which we hope will be strictly enforced.
We woke up
bright and early the next morning to head to the birding site in Barangay
Kuden- my first time getting there early enough for owling. It was a long and
bumpy 4x4 ride as always, but this time we got there with enough of the night
left for the owls to be awake. Giant Scops
Owls were calling from the tall trees but never showed themselves to us,
but we had more luck with a young Everett’s
Scops Owl, which circled around us for nearly 10 minutes, giving all of us
excellent views- a relief for those who hadn’t been along for the owl sighting
in Lake Holon. Just before sunrise we heard Mindanao Hawk-owl calling from above us, another very good record
for the site.
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| Everett's Scops-owl |
Once the sun had
risen, the first section of road gave us a trio of Buff-spotted Flamebacks, a mixed flock of Rusty-crowned Babblers and Mindanao
Pygmy Babblers, and a female Metallic-winged
Sunbird gathering spiderwebs for a nest. Calling were Rufous Paradise Flycatchers, Mindanao Blue Fantails, White-eared
Tailorbird, and the resident Striated
Wren-babbler. I was hoping to encounter the Wattled Broadbills and
Philippine Trogon I had spotted in the area during my previous visits, but
alas, both remained hidden- this was the only one of my five visits to the site that I haven't seen Wattled Broadbill, and it figures it was the only one where I was guiding. The Southern
Rufous Hornbills, normally quite common and tame, also remained
frustratingly distant, giving us only brief flyover views.
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| Female Metallic-winged Sunbird |
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| Asiatic Blood-tail (Lathrecista asiatica) |
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| White Tiger (Danaus melanippus) |
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| Brown Awl (Badamia exclamationis) |
It quickly
became clear that the usually productive section of road wasn’t quite as
productive as usual, so we moved on to a quick breakfast in a small village
just downhill, then the next birding area, a section of roadside forest I
hadn’t properly explored yet but that looked excellent. As it turned out it
would have been a good place to explore first, as it was absolutely bursting
with good birds, even as it was getting hot; a Philippine Falconet perched out in the open, while a pair of Naked-faced Spiderhunters gave us brief
but good views as they flew past giving their odd grunting calls. Some fascinating bird behavior was
also observed; we saw a beautiful male Metallic-winged
Sunbird feeding from a flower, while above it a Philippine Oriole beat a large caterpillar against a branch to
subdue it.
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| Philippine Falconet |
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| Metallic-winged Sunbird |
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| Philippine Oriole |
Best was an immature Violet
Cuckoo being fed by a pair of Metallic-winged Sunbirds a third its size. It turns out that this was the first-ever record of the host bird of Violet Cuckoo in the Philippines, as well as possibly the first-ever photographic record of an immature Violet Cuckoo being fed by its adopted parents. It's too bad the birds weren't closer, as my pictures came out looking like absolute rubbish, though I think the others with me got better photos.
Joining the same massive mixed flock were four Philippine Pygmy Woodpeckers, Rusty-crowned Babblers, Stripe-headed Rhabdornis, and a Philippine Fairy Bluebird. The latter two species, though relatively easy on Luzon, are quite rare on Mindanao, so it was excellent to observe them at this site.
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| White-eared Brown Dove |
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| Rusty-crowned Babbler |
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| Blue Beak (Libythea geoffroyi) |
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| Common Field Blue (Prosotas Nora) |
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| Common Mapwing (Cyrestis maenalis) |
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| Scalloped Grass Yellow (Eurema hecabe) |
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| This looks like a lace doily, but it's actually the larva of some kind of treehopper |
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| Green Crested Lizard |
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| White-banded Demon (Notocrypta paralysos) |
Eventually the
forest grew quiet, and we headed back up the road for some lunch and a quick
nap, though not before adding Philippine
Leaf Warbler and Citrine Canary
Flycatcher to our day’s list. Lunch was had in a small settlement in the
middle of the forest, and we had a bit to talk to some locals about their
roots. Barangay Kuden, like the rest of SNA, is an interesting mix of settlers
from the Visayas, Luzon, and other parts of Mindanao, as well as a significant
population of indigenous Manobo people. We were rousted from our lunch by a
quick but strong earthquake- apparently relatively common in the area, but a
shock for us nonetheless!
After lunch, we
returned to our original area, hoping for a better look at the local hornbills
before we departed. They weren’t immediately apparent, perhaps as the fruiting
trees have moved to an area further down the road, but we had enough other
birds to keep us busy, including great looks at a feeding group of huge White-bellied Woodpeckers. More
fascinating for me was the site of three (yes, three) Mindanao Pygmy Babblers collaborating to build a nest, gathering
dry grass from a field and carrying it to a shrub across the road. There is in fact no information officially known about their breeding or nesting behavior, so it’s quite interesting to note
apparent teamwork behavior in nest building. I wonder if it also happens
with feeding chicks and other duties.
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| Three White-bellied Woodpeckers in a tree |
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| Mindanao Pygmy Babbler building a nest |
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| Cross-line Wave Moth (Traminda aventiaria) |
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| Rapala Tomokoae, an uncommon endemic butterfly |
Finally, after
quite a bit of searching, our driver ended up spotting a pair of Southern Rufous Hornbills sitting in a
tree across the valley, quite far away but with excellent views. It was the
perfect way to end a very productive day, and a productive trip overall; in
just 4 birding days over two sites we saw 118
species of birds, including 76 Philippine
endemics and 41 birds endemic to Mindanao. To boot, that included some birds rarely if ever seen on scheduled
birding tours of the Philippines, and a number of observations that were most likely new to science. We
headed out of the rainforest and back to the city and the airport after that,
satisfied with a trip very, very well spent.
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| Southern Rufous Hornbill |
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