Magic in Kulaman

My last day in Senator Ninoy Aquino started out terribly. I woke up at 7AM, having somehow slept through my phone alarm. It was long past sunrise, and I had no chance of being in my birding spot during peak hours. Dante the motorbike driver was long gone as well, as I had not been awake at the scheduled pick-up time. I sent him a text nonetheless to see if he was still available, but began contemplating just leaving SNA early without another day of birding. 

Thankfully all was not lost, however, as Dante roared up to my hotel half an hour later, having received my text and having nothing better to do that day except ferry a strange foreigner around to unknown places. On the motorbike ride into Barangay Kuden, I was never more thankful that he drives twice the speed that any sane person should go on the twisty dirt back roads. We picked up my Barangay-appointed guide, a Manobo man who was the sitio leader in the area, and continued on to the forest. 

The forest road

Even though it was well past a time when real birders start birding, there was still activity in the forest. Amethyst Brown-doves and Yellow-breasted Fruit Doves were calling, while I encountered a small mixed flock of feeding birds, including Mindanao Pygmy-babblers, Brown Tit-babblers, and a solitary Stripe-headed Rhabdornis. A flock of Rufous Hornbills flew past, while I had slightly longer looks at a male Mindanao Hornbill. 

Stripe-headed Rhabdornis

Mindanao Hornbill

After I'd walked for a bit down the road, I started to hear a Philippine Leafbird calling. Leafbirds are among the rarer and harder-to-find Mindanao endemics, and ones I usually hear calling rather than manage to actually see. As I was trying to find where the bird actually was, my guide told me that the Manobo in the area call Philippine Leafbirds "Monkey Birds", due to the fact that they always follow around troupes of monkeys. I'd never seen them in proximity to any monkeys, but sure enough just after he said that I heard the whooping of a group of Philippine Crested Macaques. Just one of the many reasons why biologists and conservationists should be listening to indigenous people more often...

My horrid picture of a Philippine Leafbird

There wasn't much for the next 20 minutes or so, until I heard the call of a White-fronted Tit above me! Considering that those hadn't been seen in Mindanao for 10 years until Pete, Irene and I re-found them earlier in 2018, it's amazing how common they are in SNA. I was able to get my binoculars on this bird, but it flew off before I was able to get a picture. 

As I was trying to relocate the White-fronted Tit, I noticed a flicker of movement in the corner of my eye. I turned to look at it, and when I saw what it was I nearly dropped my binoculars. In what I can only describe as a moment of birding magic, I was looking at a gorgeous adult Mindanao Bleeding-heart sitting on a branch looking at me. 

!!!!!!!!!

It's hard to overstate how rare of an experience this was. Probably only a few dozen birders have ever seen a wild Mindanao Bleeding-heart, and almost all sightings consist of flushing a bird by accident, or a 10-millisecond view of a bird responding to playback then never being seen again. I know of exactly four other people who have ever gotten a picture, and exactly 0 (apart from me) who have a sharp, front-view picture. Mindanao Bleeding-heart are incredibly rare, and incredibly shy. But here was one sitting calmly out in the open, seeming to lock eyes with me. I'm not generally a terribly superstitious or religious person, but it was hard not to ascribe meaning to one of the best possible moments on my last day in Mindanao before leaving the country. Perhaps it was Mindanao's way of telling me to come back. 

I wasn't sure whether or not to reach for my camera or just stand there gaping. Thankfully, the bird sat patiently as I did both, allowing me to get some pictures before flying off into the forest.

Nothing else I did that day mattered, since I'd already seen a Mindanao Bleeding-heart. Still, I continued down the road to see what else I could see on my last day on the island. I saw another large pigeon in a tree, but it was just a Green Imperial Pigeon, one of the most common forest pigeons after seeing one of the rarest. I also had a close encounter with a Philippine Serpent-eagle. Any close encounter with a raptor is a good one, so I was happy. 

Green Imperial Pigeon

Philippine Serpent-eagle

Sun coming up on the forest road.

I had hopes to explore a new area, but as I was about to round a corner, the sitio leader told me we were approaching an outpost of the Consunji Company, and it was best not to get close. A massive and corrupt extractive corporation putting guards in a forest to harrass the local indigenous people, but also make sure the forest wasn't cut down, just so they could clear-cut it themselves at a later date. The complicated environmental ethics of the Philippines....

I elected to explore down a short forest path to see if I could encounter another mixed flock of birds, perhaps with an interesting monarch or two. I did indeed encounter a mixed flock, but this one held only Mindanao Blue Fantail, Citrine Canary-flycatcher, and Philippine Leaf-warbler, all still very good birds.

Citrine Canary-flycatcher

Philippine Leaf-warbler

Some kind of caterpillar

Chocolate Demon (Ancistroides nigrita)

Tiger Beetle (Therates coracinus)

On the way out of the forest, I encountered an unusually visible Philippine Drongo-cuckoo and a lovely male Philippine Trogon, the latter of which is another one of my favorite endemics. It was also my last bird of the day, since it was nearly noon and I had a long, long trip back to Davao to catch my flight that night ahead of me. 

Philippine Drongo-cuckoo

Philippine Trogon

Leaving Mindanao was bittersweet. I'd had perhaps the best possible final few days I could have asked for, which only made me regret leaving the island even more. I'm currently in the United States, struggling through the bleak, near-birdless Northern Hemisphere winter, but thinking back to my time in Mindanao always reminds me of why I got into birding in the first place.