Hornbills, Monarchs and More

The first day of my final visit to Senator Ninoy Aquino, Sultan Kudarat was a (very successful) walk through my usual favorite spots, so my second day I was planning to do some more exploring and get to areas I'd seen in earlier visits but hadn't had the chance to explore properly. I had originally hoped to leave for the birding site at 4AM in order to arrive in time for some predawn owling. Unfortunately, I woke up to see that the motorbike driver was nowhere to be found. Forest at 4AM is... not exactly the pinnacle of rational thought, so my reaction was just to curse and fall back asleep, expecting to miss the day of birding. Instead, I got a panicked phone call at 5AM from my driver, who had forgotten what he would be doing that morning.

Leaving at 5AM had me expecting to arrive after sunrise and miss the best birding hour. Thankfully, however, my new driver Dante drove like a bat out of hell and had me in good forest in half the usual time, albeit slightly terrified. And sure enough, things started out with a bang: along the road we startled a family of Red Junglefowl- basically glorified chickens, but rare everywhere thanks to hunting. Within 15 minutes of getting off the motorcycle I had all three species of hornbill found in Mindanao: Mindanao Hornbill, Rufous Hornbill, and a distant Writhed Hornbill. Add to that Amethyst Brown Dove, Green Imperial Pigeon, and Yellow-breasted Fruit Dove, and we were in business. 

Mindanao Hornbill

Rufous Hornbill

Green Imperial Pigeon

Things only got better from there. 

I arrived at the spot where I'd seen (and accidentally photographed) Mindanao White-fronted Tit on my previous visit, but there were no tits to be seen this time. Instead, I heard a call I recognized from inside a thick tree above me. The bird soon came out into the open and I was treated to the best views I've ever gotten of the Mindanao subspecies of Philippine Fairy-bluebird. The birds in Mindanao are somewhat darker than the ones in Luzon, and as well as apparently being genetically very different have a slightly different call. They'll likely soon be split to become their own species, which is both good and bad news because they're vanishingly rare on Mindanao, far less common their Luzon cousins. It just served to make this view extra special, however.

Philippine Fairy-bluebird (Mindanao Fairy-bluebird?)

The Fairy-bluebird spot was in a large clearing in the jungle, and I soon had nearly all of the possible swifts surrounding me, including Ridgetop Swiftlet, Pygmy Swiftlet, Philippine Swiftlet, Philippine Needletail, Whiskered Treeswift, and a flock of massive Purple Needletails. There were also some great butterflies on the ground to keep me busy after I got tired of trying (and failing) to photograph the swifts.

Whiskered Treeswift 

Orangetail Awl (Bibasis sena)

Smooth-eyed Bushbrown (Orsotriaena medus)

Lorquin's Satyr

I continued down the road through a forested valley, and then things really got interesting: I found myself in the midst of a mixed feeding flock in the understory, always a promising event. It was mostly Rusty-crowned Babbler, Mindanao Pygmy Babbler, and Mindanao Blue Fantail, all good  and sought-after endemics in their own right, but what popped into view was way better: Celestial Monarch! A gorgeous, sky-blue male at that. It hid itself in the bushes after about 5 seconds, but a bird like that is unmistakeable. Unfortunately I hadn't been smart enough to put the call on my phone to try and tape it in, and it didn't seem impressed with my whistled impression, but any view of a Celestial Monarch is a good one, and this was one of the best records I added to the site for this visit. 

Mindanao Blue Fantail

The mixed flock moved on, but a pair of Mindanao Hornbills flew into the tree above me. As I was taking pictures of them, I heard a grunting call behind me, and turned around to see a Naked-faced Spiderhunter, one of my favorite endemic sunbirds, calling from a low branch. It was the best kind of birding moment- one where the new birds never stop.

Female and male Mindanao Hornbill

Liftoff!

Female Mindanao Hornbill

Naked-faced Spiderhunter

Green Imperial Pigeon

And they kept coming...  A keening call from the roadside bushes alerted me to a flock of Mindanao Wattled Broadbills! The damn things kept moving around in the branches too quickly for me to get a picture, but it was another great tick for the trip, although I've seen them many times before here. After I gave up chasing the broadbills, it started to rain heavily, forcing me to take shelter under a tree for a good half hour. By the time it let up, the bird activity had slowed, and there wasn't much to see except bedraggled dragonflies and butterflies gathering moisture from the limestone road.

Cratilla lineata

Wallacean (Zethera musa)

Blue-banded Pierrot (Discolampa ethion)

A mixed flock of lycaenids! Celarchus archagathos and Ionolyce helicon

As I rounded a corner, I saw two large parrots flying over a clearing, screaming their heads off as parrots like to do. It wasn't the scream of a racket-tail, and through the binoculars I saw they had massive beaks- Blue-backed Parrots! They may be the rarest parrot in the Philippines, and if they're split to become endemics as some are talking about they'll almost certainly be considered critically endangered, as they're probably seen once a year or less in Mindanao- maybe even rarer than Philippine Cockatoo. I'd known that they were in the area after showing locals the pictures in my field guide, but seeing one for real was a real mega find, and my first proper lifer of the trip. 

The Blue-backed Parrot clearing

By that time it was near mid-day, and the bird activity was nearly nothing- I had a calling Black-and-white Triller, a flock of Blue-crowned Racket-tails mobbing a Rufous-bellied Eagle, and a nice and confiding Mindanao Pygmy Babbler, but that was about it. Still, it was a ridiculously productive morning: I managed to see 66 species, including some of the most sought after (and frequently missed) targets for any bird tour in the Philippines. Not too bad for a barely-birded site.

Mindanao Pygmy Babbler

But the day wasn't over!

I returned to the hotel for lunch and a quick nap, then set out for an afternoon trip with Prinz, who had joined me my first morning. I've visited SNA on five separate occasions, but spent almost all my time in only one barangay, despite the fact it's a huge municipality with lots of amazing locations to explore. This time, Prinz showed me a new spot: Molawin Cave, in the mountains above the poblacion. 

Getting there required another white-knuckle motorcycle ride on thin, muddy paths going up and down steep hills, then a hike on more steep slopes. The trail began in what had been a privately-owned resort in years past, but is now an oddly well-manicured river running over limestone rocks. It was treacherous hiking, but great for an array of brightly-colored dragonflies and damselflies of various shapes and colors. 

The river downstream of Molawin Cave

Rhinocypha colorata

Euphaea amphicyaena, another endemic damselfly

Diplacina bolivarii

Molawin Cave itself has a bit of an underwhelming entrance, being just a small cavern with water pouring into a gully encrusted with ferns. Inside, however, it's apparently one of the many places to enjoy SNA's top-notch caving. I didn't have a helmet or any other caving gear, so I was satisfied to just enjoy the forest around the cave mouth. 

The entrance to Molawin Cave

Faun (Faunis phaon pan)

Pseudagrion sp.

Vestalis melania

Aulacophora bicolor

Neurothemys ramburii

Nephila sp.

Galerucini sp...

The area around Molawin is owned by the Vice Mayor's family, but a small parcel nearby was owned and tilled by an old couple that Prinz knew. We visited their small house in a clearing to say hello to the them, and to wait for the Rufous Hornbills that were common around the area.

The local farmers

The Rufous Hornbills soon appeared, and in a flock. We soon realized they were mobbing something, although I wasn't sure what at first. After a lot of searching with binoculars, I realized it was a young Pinsker's Hawk-eagle! There are probably fewer than 1,000 of these left on Mindanao, so to have seen two different ones over the course of the visit was a real treat, especially with a cool inter-species interaction to boot.

Juvenile Pinsker's Hawk-eagle

We saw some more good birds as we sat in the clearing, including a flock of Blue-crowned Racket-tails, some Coletos, a Metallic-winged Sunbird, and a Buff-spotted Flameback. The Rufous Hornbills returned once more, this time with a male hornbill proudly showing off a large lizard that he had caught, which he proceeded to feed to another bird (I assume his mate).

Rufous Hornbill with his prize

Coleto

Lymantriinae sp. 

Asota egens

Tenebrionidae sp.

Landscape on the road back home

It was beginning to get dark, so we climbed the hill back to our motorcycles and started on the long drive home. It had been a banner day for SNA, with more than 70 species of birds seen, including some mega additions to the area list. I returned to my hotel once more, very satisfied. Little did I know that the best part of the trip was yet to come.

To be continued...