Drongo Tales

 

Tablas Drongo- a spectacular endemic that requires a spectacular amount of travel

One of the great things about living and birding in the Philippines is that you can really never run out of new things to see. It's a country of over 7,000 islands with more than 250 species of endemic birds, a number that is continually increasing as taxonomy gets updated. 250 isn't a huge number of species in absolute terms- you could see about that many in an ambitious day of birding in South America- but when you consider that many have their own restricted range or even their own islands, seeing all of them is a daunting task. So daunting, in fact, that to the best of my knowledge literally no-one has ever managed to see every Philippine endemic bird, even discounting likely-extinct species such as Negros Fruit Dove or Cebu Brown Dove. 

That fact does make it a little bit easier to live with the knowledge of how many endemic birds I still haven't seen, despite birding here for a cumulative total of 3 years or so. That includes an embarrassingly large number of species I've missed on Mindanao and Luzon despite living on those two islands for quite a while (some more embarrassing than others). It also includes a number of birds whose range I simply haven't had the time to visit- and with something like 15 different faunal regions spread over thousands of islands that's not surprising. 

One of these is the province of Romblon, consisting of three major islands south of Luzon in the West Philippine Sea. The easternmost of these islands, Sibuyan, is the one that seems like it should have the  endemic birds: it's mountainous block of metamorphic rock that's been uplifted over 2,000 meters above sea level and has never been connected to any other island. However, despite retaining most of its forest cover and being the subject of multiple ornithological surveys in the past 100 years, as far as we know it has a paltry three endemic subspecies and nothing else, at least that we know of. The middle island, the eponymous Romblon, is smaller and mostly deforested, with naught but an endemic subspecies of Orange-bellied Flowerpecker to its name. That leaves Tablas, the largest and westernmost island, a roughly rectangular island covered in rolling hills with a few tiny areas of remaining primary forest, as birders' destination of choice. Tablas has somehow managed to get itself three full species of endemic birds, with another one or two along the way as taxonomy gets updated. 

Tablas used to be reasonably easy to get to, with biweekly flights to the town of Odiongan in the southern part of the island. However, all flights to the province were canceled in 2020, presumably because of low demand related to the pandemic. This means that currently the only way to get there is by way of an overnight ferry ride from Luzon. Normal people would probably decide that it's not worth the extremely long travel times to visit unless you have family or others on the island, but of course we're not normal people; we're birders. So it was that Nikki had the idea to make a birding trip to Tablas during the Holy Week holiday in mid-April, and our birding friends Cheta and Allan were more than happy to join up. 

We had Thursday and Friday of Holy Week off work, so we left Manila after work hours on Wednesday, taking a van down to the port of Lucena in Quezon province where we spent the night before taking a ferry the next day (see map below). As it turns out, Holy Week is a really terrible time to do local travel in the Philippines- while we were trying to get out of Manila, so was practically every other city resident going to visit family, attend religious events, or just do general tourism. What should have been a 2-hour drive turned into 5 hours as Manila began to export its traffic to every other road in the country. As it turned out, transportation taking way longer than it was supposed to was going to be a trend for this trip.

The map of our overall route; apologies for my utter lack of artistic talent

We arrived in Lucena after midnight, and were very thankful we'd booked 12 hours at a local inn so that we didn't have to just hang out at the port and wait for the ferry. I was the only one with enough energy to head out early in the morning the next day, so I headed to the port at 6 in the morning to check in on the ferry schedule- we'd called the number of the shipping line earlier but all they could tell us was that we'd have to go to the port in person to both figure out the schedule and book tickets. I bypassed a line of about a million cars on foot and found out that the next departing trip for Tablas was at 4 in the afternoon, which was fine by us since it gave us more time to sleep. I bought tickets for everyone and then decided to go walk around Lucena to see if I could find any birds. 

The Google Maps satellite image told me that the town of Lucena was completely surrounded by fishponds, which in the Philippines practically guarantees good birding if you can get access to the right spots. What was less clear was how to actually get to them, and I spent a solid hour wandering through dodgy neighborhoods getting stared at by strangers as I tried to find an access point. It took a few failed tries and stumbling through open fields worrying I was about to find a dead body before I realized that the town itself wasn't a good spot to go, and instead gave up and took a tricycle to a spot further away. 

This proved to be a much better idea, as I found myself on the edge of a very nice little mangrove and fishpond area. The first thing that greeted me as I got out of the tricycle was a nice big flock of Blue-tailed Bee-eaters wheeling above the road, while on the trail in there were lots of Olive-backed Sunbirds and Clamorous Reed Warblers, as well as a migratory Arctic Warbler. Sadly it either wasn't a good spot for migratory shorebirds or they'd all moved on already- all I had was a few Black-winged Stilts, a Common Greenshank, and a couple of Common Redshank. Still, there were some nice resident birds, including Purple Heron, Pacific Swallows, and lots of Whiskered Terns. 

Blue-tailed Bee-eater

Clamorous Reed Warbler

Purple Heron

Pacific Swallow

Whiskered Tern- this one seemed to have gotten caught in a bit of plastic straw and injured its leg, although it was flying around fine

Some kind of scoliid wasp (Campsomeriella sp.)

A little tropical paper wasp (Ropalidia horni I think)

Mottled Emigrant

As I was about to head out of the fishponds and back into town, I heard the coo-ing call of a dove from further in the mangroves. At this point I know more or less all of the dove calls in the Philippines, especially from open areas, but this was a call I'd never heard before- which can only mean it's something good. I checked my first suspicion on my list of calls and I was correct- it was a Philippine Collared Dove! These were originally very common open country birds, but have declined precipitously in their native range thanks to competition from Spotted Doves, which were probably introduced about a century ago. These days there are very, very few records of them each year, despite the fact they supposedly occur in populated areas throughout the country (ironically enough, they're apparently quite common in Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands, where they themselves are invasive species). I was eventually able to locate the calling bird and get a few record shots before it flew off. I was expecting a few lifers from the trip, but definitely didn't think I'd get any in this random fishpond!

Philippine Collared Dove!

Flush with success (and also heat, since it was almost midday), I returned to our hotel for a much-needed shower and an air-conditioned nap. At 2 in the afternoon, a couple hours before the ferry was due to depart, we headed to the port to board our boat. Getting there early was key, as it turned out- even 2 hours ahead of schedule we were among the last passengers to board, and had to settle for sub-optimal seats on the bottom deck. We showed our tickets, stowed our bags, and hung out for a while before the boat departed, surprisingly right on time. As the ferry headed out to sea, we headed up to the top deck to enjoy the view and see if we could see any birds. There were a number of terns flying around somewhat near shore- first Whiskered Terns and Black-headed Gulls, then Common Terns and Great Crested Terns as we got further out to sea. We tried hard to turn them into something rarer like Aleutian Terns or Chinese Crested terns, but alas it was apparently just the usual. 

Great Crested Terns lounging about on some flotsam

Everyone we had talked to about the ferry ride told us that it would take about 8 or 9 hours, and given our on-time departure it seemed like this would be the case. However, it was Holy Week, which meant that the boat was chock-full of passengers, and apparently demand was high enough that the boat would make more stops than usual. Instead of at our destination of San Agustin port which might have been the first stop, the boat stopped first on the tiny volcanic island of Banton and then again in the town of Calatrava on the opposite end of Tablas. This ended up adding hours to our trip that we were unprepared for, but had no choice but to deal with. 

We did our best to get comfortable on the deck we'd been assigned- Nikki sleeping on a little plastic bench and me on the hard floor. I actually managed to sleep for a bit, especially when a couple of truck drivers were nice enough to offer me a cardboard box as a cushion after they'd drank all the beers it was holding. After the Banton passengers departed we were able to go up to the cramped sleeping quarters and lay claim to a few tiny cots to get a couple more hours of sleep. By the time the boat finally arrived in the town of San Agustin on the northeastern end of Tablas, it was almost 4 in the morning, and we had time only to unpack and take a quick shower before it was time to head out birding. 

Although Tablas was mostly forested up to the 20th century, it's since then been almost completely cleared for farming, with only a few remnants of forest remaining in the hilly northern part. One of these forest patches is the Dubduban watershed forest, which has been nominally protected as it provides fresh water for San Agustin. The birding area is located upstream of the town, near the edge of the forest- really just a path going up a hill stream past some pretty waterfalls, but that's all you need to see the Tablas endemics. 

At 5AM we met our guide, Rodel, who's the go-to contact for birders visiting Tablas, and found a couple of tricycles that took us up to the start of the birding trail. I've heard good things about Rodel in other trip reports but in our case he wasn't much of a birding guide- he took us to the spot where the birds were and then was happy to sit a ways away chain smoking while we found the birds ourselves. This was fine with us since there were only a few target birds and it felt more satisfying to find them on our own anyway, but beginner birders may want to take note.

We arrived at the birding site just before sunrise, and started walking upstream into better forest. As it was getting light, I spotted our first "proper" bird of the morning: a Streak-breasted Bulbul! Streak-breasted Bulbuls have an odd distribution on only a few islands of the central Philippines: Siquijor, Cebu, and Tablas. They're trash birds on Siquijor, stupidly rare in Cebu where they're being outcompeted by Philippine Bulbuls, and somewhere in between that in Tablas: fairly common within forest areas, but still difficult to get a good look at. This wasn't a lifer for me as I'd seen them in both Siquijor and Cebu, but they'll likely be split to become an endemic species at some point so it was a very pleasing find even in horrible light. 

Tablas Streak-breasted Bulbul

 

A bit further up the trail, we heard the car-alarm song of a Rufous Paradise Flycatcher, which eventually we were able to get a good look at if not any good look. This wasn't an eBird lifer for me, but it was my first time seeing the "Northern" subspecies, which has already been split by some authorities so I expect it will be an armchair tick eventually. There was also a White-vented Whistler, an enigmatic small island specialist, singing from the deep foliage but not wanting to be photographed. As we entered a small canyon I spotted a tiny blue-and-red bird above us- Tablas Fantail! This was our first of the three island endemics, and my first "true" lifer of the morning. It took some patience but we were eventually able to get great looks at what looked like an adult feeding a recently-fledged immature bird. I also managed what are some of the only decent pictures of this species ever taken (or at least that have been put online).

Tablas Fantail- the adult in the foreground and a young bird out of focus in the background

Just past the canyon we reached the terminus of the trail: an old cement water tank and a small waterfall in a nice little grotto. This proved to be the place to be for Tablas birds- I think almost every good bird on the island we either saw or heard from this little spot. We spent about an hour hanging out here, looking for birds and hoping for our biggest target bird of the trip, Tablas Drongo, to make an appearance. There were some other good birds while we were waiting for the drongo: more Tablas Fantails, a calling Rufous-lored Kingfisher of the endemic subspecies, a beautiful male Magnificent Sunbird, and an Orange-bellied Flowerpecker- also an endemic subspecies, with a very distinctive white throat. I took out my thermal scope, and with it managed to find a roosting Diadem Roundleaf Bat and a sunbird nest that, upon close examination of my photo, proved to have a female Magnificent Sunbird sitting beside it. 

Tablas Fantail

Male Magnificent Sunbird

Orange-bellied Flowerpecker of the endemic cnecolaemum subspecies- actually the only picture of the subspecies I know of

Female Magnificent Sunbird on her nest

Diadem Roundleaf Bat

A very strange-looking terrestrial sea slug (Onchidium sp.)

Some kind of begonia- probably an undescribed endemic species

Suddenly we heard some distinctive screeching calls from above us, alerting us to the presence of a Tablas Drongo! This was our most-wanted bird for the trip, as it's both the rarest and most impressive of the Tablas endemic birds. It was formerly considered conspecific with the Short-tailed Drongo of Mindanao as the Hair-crested Drongo, but this is silly as Short-tailed Drongos, as their name suggests, have pretty boring, rectangular tails whereas Tablas Drongos have incredibly deeply-forked, fish-like tails that are the most spectacular of any drongo besides maybe the Paradise Drongos off of New Guinea. We saw these impressive tails in action as a pair of Tablas Drongos flew back and forth over our heads calling to each other. We sadly didn't manage any pictures but that was okay since we still had great views of our major target. 

After a bit of waiting it seemed like the drongos wouldn't make a second appearance, and while we heard the squeaking call of a Dimorphic Dwarf Kingfisher as it flew past us like a little blue bullet we never got a proper look at it. Rodel led us back down the river toward another trail, where he said we might have better looks at some birds. We scared a large raptor off the ground that we soon realized was a Philippine Honey-buzzard because of what it had left behind- a huge honeycomb with lots of larva of Giant Asian Honeybees left inside it. 

The dropped honeycomb

Giant Asian Honeybee (Apis dorsata)

Drepanosticta pistor, a nice little endemic damselfly

Smooth-eyed Bushbrown

Rodel's trail turned out to be a narrow dirt path zig-zagging up a precipitous slope past the farmland cutting into the edges of Tablas' last forest areas. We stopped by a small gully where there was apparently a resident Dimorphic Dwarf Kingfisher, but moved on after no kingfishers were apparent. The path went up a steep ridge then dropped down the other side into some thicker forest. As we were navigating a treacherous downslope, we looked up to see a Tablas Drongo perching right in front of us! We sat on the hillside and watched as a pair of drongos flew around right in front of us giving us amazing views and allowing us to get lots of pictures- Nikki even managed a digibin pic as she hadn't brought her camera with her. We eventually realized that we'd stumbled into the drongos' nesting area, as I saw an unfinished twiggy nest in a tree near us. 

Tablas Drongo building a nest

Tablas Drongo!!!

Post-drongo selfie (photo by Cheta)

We were all thrilled to have gotten such great looks at our main target bird- indeed, probably better looks than just about any birder who's been to Tablas before. The rarity of the bird made it both exciting and a little sad- there are likely only about 250 or so Tablas Drongos left, a number that's likely to decline if the deforestation on the island continues. They were even feared extinct for a few decades before this breeding population was rediscovered. I can only hope that what little forest remains can be protected by the locals. 

The little path brought us back down to the streambed, where we hung around for a while looking for other birds. We got more looks (and still no pictures) of a Rufous Paradise Flycatcher, and had a couple of Bar-bellied Cuckooshrikes of the mindorensis subspecies fly in, also not posing for pictures. The stream was host to a number of cool freshwater fish- a reminder of what waterways all over the country could be like if local governments weren't determined to seed them with invasive tilapia. The stream itself was beautiful, running over the multicolored metamorphic rocks that underly Tablas and most of the other islands of Romblon province- a nice change from the volcanic or karst terrain that makes up the rest of the Philippines. 

The watershed stream 

Some kind of molly fish (Poecilium sp.)

A little forest frog- either Platymantis dorsalis or an undescribed endemic species

Cool metamorphic rocks in the stream

Just as everything seemed like it was going really well, the mid-morning rains started. What had been a dodgy path going uphill suddenly became downright treacherous on the way down as we struggled to keep our balance on the mud and slippery stones. We returned to San Agustin town where we found some lunch and then headed to the hotel for a much-needed nap. 

We met Rodel again in the late afternoon, and headed back up to the watershed forest for another try at our targets while we waited for dark. Rodel took us along a slightly different path, where we had a Streak-breasted Bulbul and a few noisy Coletos feeding in a coconut plantation on the edge of the forest. A Hooded Pitta called from above us on a steep slope, and we were able to add Mangrove Blue Flycatcher to our Tablas list, but the trail didn't seem great for birding so we decided to go back along the same stream we'd explored in the morning.

Streak-breasted Bulbul

Coleto- always one of my favorite endemics to watch

Mangrove Blue Flycatcher

Palm King

False Tiger Moth (Dysphania militaris)

The nymph of a cotton stainer bug (Dysdercus sp.)

Hyginus kinbergi, an endemic leaf-footed bug

Blue Neon Goby (Stiphodon atropurpureus), I think

Back at the usual spot, we settled down and waited for some birds to come by. Tablas Fantails were around as usual, as well as the background hooting of Yellow-breasted Fruit Doves and Black-chinned Fruit Doves. A Tablas Drongo flew in and gave us more great views as it hovered next to a tree trunk looking for bugs. Suddenly we heard a squeaky flight call and an electric blue Dimorphic Dwarf Kingfisher flew right in front of us and perched briefly before flying upstream. I'd gotten a brief view of this bird in Camiguin but that had been such a bad look that this felt like getting another lifer. I had a hunch of where it might be perched, and crept upstream to where I could confirm my suspicions- it was sitting where I expected it would be, in a small tree next to the stream. I got a few record shots in horrible light then showed it to everyone else, who got good views of it before it flew off once more. Definitely one of the best-looking kingfishers in the Philippines, and possibly the world.

Dimorphic Dwarf Kingfisher

Night began to fall, and we headed back down the stream for our final endemic target, Romblon Hawk Owl. We saw some other cool wildlife as it got dark, including an endemic frog, an enormous stick insect, and a very weird shield bug nymph. 

Platymantis dorsalis, probably

Some kind of spectacular shield bug nymph

Anarchodes salmanazar, an enormous endemic stick insect

A brilliantly-colored millipede (Trigoniulus macropygus)

Back in the coconut plantation, we were soon surrounded by the hoarse calls of Mantanani Scops-owls, the most common owl on the island. They were much harder to see than they were to hear, although we eventually got decent looks at one bird. The night was kind of ruined by some extremely drunk shirtless man who started following us around and pawing at us as we tried to avoid him. Rodel had  for some reason disappeared ahead of us and left us behind in the dark, so we were left to get help from some locals, who came out and glared at him until he went away. Eventually Rodel came back, seemingly unapologetic for abandoning us to the whims of the local drunks, and led us to a spot where he had seen the owls in the past. Sure enough, we eventually heard the screeching call of a Romblon Hawk-owl far above us, and had great looks at a single individual, although it never posed at a good angle for pictures. 

Mantanani Scops-owl

Romblon Hawk-owl

With the hawk-owl in the bag, we headed back into town for dinner and bedtime. Our original plan had been to take the ferry back on Sunday, but wary of further delays and with a flight to catch back to Sorsogon we decided return to Manila on Saturday instead. That still left us all of Saturday morning, so Cheta, Allan and I decided to head out again in the early morning to try and get a better look (and, in my case, pictures) at the owl. That proved to be a success- we were able to find a calling Romblon Hawk-owl much quicker than the previous night, and I was able to get some proper pictures.

Romblon Boobook

We still had an hour or so to bird before we needed to head back to town and sort out ferry tickets, so we headed back into the watershed forest to see what we could see. Just as the sun was rising we heared a calling pair of Rufous-lored Kingfishers and were able to see them after a bit of searching, getting awful pictures that were still the only pictures I'm aware of of this subspecies. Further up the trail we had a singing male Purple-throated Sunbird and more Tablas Fantails. The Dimorphic Dwarf Kingfisher was at the same perch as the previous day and once again I failed to get any good pictures of it. 

Still somehow the best eBird picture of this subspecies of Rufous-lored Kingfisher

Purple-throated Sunbird

Tablas Fantail

Dimorphic Dwarf Kingfisher

A large flat-backed millipede (Acanthodesmus lineatus)

Misythus gladiatrix, a spectacular endemic pygmy grasshopper

Some kind of endemic cockroach (Rhabdoblatta sp.)

A beautiful damselfly, most likely an undescribed endemic species (Risiocnemis sp.)

Some kind of water strider (Limnometra sp.)

Common Sailer (Neptis mindorana)

Silver Forget-me-not

Etlingera philippinesis, an endemic ginger plant

A nice little waterfall along the trail

With that we headed back into town, where we found out that the ferry back to Lucena was scheduled for 2PM. That meant we still had a half day left, so we decided to at least walk around a bit- we'd come all this way so it was a shame for likely our only visit to Tablas to be just one small corner of forest. We spent some time walking around the small town of San Agustin, appreciating the old traditional houses and visiting the church (it was Holy Week after all). As we were walking around I heard the song of a white-eye, and eventually found a single Lowland White-eye singing from the top of an agoho pine. This wouldn't be anything exciting except that according to the field guide there aren't any white-eyes at all on Tablas island. I'm quite sure of what we saw, even though I didn't have my camera with me and thus have no documentation, so it's either a hitherto-overlooked population or a recent range expansion for this species. It's hard to say more since virtually all birders who come to the island just visit the single site and then leave, which isn't particularly helpful for putting together comprehensive bird data.

One of the old traditional houses in San Agustin

The view from our hotel roof- the birding site was to the left of where the silly concrete sign on the hillside is

Brown Shrike in the town center- not a Lowland White-eye but I was happy with the picture

Later that morning Nikki and I headed to a beach a bit south of San Agustin just to explore a bit more, then we all had lunch at the only nice restaurant in town. I wish I could say that our trip ended there and that we had a nice smooth voyage home, but alas, the vagaries of transportation in the Philippines had other ideas for us. Our boat was scheduled for 2PM, but everyone we talked assumed it would be late- quite correctly it turns out, as the ferry didn't dock until 3PM, on its way from Romblon and Sibuyan islands. We quickly boarded the boat, and found it already packed to the gills with passengers. We established our spots in the sleeping bay, and then headed up top to wait for it to depart. Where we waited. And waited. And waited. 

As it turns out, the boat had been overbooked thanks to the holiday weekend, and the Coast Guard refused to allow us to leave until they had done a thorough count of the passengers. They did so a couple of times, but then left us to stew in the boat for hours without explanation- or at least if there was an explanation the crew didn't bother sharing it with the passengers. We spent four excruciating hours sitting on the boat watching the Coast Guard and crew lounging about without talking to each other or telling us what was going on, before finally the boat left the harbor at 7 PM, a full 5 hours later than the schedule. For us it was an uncomfortable night in the sleeping bay, packed with hundreds of people in close quarters- definitely not a Covid-safe environment, and it's a miracle none of us ended up getting sick. 

Our view for 4 hours

Sunset over Tablas island

Luxury accommodations in the ferry

It wasn't until 10 in the morning the following day that we finally checked into our hotel in Manila- after over 18 hours of traveling. It was exhausting, and we spent the next week back in Sorsogon recuperating from it. And yet, despite the grueling travel and frustration of it all, I'd do it all over again in a heartbeat. Because that's what birding in the Philippines is all about- sitting on a boat all night to wake up early in the morning and clamber up a waterfall to see rare birds that very, very few others have ever seen, enjoying all the endemic fish, frogs, flowers, and cool rocks along the way. It was one of my harder birding trips, but also one of my most successful- we managed to see and photograph every single one of the birds we went there to see, gathering important birding data in the process. Even just blogging about it makes me excited for the next adventure. And there's so much more left to see in this wonderful country...