Medium Day

 

Gotta love a good male Philippine Trogon

May was mostly a pretty quiet month for me birding-wise, as I was focusing on work and other hobbies. Right in the middle of it, however, was one of my busiest birding days of the year: Global Big Day on May 14. I would imagine if you're reading my extremely esoteric blog about casual birding in the Philippines there's a good chance you're already aware of what Global Big Day is, but just in case: organized by eBird, it's a day where birders the world over try to observe as many species of bird as possible within 24 hours. The main purpose is to add to the excellent data that eBird is already collecting, but there's a competitive aspect of course: everyone wants to be the one to break the local or global record for number of species observed. Some will go all out, birding the whole 24 hours and driving hundreds of miles in the process, and many teams will also compete for the greatest cumulative list.

Earlier in the year I had big plans to go hard all day and try my best to break the Philippines Big Day record (107 species, set by Kim Cancino during the October 2021 Big Day). However, a variety of things didn't pan out as I hoped, including access to the Bac-Man Geothermal site for May 14, and a rental car that would have made getting around much easier. May is also just about the worst possible month to do a big day in the Philippines: it's the very tail end of migration season, meaning that migrants are almost completely gone, while a lot of the local birds are sitting on nests and thus not particularly vocal. Still, I decided to give it a go, and eBird research suggested that breaking 100 species at least would be feasible. 

Since I didn't have high hopes for migrants, I concentrated my efforts in spots that had a lot of resident birds. While I'd hoped to be able to start at the geothermal site closer to home, my request for access was denied so instead Nikki and returned to our old haunts at Mount Bulusan. 

(a sidebar for those who are paying attention to the news: yes, that is the same Mount Bulusan that's been erupting recently- in fact I'm writing this blog from a hotel room in Manila since my flight back to Bicol was canceled thanks to volcanic ash. And no, it was not erupting at that time, or showing any signs that it might)

Since renting a car fell through, instead we got to do a nice, long, butt-numbing motorbike ride (about an hour and a half) from our home in Sorsogon City. Kuya Noel, who had guided for us on our last visit, was our guide once again for this, and this time we remembered to bring a laser pointer for him which was extremely useful for us to actually find the birds he spotted. We arrived before sunrise, and Luzon Hawk Owl and Philippine Scops-owl were hooting off in the distance, while a nice little Guaiabero perched on the tree in the pre-dawn light. 

Guaiabero

Along the access road, we spotted a Stripe-headed Rhabdornis feeding in a palm tree, and heard Yellow-breasted Fruit Dove and Cream-bellied Fruit Dove calling. We got good looks at a pretty little Coppersmith Barbet, and backlit looks at a female Cuculus cuckoo of some sort- either a Himalayan Cuckoo or (more likely) an Oriental Cuckoo, but technically not call-able to species level, which is very annoying for Big Day when being able to call things to species level is very important. Both species apparently occur in the Philippines during the wintertime, and can't be distinguished from each other unless they call, which they never do during the wintertime. Some authorities have lumped them back together as the same species, which seems like a very good idea to me. 

 More exciting was the low, mournful call of a pair of Luzon Bleeding-hearts! Any bleeding-heart is an amazing bird, and for whatever reason Luzon Bleeding-heart appears to be unusually common at Bulusan Lake, though still rarely seen. We spent about 20 minutes of our precious Big Day birding time trying to actually get a good look at them, peering endless at the foliage of a gully beside the road. Finally, I was able to get a brief but excellent view of a single bleeding-heart walking slowly along the ground! Unfortunately it walked back out of view before I could get a picture, and before I could get Nikki on it, but it was still great to get the first proper look at one that I've had in years.

Stripe-headed Rhabdornis

Coppersmith Barbet

Either an Oriental or Himalayan Cuckoo- one of the most annoying species pairs in the world

Jagor's Sphenomorphus eating a grub

Jagor's Sphenomorphus, by far the most common lizard at Bulusan Lake

At the lake itself it was a beautiful, sunny morning, which we didn't have much time to enjoy as we wanted to get started on the birding trail. Right at the beginning of the trail Noel pointed out a roosting Luzon Hawk Owl, sleeping in a surprisingly open public area (can't imagine it was going to be a good day's sleep with all the tourists hooting and hollering right below it). There was also a nice and cooperative White-eared Brown Dove that sat right in front of me for an unusually long time, seemingly unafraid of the weird human and his long camera lens. Amethyst Doves were calling, a nice addition to the day's list, and I searched for the local Indigo-banded Kingfishers along the lake without success. 

Sunrise on Bulusan Lake

Luzon Hawk Owl

White-eared Brown Dove

Some unknown erebid moth

Begonia binuangensis, an extremely localized endemic species of begonia

Unfortunately around this time Nikki started to feel very tired and a bit light-headed, probably as a result of the minor illness she'd only gotten over the day before. She decided to lay down and sleep rather than keep going, which was sad since she missed out on some good birds further along the trail, but definitely a better decision than keeping going while feeling exhausted. Noel and I kept going, and shortly after we spotted more roosting Luzon Hawk-owls, this time a pair roosting right above the trail. They're definitely among the cuter hawk-owls, much smaller and with much less creepy calls than some of the other endemics. 

Luzon Hawk-owls

We were able to add Philippine Fairy-bluebird and Balicassiao to our list, and we flushed another Luzon Bleeding-heart off of the trail, though it immediately flew out of view into dense foliage. The next time I visit Bulusan Lake (whenever Mount Bulusan stops its current temper tantrum) I'll probably just focus exclusively on finally photographing one of the damn things. Soon we heard the warbling calls of a Philippine Trogon further up the slope, and we scrambled up a trail to try and get a look. It took quite a bit of work navigating a rocky trail and trying not to spook the bird, but just as I was about to give up a male trogon flew into view right in front of me- the first time in years I've gotten a good look at that species.

Philippine Trogon

The sun was fully up by that point and things in the forest started to quiet right down, as they tend to do right around 7AM in Luzon. I continued to hope we might run into a nice mixed flock or two, but we never did, meaning I missed out on what would have been quite a few good species for my Big Day list. This year has been awful in general for mixed flocks in Luzon in general, and I'm not sure entirely why- perhaps just bad luck or bad birding skills on my part. We did run into another pair of Philippine Trogons along the trail, as well as an agitated female Spotted Wood Kingfisher. With the day heating up insect life also increased, including some very nice butterflies.

Female Philippine Trogon

Male Philippine Trogon

Female Spotted Wood Kingfisher

Tailed Jay

Wizard (Rhinopalpa polynice)

Count (Tanaecia calliphoris)

Onyx (Horaga lefebvrei), one of my new favorite butterflies

Back at the beginning of the trail we met up with Nikki again, much refreshed after a little nap, and walked back down the access road. On the way down we finally had a good view of a Cream-bellied Fruit Dove, and later on a Yellow-breasted Fruit Dove. A showy male Flaming Sunbird was singing by the side of the road, and we had a surprise encounter with a Philippine Crested Macaque, the only monkey on Luzon, which thankfully stayed far away from us (I hate macaques). 

Cream-bellied Fruit Dove

Yellow-breasted Fruit Dove

Flaming Sunbird

Philippine Crested Macaque

Striped Blue Crow (Euploea mulciber) ovipositing

Some kind of very shiny scarab beetle

I decided to head straight home after that rather than making any more birding stops, so that Nikki could get some rest. My next birding stop after I'd dropped her off was the nearby fishponds of Cabid-An in Sorsogon City, which I visited specifically to add Little Grebe to the Big Day list. I spotted a single Little Grebe out in the middle of a fishpond within about 10 minutes, and was able to add greatly expand my overall day's list with lots of resident waterbirds, including some good ones like Cinnamon Bittern, Wandering Whistling Duck, and Pink-necked Green Pigeon. 

A very distant Little Grebe

Mount Bulusan from the fishponds

The next stop was the Buhatan Fishponds, the birdiest hotspot in Sorsogon. I usually visit that either early in the morning or very late in the afternoon, and there's a reason for that: walking around the exposed fishponds at midday was a truly miserable experience. It was a nice bright, sunny day, which meant it was somewhere in the high 80s. I had to sit down several times in the shade and chug water to avoid getting heat exhaustion. Still, the birds were there, even in the head of the day, and I made some big advances in my day list: good waterbirds like Watercock and Philippine Duck, a surprise flyby from a Common Emerald Dove, and a nice little Grey-tailed Tattler that was one of the only shorebirds of the day. On the way out I desperately scanned my "snipe spot" to try and add some new birds and miraculously spotted a pair of Greater Painted-snipe sitting motionless in the tall grass. Soon after I had a calling (but invisible) Buff-banded Rail as the last new addition. 

Striated Heron

Grey-tailed Tattler

Greater Painted Snipe

Some kind of paper wasp (Ropalidia sp.)

Peacock Pansy

I finished my time at the fishponds with 88 species, 12 short of my goal for the day. I headed to another patch spot of mine, a small paved "road to nowhere" through scrubby forest where I easily added White-bellied Munia and Asian Koel to the day list- 90 species! With just a couple hours of daylight left, the plan was to head to my local mudflats now that it was low tide, then up to the Pocdol Mountains for some night birds. Unfortunately, as the afternoon went on dark clouds began to form over the Pocdol Mountains, until it was clear that if I ventured up there I'd just be in the middle of a rainstorm- not ideal for owls!

Not to be deterred, I headed to the mudflats, hoping to make some last-minute strides in my list with waders. Sadly, I arrived at low tide to find a huge stretch of gorgeous mudflats with almost no shorebirds at all. In fact, after 30 minutes of scanning hard with my scope, I was able to spot about 4 Whimbrels, a Common Greenshank, and nothing else. There are generally still a dozen or so species of wader left in the Philippines even by May, but Sorsogon Bay isn't a good spot for shorebirds to begin with (I have no idea why, considering that it offers hundreds of square kilometers of high-quality mudflats) so this was just the worst possible time of year for me to be there. 

My hopes of breaking a Big Day record dashed, I returned to the Road to Nowhere as my last stop of the evening, where I was able to make some more additions to the list after dark: calling Philippine Nightjars and a flyover from a Black-crowned Night Heron, nearly absent in Sorsogon due to mysteriously common Rufous Night Herons.

The very cloudy Pocdol Mountains from the Road to Nowhere

I finished the day with 94 species, by far the highest count for this year in the Philippines but 5 short of two other May big day records and 15 short of the overall record. I probably could've added a few more if I'd made more stops or delayed for less time trying to get a good look at Luzon Bleeding-heart, but it was overall great fun, albeit an exhausting day. eBird holds another annual Big Day in October, which is a much better time of year to do this, and I expect I'll try much harder to break the record then. 

Also, if there are any other Philippines birders reading this, consider this me encouraging you to go even harder on Big Day! It's a great chance for some friendly competition and generating good birding data for the world, and there are very few other places in the world where you have as good of a chance of making unique contributions to the Big Day list. I was able to personally add 4 species to the Global Big Day bird list (meaning I was the only person worldwide to record them that day), and someone in an even less-birded spot could likely do much more. Just me continuing to do my best to proselytize eBird and contributing bird findings to worldwide datasets...