Mid-Samar Midsummer

EDIT: Trip report for Samar with more details on logistics and specific sites can now be found on my Trip Reports page.

Birding is, if nothing else, guaranteed to be a mixed bag. You can have a great time seeing great birds, and a bad time not seeing any good birds. It's also not uncommon to have a great time while not really seeing any good birds, because birding is just generally a fun thing to be doing. Much more rarely, you can have a rather unpleasant time while also seeing some very good birds. That was my trip to Samar Island Natural Park.

But first, some context.

After my week-long trip to Panay, I would have liked nothing better than to have a few weeks back home in Sorsogon to process pictures and catch up on work and sleep. However, that was not to be, thankfully for exciting reasons: my friend Paul, who I got to know remotely during the pandemic through the Birding Co-op, was visiting the island of Samar and invited me to join him for some birding during the few days he had time to take away from family obligations. Very few things are sufficient for me to turn down an invitation to go birding in a new spot, so of course I was happy to join. As I was doing the preparation for the trips I mentioned to my friend (and Mindanao birding legend) Pete Simpson that I would heading to my Samar, and he expressed interest in joining as well, so we happily invited him along. 

Samar is the third-largest island in the Philippines, but somehow is far off the radar of most Filipinos. It's one of the most sparsely-populated islands in the archipelago, and also one of the poorest. This is for a variety of reasons, presumably including the atrocities committed by the US Army during the horrifying period of American colonialism, as well as the later fighting during World War II. In the present day, infighting between the private armies of powerful political families hasn't helped matters. Whatever the reason, it does mean that Samar is home to some of the largest stretches of primary lowland forest in the Philippines- a huge swath of dark green covering the spine of the island on a satellite image. 

Despite the vast amount of forest left, Samar is only very rarely visited by birders. Part of this is safety: the aforementioned battling political families and the presence of a certain "Nice People's Association" mean that many areas are off-limits for tourists (and a trigger-happy military doesn't help either). The other reason is that Samar, having been connected to Mindanao, Bohol, Leyte, and Biliran ("Greater Mindanao") during the past ice age, doesn't actually have many birds that can't be seen in other, much more accessible places. 

For the true connoisseur, however, there are a few birds that are essentially only found in Samar. The first, "Samar Crow", is currently considered conspecific with Slender-billed Crow, which is found throughout Southeast Asia. However, it sounds completely different from those found elsewhere, and will hopefully be split once someone has the time to write a paper on it. The other two are small babblers found only in the eastern Visayas: Visayan Pygmy Babbler and Visayan Miniature Babbler. Both are uncommon members of mixed feeding flocks, though of the two small, uncommon Visayan-endemic babblers the miniature babbler is the smaller and more uncommon one- in fact, it's the smallest bird in the Philippines, and so rare that it had essentially never been seen by birders before 2016. Thankfully, since then a reasonably reliable spot has been found, and some more adventurous birders have since gone and twitched it.

Joining the rarified group of "people who have seen Visayan Miniature Babbler" these days is no easy task: there are no active airports in Samar, so at a minimum it requires flying into Tacloban in nearby Leyte and driving a few hours to get to Samar Island Natural Park. In theory, it was a bit easier for me: I'm based in Sorsogon, at the far southeastern tip of Luzon, which means that the birding site is a half day's drive away from me. After some calling around, I was finally able to reserve a rental car from someone that would allow me to drive to other islands, which apparently isn't usually permitted. This ended up being a clunky Mitsubishi Mirage that would start hyperventilating if I made it go up any hill with more than a 5% grade, but thankfully that was all I needed to get where I was going. 

My route from Sorsogon to Samar

My rental car was dropped off on the morning of June 19, and I set out from there, with just a stop for an egg McMuffin along the way. It was a 2-hour drive from Sorsogon City to the ferry port in Matnog, which was uneventful but for the spectacular views of a restless Mount Bulusan, still smoldering a week or so after its major phreatic eruption. The ferry from Matnog at the far southeastern tip of Luzon to Allen on the far northwestern tip of Samar takes a little over an hour in theory, but there is invariably a 2-3 hour wait after you have boarded the boat and before it leaves; ferries in the Philippines will never depart unless they've gotten enough passengers to be profitable. I spent most of the ride on the top deck of the boat, scanning with my binoculars in hope of some interesting ocean birds. Alas, all I had was a flyby from a lone Brown Booby near the Samar side of the ride (not even countable for my Sorsogon list!).

Mount Bulusan from the town of Juban

Departing from Matnog, with a mostly-obscured Mount Bulusan at right

Brown Booby

As soon as I got into Samar, the drive got much, much more challenging. While Sorsogon has notably good roads, roads in Samar as a whole are some of the worst paved roads I've ever had the displeasure of driving: full of enormous potholes, humps, and ditches that appear without warning, often with one lane completely undriveable due to ongoing construction or just a recent landslide or a puddle the size of a koi pond. It turned what should have been a 2-hour drive into a 5-hour slog, and I was very happy that I was driving a rental car instead of a vehicle I would be responsible for repairing in the future. Unbelievably, this is theoretically the major national thoroughfare, and the route that all passengers will take going to Manila by land from the Visayas or Mindanao. On the other hand, the scenery along the drive was beautiful, going along the western coast of Samar island with the volcanic peaks of Leyte, Biliran, and Maripipi islands in the distance. I'm sure it would be fabulous for landscape photography if one were there at the right time of day and could bear the awful drive to get there. 

The volcano of Maripipi island as seen from Samar

The view along the road, with the volcanos of Biliran island on the left and Maripipi on the right

I got to Catbalogan City, the largest city in Samar, after four hours of incredibly unpleasant driving, and picked up Paul at his family's house there. From Catbalogan it was another hour or so to the Samar Island National Park headquarters, where we were staying at the small guesthouse. We checked into our surprisingly spacious rooms, and then promptly realized that there was no food anywhere in the vicinity. Thankfully I hadn't opted to do things the stingy way and take public transport, so we drove 20 minutes back into the nearby town of Paranas to have dinner. 

Back at the guesthouse, we still had a little bit of energy left so we decided to explore the "birding trail" behind the park headquarters. I use quotation marks since, despite the fact I appreciate the marketing, I think maybe 5 birders per year visited Samar even before the pandemic, so I can't imagine that it's been a huge draw. It's a shame, as the trail goes through some excellent primary forest, and apparently has quite a few good birds, except unfortunately Visayan Miniature Babbler. This was to be our only visit, and it was indeed pretty good for night birds: we had many Everett's Scops Owls calling, and after a bit of effort excellent views of a Philippine Frogmouth giving us its demented stare. There were also a couple of Rough-backed Forest Frogs, a tiny singing Light's Toadlet, and some other interesting nighttime critters.

Philippine Frogmouth, one of the weirdest-looking Philippine endemics although it has lots of competition!

Rough-backed Forest Frog (Platymantis corrugatus)

Light's Toadlet (Pelophryne lighti)

Some kind of camel cricket

Batocera magica, an endemic long-horned beetle

After good looks at the frogmouth we retired to our quarters for a brief night's sleep before leaving early the next morning for the Ulot River, where we would start our journey. As it happens, part of the reason it took birders so long to find Visayan Miniature Babbler is that the only spot we know of for them so far requires a 10-kilometer boat ride downriver. Thankfully, there are already many so-called "torpedo boats" (basically just long canoes with motors in the back) plying the Ulot- both as a way of getting to and from riverside farms, and for tourists looking for an adrenaline rush. 

It took a while for us to get started, as apparently the attendant at the hotel who told us he'd arrange a boat for 5:30 AM had done no such thing. Eventually we were able to flag down a passerby who went to go find the actual boat driver. The driver arrived soon after, a young guy named Joselito who had shown around a number of birders before, including Michael Kearns who was the one who had discovered the site for the miniature babbler. He was accompanied by his assistant, an old, skinny one-armed guy with homemade goggles and a perpetual gap-toothed grin who looked like an anime character. We loaded our things into the torpedo boat and set off downriver. 

I'd heard that the boat ride was a bit scary, which was really not an exaggeration. I've done a fair amount of whitewater canoeing in a past life, and the rapids of the Ulot River were solid Class II or Class III sets, which we nonetheless shot through at blinding speed. Nevertheless, Joselito proved to be an expert navigator and the bowman surprisingly dextrous at one-handed paddling. I'd put away my phone as I was worried about getting it wet, but we managed to make it the whole way without getting splashed a single time. It was also a beautiful ride, through limestone hills blanketed with rainforest, with waterfalls cascading into the river on either side (pictures are later in this post). Just as cool was seeing multiple Northern Silvery Kingfishers along the side of the river, one of my favorite of many amazing kingfishers in the Philippines.

Our final destination along the Ulot River

It was a 20-minute boat ride to our final destination, a flat, rocky area on the north bank of the Ulot River that was the start of a trail through the woods that biologists use as a research transect. The first part of the trail was quite steep and muddy, allowing us to work up a nice sweat even at 7 in the morning. About 200 meters uphill we got to flat section that Joselito told us was the beginning of where the miniature babblers had been seen. 

Things started off with a bang: I heard a whirring of wingbeats above me and looked up to see a large bird flying into the canopy. Joselito proclaimed it to be a woodpecker, but I immediately shouted "Parrot!" We eventually got onto it perched and I confirmed my suspicion- it was a Blue-backed Parrot! I'd only seen Blue-backed Parrot once before, in SNA, and it was a not-great view with no pictures. Back then they had also been considered conspecific with Azure-rumped Parrots in Sulawesi, but they've since been split to become a Philippine endemic. And while Azure-rumped Parrots are reasonably common, Blue-backed Parrots are stupidly rare, and nearing extinction: already extirpated on Luzon, Panay, and Negros, and with only small remnant populations on Mindanao, Samar, and the Sulu archipelago. They're easily the rarest parrot in the Philippines, and will be one of the most endangered parrots in the world once the split is formalized. 

Blue-backed Parrot!

Satisfied that we had at least a vague idea of what birds were and where to find them, Joselito walked back down to the river and left us in the middle of the woods. Shortly after the parrot left, we heard the drumming of a woodpecker, which turned out to be a White-bellied Woodpecker. I tried to play some tapes of drumming to bring it in closer, which instead brought in a much-rarer Southern Sooty Woodpecker, which gave a single whistling call and appeared briefly before flying off again. At that point in the morning there were a fair number of birds calling: many Rufous Hornbills in the trees above us, and a tantalizingly near Pink-bellied Imperial Pigeon that we never ended up seeing. The trail we were on was a narrow trail going along a ridge, but the greenery above us was so thick that it was almost impossible to see any of the canopy-dwelling birds like hornbills or imperial pigeons. I was able to get a brief look at a calling Philippine Oriole, which was a nice new year bird for me.

White-bellied Woodpecker

Philippine Oriole

After about 8 in the morning the large bird activity quieted down, and the day started getting hotter. All the major target birds for Samar tend to be members of mixed flocks, so we settled down and waited for a mixed flock to come along. And waited. And waited. And waited. In fact, we waited the entire morning and not a single mixed flock came through. Philippine birding god Rob Hutchinson had warned me that it may take days to see some of the targets thanks to the miserably low bird density in Samar, and as it turns out he was very correct. Rather than getting our targets on the first day as I'd hoped, we instead spent 10 hours walking back on the same 300 meters or so of path, going for hour-long stretches without seeing or hearing a single bird. Living in Luzon I've gotten used to being in the middle of gorgeous forest with barely any birds around, but this was a whole new level.

To make things even more unpleasant, starting around 9AM, we started hearing chainsaws in the distance, which were our constant background accompaniment the whole day. As it turns out, despite the fancy well-funded DENR office we were staying at with lots of nice signs talking about how this was the last chance to protect Philippine forests, illegal loggers are busy cutting down trees right in the middle of Samar Island Natural Park. 

Our Samar purgatory

Thankfully, even though the birds were sparse, there were lots of other flora and fauna to keep me interested, especially insects. The understory was so gloomy I had to use my flashlight to get pics of most of them, but it was still lots of cool records of rarely-seen species in an overall understudied part of the Philippines.

Risiocnemus appendiculata, one of two species of gorgeous endemic damselflies that were all over the trail

Risiocnemis praeusta, the other species

Tanaecia phlegethon, a gorgeous East Visayas-endemic butterfly

Some as-of-yet-unidentified jumping spider

Ita Bushbrown

Some kind of beautiful long-horned beetle (Glenea sp.)

Katmon (Dillenia philippinensis), a beautiful fruiting tree endemic to the Philippines

A fearsome endemic tiger beetle (Therates sp.)

Double Eye-spotted Rajah (Charaxes harmodius), an endemic butterfly

An unidentifiable butterfly moth (Tetragonus sp.)

A wasp that was infected and then devoured alive by a cordyceps fungus- cool but extremely creepy!

Some kind of bess beetle (Carabidae)

Some kind of trilobite beetle (Platerodrilus sp.)

Vestalis melania, an endemic dragonfly

Polistes williamsi, an endemic paper wasp

Allotinus fallax, a drab but fairly rare lycaenid butterfly

Rhinocypha colorata, maybe the most common endemic damselfly in the Philippines

These cicadas were screaming all morning- only slightly less unpleasant than the chainsaws

Ophicrania palinurus, a cool endemic stick insect

Rough Mabuya

Around noon, I headed back down to the river to pick up the lunch that I'd foolishly elected to leave instead of taking with me earlier in the morning, an unpleasant and sweaty downhill and uphill slog in the midday heat. As I got back to where Paul was waiting, he casually showed me the best picture of a Little Slaty Flycatcher that I'd ever seen on the back of his camera. Little Slaty is one of the more difficult Greater Mindanao endemics, generally scarce and extremely difficult to photograph as it prefers to remain down low in the darkest possible foliage. Thankfully, the bird was still around by the time I got back there, and with a little bit of playback a territorial male burst into view and allowed me to take my first-ever pictures of that extremely skulking species.

Little Slaty Flycatcher, a very scarce endemic

Still having seen precisely zero mixed flocks, we remained in the forest for the afternoon. In contrast to the morning, which had a few good birds and no mixed flocks, the afternoon had no mixed flocks, but also no other good birds. On the other hand, there were more chainsaws in the distance to break up the silence. We did at one point tempt in a Philippine Fairy-bluebird with some playback, which was a new subspecies for me. Later we got some decent looks at a flock of Yellowish Bulbuls, which I haven't seen since my similarly-miserable trip to PICOP back in 2017 (so unenjoyable I didn't even do a blog about it). Aside from that, there were some more cool insects and very little else.

A very angry Philippine Fairy-bluebird

Yellowish Bulbul

Jamides suidas, an endemic lycaenid

Some sort of ichneumonid wasp

Purana crassinotata, yet another noisy cicada

Some kind of beautiful wasp (Eustenogaster sp.)

Heteronaias heterodoxa, a gorgeous forest dragonfly

Prothoe semperi, another beautiful endemic butterfly

Cerulean Flax-lily

We finally gave up and headed back down to the river at about 4:30, having birded for more than 10 hours without a single mixed flock. I was skeptical that the torpedo boat would be able to make it back up the river given the impressive whitewater we'd been through, but the motor proved strong enough to get us up all but one set. We spotted a couple of Whiskered Treeswifts on the way back, and had another point-blank look at a Northern Silvery Kingfisher perched within arm's length of the boat.

Our only portage of the boat trip

Back at the boat launch, we met Pete, who had arrived that afternoon after a grueling two-day drive from Davao. We had dinner down at the actual center of population, then turned in for an early bedtime in anticipation of an early morning and another long day of birding purgatory. The next day we got up before dawn and headed down to the boat launch for our third torpedo boat ride. Our first day had been relatively smooth sailing, but with the extra weight of an additional person and Pete's obligatory cooler full of food and drink (you are guaranteed to be well-taken-care-of if you go birding with Pete Simpson), there was significantly more splashing involved as we made our way through the whitewater.

Navigating the whitewater of the Ulot River

Back at the birding site, it was a quieter start than we'd had the previous day, but things picked up not too long after, with the calls of Visayan Blue Fantails far in the distance- the first mixed flock birds we'd had in two days, though too far to pursue. Soon after I heard the distinctive call of a Short-crested Monarch, one of the most sought-after Philippine endemics and a rare bird anywhere. Pete was able to get it to come in and start scolding us, but we never got a good look at it before it flew out again. Around the same spot, we heard a calling Little Slaty Flycatcher and, surprisingly, another Blue-backed Parrot, but neither of them felt like making an appearance. 

Overall the day was much birder than our first day, though still miserably quiet even by Philippines standards. To make things worse, Pete managed to step on a bee's nest and get about a dozen bee stings, which got progressively more swollen as the day progressed. Around 9 in the morning, we finally heard the song of Visayan Blue Fantails and Yellow-bellied Whistlers near to the trail, and soon enough were in the midst of our first (and only!) mixed flock of our time in Samar. Even with lots of birds around it was an extremely frustrating experience: the greenery was so thick we barely had time to get on any birds before they disappeared from view again. I almost certainly saw a Visayan Pygmy Babbler, a lifer for me, but never got on it long enough to be sure enough to add to my list. There were also lots of Black-naped Monarchs, Brown Tit-babblers, a Rufous-fronted Tailorbird, and Metallic-winged Sunbirds (flagged as rare on eBird only because eBird filters for the Philippines are rubbish and this one decided it should be the Bohol-endemic Bohol Sunbird even if it's the wrong island). Of these, the sunbird was the only one I managed to photograph, since visibility was really that bad.

The south end of a Metallic-winged Sunbird

Throughout the mixed flock, we were desperately trying playback for Visayan Miniature Babbler, as well as the Everett's White-eyes it's known to flock with. At the tail end of the flock, a couple of Everett's White-eyes finally came in, along with an even tinier little bird that stayed in the backlit canopy of a tree in front of us. I got my bins on it and after a bit of squinting, I saw a tiny, thin bill, bright yellow plumage, and the barest hint of little plumes on the side- Visayan Miniature Babbler! I desperately tried to get Pete and Paul on it while also trying to get a record shot of it, neither of which were successful- Paul got a brief but diagnosable view, but Pete completely missed it, and after about 30 seconds it flew out of the tree, never to return. It was possibly the most frustrating way to get a mega life bird, and it makes me want to return to Samar just for better looks. Of course, it's still a bird that probably fewer than a dozen birders have ever seen in the wild, and is still known from literally only this little 300-meter stretch of trail, so I perhaps shouldn't complain.

The mixed flock moved onwards, and we never again got any mixed flocks during our time in Samar. There was a steady but low-level amount of bird activity throughout the rest of the day, perhaps thanks to the cloudy, relatively-cool weather. We heard a Philippine Pitta calling from further down the slope, and tried to get it to come in for about 30 minutes before finally giving up. I decided to try for it by clambering a bit down the steep slope of the ridge for a better look, which eventually paid off and gave me excellent views of the pitta, and some crappy pictures that were still the best I've ever managed of that species. It was just unfortunate that, again, I was the only one who got a good look.

Philippine Pitta

The rest of the day continued more or less as it had: some birds, but almost all of them heard only due to awful visibility in the forest where were, and no more mixed flocks. Just to make things more fun, two days of constant dampness had given me some kind of fungal infection in my feet, which made walking painful. The only other good bird we added was a Rufous-lored Kingfisher, which we got only record shots of before it flew off. There were also some more cool insects and a couple of gorgeous skinks to break up the monotony.

Crappy record shot of a Rufous-lored Kingfisher, included only so I have a few more bird pics in this post.

Semper's Tree Skink (Lipinia semperi), a gorgeous little Eastern Visayas endemic

Jagor's Sphenomorphus

Some kind of little pug moth

Another unidentified jumping spider

A gorgeous resin bug (Ectinoderus sp.), which the experts tell me is unidentifiable since it simply has too much resin on it

Mimegralla albimana, a cool long-legged fly

The nymph of some kind of shield bug (Tessaratoma sp., I think)

Faunis sappho

Another Rough-backed Forest Frog

We again gave up in the late afternoon and headed back down to the river. A nice Oriental Dollarbird was perched on a dead tree by the river, and a Philippine Spine-tailed Swift flew briefly overhead. Just as we were about to get in the boat, we had a flyover from a Samar Crow, a nice last-minute lifer of a bird that ended up being more difficult than I thought it would be. We ended that 11-hour day of birding with 44 species, including some of the rarest and most difficult Philippine endemics. It was certainly a... unique... experience to rack up so many good birds while having a really miserable time. None of that was the fault of Pete or Paul, both of whom are excellent birders and great company, but rather the setting: walking back and forth along a muddy trail dodging biting insects and barely able to see any birds due to claustrophobic surroundings and low density, all with the constant sounds of chainsaws in the background. Overall I really can't say I recommend this part of Samar Island Natural Park to anyone but the most hard-core birders. 

Oriental Dollarbird

It was another long, splashy boat ride back to the boat launch, where we paid our guides, headed back to the lodge, and freshened up. Paul was picked up at the lodge so he could go back to Catbalogan and rejoin his family. This proved to be a mistake as he promptly caught Covid as soon as he returned- should have just stayed out birding! Amazingly Pete and I both managed to make it out uninfected, the second time I've managed to survive a likely exposure while birding.

Pete and I got some dinner down in town, giving a ride to some DENR employees along the way. They were quite nice, but they clammed up and immediately stopped talking to us when I mentioned how many chainsaws we had been hearing in the middle of the national park. I'm sure that there's an extremely complicated political economy behind why the government department responsible for environmental protection has decided to do absolutely nothing about deforestation in Samar, and I mean that (mostly) non-snarkily as I know that there's always a threat of unrest on the island and I know that illegal loggers can get violent, especially if they have the backing of local politicians. I also know there are lots of good people in the DENR who are dedicated to their cause. Still, it's incredibly depressing to live in the Philippines and watch the continued destruction of the last fragments of forest throughout the country for logging, mining, or large-scale agriculture, all with the blessing or at least tacit inaction of the government department that's supposed to be in charge of protecting it.

This sign at the DENR headquarters really hits differently after 10 straight hours of chainsaw noises

The following morning, we decided to forego the torpedo boat ride as I'd already seen the miniature babbler and Pete was too exhausted from his long drive and run-in with angry bees. Instead we decided to drive eastwards along the road to other parts of the national park to see if anything good could be found around there. As it turns out, there's quite a bit of very good quality roadside forest in Samar Island Natural Park which is a great deal more fun to bird in than the cursed transect- presumably with the primary difference being that the transect has miniature babbler and the other places don't. We parked at what had formerly been the trailhead for the so-called "Waterfall Trail" (which apparently has fallen into disrepair after being affected by landslides in a recent typhoon), and walked along the road from there. There were many Yellowish Bulbuls and Philippine Fairy-bluebirds calling around us, as well as more distant Samar Hornbills and Southern Rufous Hornbills. We got great looks at a showy male Purple-throated Sunbird, and a couple of singing Southern Rufous Paradise-flycatchers. The best heard-only bird of the morning was a distant Azure-breasted Pitta, one of my favorite endemics.

Purple-throated Sunbird, easily one of the best-looking sunbirds in the world (though there's lots of competition)

Southern Rufous Paradise-flycatcher

Brown-breasted Kingfisher

The road in Samar Island Natural Park- very rare to find this much good forest along a roadside in the Philippines

Around 8 AM the rainclouds started rolling in, and Pete took that as his cue to start his long drive home with his still-ballooning hand. I packed my things and checked out of the lodge, then headed back to where we'd been birding earlier in the morning to try once more for Visayan Pygmy Babbler, my only remaining target bird in Samar. Near where I parked I was able to tempt out an East Visayas endemic Yellow-breasted Tailorbird, allowing me to get my first good look and first pictures of this extremely skulking bird. In a nearby clearing I saw a roosting pair of Samar Hornbills, and a more distant group of Southern Rufous Hornbills.

Whiskered Treeswift along the road

Yellow-breasted Tailorbird

Male and female Samar Hornbills

Samar Hornbill and a photobombing Coleto

I went into the woods where there was a small trail, and almost immediately happened upon a small group of birds that proved to be a family of Black-crowned Babblers, with the two adults feeding the two recently-fledged juveniles. Black-crowned Babblers are currently one species found in southern Luzon and in the eastern Visayas. However, they're likely to be split into two species, with the Luzon birds becoming "Calabarzon Babblers", which is a bad name, and the East Visayas birds becoming "Visayan Babblers". If you're keeping track, that means that there would now be three species of birds in Samar that have "Visayan" and "Babbler" in their name: Visayan Babbler, Visayan Pygmy Babbler, and Visayan Miniature Babbler. That's really just too much, especially since "Visayan" isn't even a good name for birds to begin with; biogeographically the eastern Visayas and western Visayas are completely different from each other, with precisely zero birds that are endemic to the both regions and nowhere else. Some taxonomies use "Leyte Plumed Warbler" for Visayan Miniature Babbler, which would be a better name except for the fact that there haven't been any records on Leyte for about 100 years. What can I say, bird names are hard.

Adult Black-crowned Babbler

Baby Black-crowned Babblers

Back out in the clearing, I got some decent looks at a Yellow-wattled Bulbul and a Rufous-fronted Tailorbird, the other endemic tailorbird in Samar (albeit shared with Mindanao). I decided to walk up the road a little bit more, which didn't get me many more birds but did get me some very cool plant life, including an endemic Dendrobium orchid, some pitcher plants, and three different species of begonias. 

Yellow-wattled

Rufous-fronted Tailorbird

Female Metallic-winged Sunbird

Female Purple-throated Sunbird

Spartolus minax, an endemic grasshopper

Nepenthes graciliflora, I think

Dendrobium uniflorum, a scare endemic orchid

Begonia longistipula, an endemic begonia

Some other endemic begonia I haven't IDed yet

I have no idea how to ID this flower

Philippine Ground Orchid

Yet another endemic begonia I haven't IDed yet

By then it was nearing midday and, while I would have been happy to stay out all day trying for a Pygmy Babbler I also needed to make it back to Sorsogon before the ferry stopped running. I was initially thinking of driving up the eastern coast of Samar, but my phone told me it would add an extra 3 hours to a 4-hour trip- presumably due to it being a twisty, unmaintained road. Given I was in a dinky little rental car I decided not to risk it, and went back the way I came instead. It was an uneventful drive back, and I managed to navigate the awful roads without incident with some old episodes of Naturally Adventurous as accompaniment- appropriate given it had certainly been one of my most unusual and adventurous birding trips yet. I arrived back home late in the evening, where I had a week and a half of precious downtime before heading out on yet another far-flung trip. Coming soon...