Bulusan Getaway

As seems to frequently be the case, I didn't have nearly as much time back in Sorsogon as I would have liked before I jetted off to another destination. Still I did have one free weekend, which Nikki and I decided to use to head back to Mount Bulusan, mostly to scout out sites for our upcoming wedding, but with a morning of birding at Bulusan Lake squeezed in. We contacted kuya Noel, our usual guide, and after overnighting in a nearby hotel met up with him at Bulusan Lake before sunrise on July 3. 

It proved to be a frustrating quiet morning birding-wise, even by Luzon standards. My recent travels outside of Luzon (in Panay and Mindanao at least, not so much Samar) have reminded me that birds on most of the island are frustratingly sparse, even by Philippines standards. The bird diversity seems to be at least as high as on Mindanao, but the numbers are just very low almost everywhere. I have to admit that, much as I love Philippines birding, there's something extremely frustrating about spending hours in excellent-quality habitat with barely any birds calling. Thankfully other parts of the country are much birder, I just apparently had to choose to live in one of the more challenging spots. 

The walk in started very nicely with a beautiful male Spotted Wood Kingfisher that posed nicely for pictures, the only decent bird pics of the morning. The Luzon Bleeding-hearts were calling, but remained frustratingly out of view as they almost always do. There was also a noisy group of Philippine Trogons chasing each other through the forest but they never posted for good pictures. 

Spotted Wood Kingfisher

Some kind of Arctiinae tiger moth, but no idea which one...

Straight Pierrot (Caleta roxus), a nice butterfly lifer

Things were even quieter as we went around the lake- in the entirety of the 4-kilometer hike, we encountered precisely zero mixed flocks! Even by Sorsogon standards that's pretty disappointing, and it meant that our list for the day was fairly underwhelming. Bird-wise, the only interesting finds were a couple of Philippine Trogons and a group of rare-for-Bicol Black-naped Monarchs. Thankfully, there was enough in the way of cool insects and herps that the lack of birds wasn't as frustrating as it could have been. 

Female Philippine Trogon

Yellow-striped Slender Tree Skink (Lipinia pulchella)

Platymantis dorsalis

Philippine Flying Dragon (Draco spilopterus)

A very impressive dead leaf-mimic grasshopper (Erianthella sp.)

Eumelea sp.

Gasteracantha clavigera

A very large and colorful robber fly of some sort

Some kind of leaf beetle (Aulacophora sp.)

Zethera pimplea

Begonia mindorensis, yet another endemic begonia

Back at the parking lot, we paid kuya Noel and headed out. There were a few huge beetles and a cool moth, finishing up what had been underwhelming birding but pretty solid overall naturalist-ing that morning.

Some kind of gorgeous flower chafer (Agestrata sp.)

Xylotrupes philippinensis, an endemic rhinoceros beetle

Some kind of cool slug moth (Parasa sp.)

We ended the morning with 38 species, disappointingly low for 4 hours or so of birding. Still, it was a nice excuse to get out of the house and get some exercise in, and I can never complain about getting good looks at Philippine Trogons or Spotted Wood Kingfishers. We headed home from there and soon afterwards I jetted off to Mindanao for work- as always, never a dull moment!