Mega Birds in the Valley

 

Most of August was fairly quiet for me, partly since Nikki and I both managed to catch Covid during our time in Manila (or at least I did, and passed it to her... oops). That had us quarantined for a couple of weeks, but thankfully we managed to escape with only mild cases and have since made a full recovery. The wonders of vaccines! Birding of course was entirely limited to a bit of time each day sitting on the balcony with binoculars, enough to keep up my checklist streak but not really all that satisfying. 

All of that changed dramatically in late August, when I headed to Mindanao to begin a 3-week period of travel that I'm only just now finishing up with. A few months ago, I found out that my friend Larry, who I had birded with in the US back when I had first moved there, was coming to the Philippines as part of a massive trip through island Southeast Asia. I've been trying very hard to get people to come visit me in the Philippines and go birding ever since the country opened up, so I was thrilled to finally get the chance to help others see Philippine birds. I put together a very comprehensive itinerary that took him to almost all of the essential birding sites in the Greater Mindanao region: Cebu, Bohol, Samar, Camiguin, and many different parts of Mindanao (he had already visited Luzon and Palawan so we focused on trying for a Mindanao cleanup instead). 

Sadly I have a semi-real job so I wasn't able to join for the entire trip, but I did set aside a week to join him for most of the Mindanao section of his trip, excluding PICOP as it's a horrible place I've sworn never to visit again if I can help it. Pete Simpson of Birding Mindanao joined us for the same bits, so with Mindanao's top birding guide and an unusually comprehensive list of sites it was bound to be a trip for the ages. 

I flew down to Davao on August 21, where Pete picked me up at the airport at noon and we headed east to the province of Davao de Oro (known up until recently as Compostela Valley or ComVal, which is what most people still use). We met up with Larry there, after he had finished a few days in PICOP care of Zardo the local guide. Larry had recently completed an extremely impressive clean-up of the Eastern Visayas, having a much better time in Samar than Pete and I did, and had done fairly well in PICOP. However, this was to be his first time at high elevation in Mindanao, which is full of odd and interesting endemic birds. It was an exciting visit for me as well, as this site held a couple of potential true-lifers and photo-lifers, both of which are extremely hard to come by for me in the Philippines, especially Mindanao. 

Our destination was the Mount Tagubud area, an excellent birding site at high elevation that Pete first explored back in 2016. The main impetus of exploring the area for birds had been to find a new spot for Lina's Sunbird, an extremely range-restricted endemic bird that can only be found on three mountains in southeastern Mindanao. The only previously known site for birders was Mount Pasian, which involved a terrifying motorcycle ride and the even more worrying very real possibility of encounters with the local "Nice People's Association", as well as very few other birds of interest. The sunbird did indeed prove to be there, along with a set of other difficult-to-near-impossible Mindanao endemics, most especially Mindanao Brown Dove, a stupidly rare bird only known from two sites. I'd visited the site only once before for an evening and a morning, and missed the brown dove as well as Bukidnon Woodcock, a much-more-common endemic that I just hadn't lucked into then, making these two birds my main targets for the visit. 

We met Larry and checked into our hotel in the town of Maragusan in the mid-afternoon, then headed immediately to the birding site for some late-afternoon birding. The site is at about 1400 meters above sea level, meaning that decent birding can be had all day unlike in the lowlands where most of the good birds will disappear after about 8 in the morning. As is typical at this site, practically the first bird when we arrived was Lina's Sunbird, this one a female foraging in the trees right next to us along with some more-common birds like Negros Leaf-warbler and Olive-capped Flowerpecker. 

Female Lina's Sunbird

Bamboo Orchid (Arundina graminifolia)

It was less than 30 minutes after we started birding that we heard the bouncing-ball call of a Mindanao Brown Dove! We rushed to where we had heard and, and after a few minutes we saw it fly right over our heads and disappear into the foliage. It then started calling once again hidden within the deep foliage, while we frantically searched for it from all possible angles. Eventually, we finally saw it perched hidden within a leafy tree, and were treated to amazing views for more than 20 minutes as it sat there calling! This was a mega sighting of a bird that's barely ever seen by birders, and is frequently missed even after this semi-reliable site has been discovered. We were able to get some of the only pictures ever taken of this bird, and even Larry (who refuses to bring a camera to the field) was able to get a digi-binned picture. 

Mindanao Brown-dove! An incredibly rare and difficult-to-find endemic

Eventually the dove flew off, and after many high-fives and fist-bumps, we moved on to look for other birds as the light started to fade. We happened across a very nice mixed flock with many Negros Leaf-warblers, as well as a nice male Lina's Sunbird, uncommon Mindanao White-eyes, and more distant but good endemics like Black-and-cinnamon Fantail and Rufous-headed Tailorbird. We even saw the Mindanao Brown Dove again as it flew across the road and perched silently for a moment before disappearing into the forest, never to be seen again.

Negros Leaf-warbler- the birds here in ComVal are properly yellow like most of this species complex, not like the wacky birds in Lake Holon.

Male Lina's Sunbird- maybe my favorite of the Philippine-endemic sunbirds, though there's lots of competition

Mindanao White-eye- actually a heleia, not a white-eye

Mindanao Brown Dove again!

Some kind of cool lichen (Stereocaulon sp.)

After night fell, we started looking for our night bird targets. After trolling some playback we had a Bukidnon Woodcock calling several times before falling silent, but it never came into view. This was an eBird lifer for me, but not a very satisfying one as it was a heard-only. A Mindanao Scops Owl also responded to playback very quickly but never came into view, leaving this as another one of my relatively few heard-only Philippine endemics. Eventually the birds fell silent and we headed back to our hotel for a late dinner and early bedtime.

The next morning, we arrived bright and early on site to try once again for nocturnal birds. This time the Bukidnon Woodcock flew in a little closer, and I caught a glimpse of it on my thermal scope before it disappeared again- maybe the lowest-imaginable bar for a "seen" lifer but better than nothing I suppose. The scops-owl was silent, and we ate our breakfast as we waited for it to get light enough to look for day birds. The morning started off excellently with a very confiding flock of Cinnamon Ibon, one of my favorite endemics, feeding near eye level. I hung back as Larry and Pete walked further onward to look for other birds to get some pictures, and ended up getting amazing views of a family group of Island Thrush as well. The birds on ComVal are are the usual kelleri subspecies of Mindanao high elevation birds, one of over 50 subspecies of this extremely taxonomically confusing species. 

Cinnamon Ibon- supposedly an Old World sparrow, but I don't buy it

Island Thrush

I met back up with Pete and Larry and we walked back slowly toward our starting point, birding as we went. It was a beautiful sunny morning, but the birds were still active, calling and feeding fairly close to us. We heard a Bagobo Babbler calling from a gully below us and it responded aggressively to our playback, but remained out of sight as this species always does. On the other hand, we had great views of some new birds for Larry, including Rufous-headed Tailorbird, Flame-crowned Flowerpecker, and the undescribed east Mindanao form of McGregor's Cuckooshrike. A major mixed flock included more Mindanao White-eyes, Olive-capped Flowerpeckers, and a juvenile Island Thrush.

Rufous-headed Tailorbird, one of the most adorable Mindanao endemics

Flame-crowned Flowerpeckers are extremely uncommon in the usual Mindanao mountain sites, but more common in ComVal and Lake Holon for whatever reason

McGregor's Cuckooshrikes in ComVal have spectacularly different songs than those in the rest of Mindanao, and might be an undescribed separate species. 

Mindanao White-eye

Olive-capped Flowerpecker, the most common flowerpecker in Mindanao mountains

Immature Island Thrush

The scenery near Mount Tagubud

On the way back we passed a steep gully cutting into the slope up above us. Pete pointed out that this would potentially be an ideal spot to attempt for Bagobo Babbler, as well as some of the other skulking birds like Red-eared Parrotfinch and Long-tailed Ground-warbler. Larry and I were more than happy to go check this out, being the young and adventurous birders that we were (and more importantly, having never seen Bagobo Babbler before). This involved a serious scramble up steep, wet slopes, sometimes sending mini-avalanches of rocks tumbling down behind us. Seeing a Bagobo Babbler generally means finding a dark spot in a nearly-inaccessible gully to sit down in and waiting for one to come by, and that's precisely what we did. It took over an hour, though this was broken up by some other good birds: a Long-tailed Ground-warbler that shot in when I tried some playback, and a Red-eared Parrotfinch that shot in and then flew off before I could get a decent picture. The ground-warbler in particular was nice as it has a different song than the birds I'd seen before in Luzon, or even elsewhere in Mindanao like Mount Kitanglad and Lake Holon; it's likely these birds will also be split to become new species as well at some point.

Long-tailed Ground-warbler

I promise this is actually a Red-eared Parrotfinch

Finally, about 45 minutes after we'd clambered up into the gully, it happened: we heard the high-pitched (almost inaudible to me with my awful hearing) song of a Bagobo Babbler from the thick underbrush right behind us, and soon after a bird flew across the gully, perching on an exposed branch very briefly before disappearing again. This is about the best view one can hope for of a Bagobo Babbler, as they're superlatively secretive, running quickly along the ground in the thickest of undergrowth. Up until recently there was exactly one picture ever taken of a wild bird, by Rob Hutchinson (of course). It's only within the past couple of years that photographers in Mindanao have located nests and set up blinds so that now anyone with the right connections can show up and get pictures of nesting babblers. I'll probably do that at some point so I can photograph this species, but it feels nice to have first seen it the "usual" way, and to have gotten an excellent view that very few birders have gotten outside a hide.

The Bagobo Babbler gully- not seen but probably singing in the pic is the actual Bagobo Babbler

Back outside the gully, we met up with Pete at a flowering tree full of butterflies. We heard the call of an endangered Pinsker's Hawk-eagle, and soon had one come in and fly directly over our heads! It made several passes right over us before perching on the other side of the valley, giving us the best views any of us had ever had of this very rare and declining bird. 

Pinsker's Hawk-eagle!

Painted Jezebel (Delias hyparete)

Golden Birdwing (Troides rhadamantus), an absolutely massive butterfly

Delias diaphana

A bit further uphill, we stopped for a calling White-browed Shortwing that seemed to be rather nearby. Pete played back a song he'd recorded at this site earlier, and we instantly had a pair of shortwings shoot in towards us, perching so close I had to switch my lens to macro to get pictures! It appeared to be a male and a female, but the "female" bird started singing a song we had thought was a male song- so either this was an immature male, or both sexes have very loud, elaborate songs, which would be rather unusual. It was my first time ever getting this good of looks at this taxon (the high-altitude shortwings in Mindanao are certainly a different species, sometimes called Mount Apo Shortwing), and Pete and I both got what were almost certainly the best pictures of a wild bird ever taken, and maybe the only ones of an immature male if that's what this was. 

Mount Apo Shortwing! Most likely an immature male.

Female-type Mount Apo Shortwing giving a male-type song- immature male?

Eurema blanda

Luzon Grass Dart (Taractrocera luzona)

We spent a while scanning an open viewpoint of Mount Tagubud proper for raptors (Philippine Eagle theoretically nests on the mountain, but has never been seen from this site before), but didn't see much. Instead we headed downhill and had lunch, then returned to the hotel to freshen up and take a nap. 

By then we had essentially no targets at the site: we had managed to clean up all the birds, including the tough ones like Mindanao Brown Dove and Bagobo Babbler. Thus, it didn't necessarily make sense to return to the site for afternoon birding. We had the option to take the afternoon off, or explore what appeared to be a new road being built across the mountains that seemed to go through excellent forest. The previous administration's policy decision (likely to be continued by the current one) of constructing new roads through forested areas in unstable terrain will almost certainly be an environmental disaster as it leads to the deforestation of the last remaining pristine forests in the country, all with the tacit approval of the DENR, which has a habit of selling land in protected areas or indigenous ancestral domain so that rich people can come in and cut down trees. Still, in the short term it means that lots of potential new birding sites are appearing. 

Obviously we decided to explore this new road, and we set out mid-afternoon to see what we could find. Though the road looked complete on the satellite image, it proved to be extremely difficult going, climbing from near sea level to above 1,600 meters on a zig-zagging dirt road full of potholes and precipitous drop-offs. The beginning part of the road went through scrubby woodland and vegetable fields in land that had recently been full of old-growth rainforest, a depressing view made even worse by the scars of recent landslides, the result of rampant deforestation that destabilizes hillsides, floods rivers, buries villages, and will probably lead to the repeated destruction of all these fancy new roads since no-one in local governments understands (or cares about) cause and effect. I love the Philippines, but the ongoing and deliberate destruction of the few remaining forests in the country thanks to the greed and shortsightedness of corporations, oligarchs, government officials, and the agencies meant to protect the environment gets extremely discouraging sometimes. I remain cautiously optimistic that things will change, and I know there are certain figures in government and civil society, including the current secretary of the DENR, who are doing their best to change things, but it's difficult to be hopeful at times.

The scar of an absolutely massive landslide, with denuded mountain slopes all around

We got up to about 1000 meters above sea level before the road got too tough even for Pete's 4x4 car and expert driving. It took lots of maneuvering around on a narrow road with passing motorcycles before we were able to turn around and head back down, having never gotten into the good forest the satellite view promised us. If I ever find myself in that region again with some spare time, I would probably just hitch a ride up with a local on their motorcycle, as those seem to navigate the dirt road much better than an actual car. 

We did stop for birding on the way down, which didn't get us much of interest besides a calling Rufous-headed Tailorbird, at a surprisingly low elevation, and a calling Philippine Leaf-warbler, at a surprisingly high elevation. The best bird was one Pete found while waiting for us by his car: a member of the undescribed mid-elevation Mindanao form of White-browed Shortwing, sometimes called Morris's Shortwing. These birds look very much like the "Mount Apo Shortwing", but have a completely different song that sounds more like the shortwings elsewhere in the Philippines. Whatever they really are, there's lots of taxonomic work that needs to be done in this part of the country. Pete was able to call the bird in and, to my surprise, I actually managed to photograph it, making me one of two people ever to have photographed both forms of shortwing in Mindanao (Pete of course being the other), and certainly the first person ever to photograph both types in one day.

Male Morris's Shortwing

We returned to our hotel in the late afternoon and were asleep soon after dinner. The next day was our final day on Mount Tagubud, and we got there very early in the morning to try once again for night birds. Sadly, Mindanao Scops-owl was a no-show and we only heard one chattering call from the Bukidnon Woodcock, although we were surprised to see a Philippine Nightjar along the road. It was a slow start to birding as the sun rose, and we were very thankful we had already seen all the relevant targets. There was only one small mixed flock to be seen, and I was only able to get decent pictures of Philippine Cuckoo-dove and Mindanao White-eye. I did managed to flush a Red-eared Parrotfinch out of a ditch, but annoyingly enough it once again flew off before I could get an in-focus picture.

Philippine Cuckoo-dove

Mindanao White-eye

Metapocyrtus kuehni, a gorgeous endemic weevil recently discovered by Philippine weevil expert Ann Cabras

Another gorgeous weevil (Pachryrhynchus sp.)

Dendrobium tiongii

Mount Pasian, one of the other two mountains known to hold Lina's Sunbird

Since there wasn't much else to look for, Larry and I decided to clamber up into the Bagobo gully to see if we could get another look at it. The bird was quieter than it had been the previous day and we never got any looks, though we did managed to see yet another Red-eared Parrotfinch and a very cute little endemic toad. Back out on the main trail Pete told us he'd just had another Bagobo Babbler sighting, and we hung out in his other spot for half an hour or so. The bird responded to playback but never came into view.

Sadly, this is currently my best-ever picture of a Red-eared Parrotfinch

Mueller's Stream Toad (Ansonia muelleri), a very cool little Mindanao endemic

Some kind of endemic damselfly (Igneocnemis sp.), possibly unknown to science

By then it was mid-morning, and we decided to head out from ComVal and head to our next destinations in the Davao region. It had been an incredibly successful few days at this site, with all the major targets seen, several dozen lifers for Larry, and even two lifers for me. Another couple weeks of epic birding travel were to follow, but those are for my next blog post..