Naturalisting at SNA

 Following Mount Tagubud and Mount Apo, the third and final stretch of my Mindanao bird-a-thon with Larry and Pete was to my two favorite birding sites on the island: SNA and Lake Holon. I had just been to both of those the previous month and had a great time, so I was looking forward to returning. Unfortunately, neither of them were quite as good as they had been my last visit, mostly due to weather reasons, but there were still some amazing birds.

From Kidapawan, where we had spent a morning up on the slopes of Mount Apo, we drove west out of North Cotabato province toward Sultan Kudarat, passing through a little bit of the province of Maguindanao along the way. While most of Mindanao is perfectly safe, this was one bit where we were sure to pass straight through without stopping. It's a bit of a shame, as this was quite near to the famous Liguasan Marsh, which is the last refuge in the Philippines for birds such as Comb-crested Jacanas and Oriental Darters- unfortunately along with several thousand armed militants. We did get a few new province birds for Maguindanao like Blue-tailed Bee-eater and Pied Bush-chat.

It was, as always, a bit of a scary drive from the lowlands of the Allah River Valley up to the plateau that holds SNA, with bits of the road either totally washed out or threatening to give way beneath Pete's car. It's always a dodgy affair to build a road going up the precipitous slope of the western Mindanao escarpment, but I can't imagine it helps that all the mountains have been completely deforested. It's a sad state of affairs when people are displaced to the point that they have no choice but to cut down all the trees on a 70-degree slope and plant a little bit of corn, that will likely produce for only a couple of years before all the soil is washed away thanks to the loss of the trees that stabilize it and keep it fertile. 

In SNA town we made our usual courtesy call at the local government headquarters, where we said hello to MJ at the tourism office and to Roy who would once again accompany us. It was near sunset by that time and we were exhausted after several strenuous days of birding (particularly Pete, who had done the entirety of the driving), so we immediately headed to our hotel and slept early. We had a long target list for the next day, as Larry had a number of misses from his time in PICOP before we met up with him, among them Black-bibbed Cuckooshrike, Blue-capped Kingfisher, Wattled Broadbill, Philippine Oriole, and Philippine Leafbird. I had seen all of these on my previous visit so I was cautiously optimistic, but we had our work cut out for us. 

The next morning we headed out bright and early as usual to check in at the Kuden barangay hall and then head to the birding area. After the terrifying driving experience of my last visit with Cheta I was hoping that the roads would be better, given that there was supposedly "road improvement" happening when we had been there. Alas, that was not to be the case- the road improvement team hadn't bothered to do anything about the enormous potholes or mud traps on the road, meaning that even with Pete's 4x4 SUV and expert driving it was a white-knuckle driving experience. 

We still arrived at my preferred starting spot around sunset, and though it was a bit quieter than the last time the birds were still calling and active in the early morning mist. Black-bibbed Cuckooshrikes, Philippine Orioles, and a Philippine Leafbird were calling, but annoyingly enough never showed themselves. After trolling playback for a while we were able to hear the shrieking calls of a Blue-capped Kingfisher, which we eventually located with the help of my thermal scope. We had a very cute family of Philippine Falconets cuddled up on a high branch as they like to do, and Larry managed to spot a calling Pink-bellied Imperial Pigeon, which stayed on the same branch for over an hour, letting me get my first-ever photos of this species! It's a beautiful and scarce endemic, so that was certainly a highlight of the day for me.

Blue-capped Kingfisher

Philippine Falconets doing their early morning cuddling

Pink-bellied Imperial Pigeon!

Delias henningia

Mindanao Splash Frog (Staurois natator), I think

Pink-bellied Imperial Pigeon calling

Our local companions at sunrise

We passed a spot I remembered having a calling Pitta at my previous visits, and sure enough after a quick burst of playback we heard an Azure-breasted Pitta calling from a ways off the road. Larry and I took a little side trail to look for it, and along the way spotted a beautiful male Philippine Trogon, which was surprisingly enough a lifer for Larry. We eventually located the Azure-breasted Pitta calling from deep within a thick tangle of foliage, and after quite a bit of trying got decent views of it. On the way back we ran into a flock of Mindanao Pygmy Babblers and surprisingly enough another Blue-capped Kingfisher, which gave much better views than the first one.

Philippine Trogon

Mindanao Pygmy Babbler

Azure-breasted Pitta

Blue-capped Kingfisher doing the weird kingfisher tail thing

Some kind of sharpshooter

Some kind of iridescent fly

Back on the road, Pete recognized the song of White-fronted Tit, and we were soon on a group of four of them flying across the road calling high above us. SNA is the only place we know of in Mindanao where White-fronted Tit still hangs on, and it's a tough bird even here, as they tend to stay high in the treetops and are scarce in general. Still, it may now be the best place in the Philippines to find this species, as they've apparently mostly disappeared from Subic where they were reasonably gettable even just 5 years ago. Soon after we had another mega bird: Pete saw a couple of monarchs fly across the road in front of him, and soon got them to sing in response to playback- Celestial Monarchs! We never got to see them but this was still only the second time I've recorded this bird at SNA, so it's good to know they're still there. I suspect that there are some parts of the area I have yet to explore where they might be more common, I just haven't found them yet.

By this time it was mid-morning and it was turning out to be a bright, sunny cloudless day. That's great if you're going to the beach or something, but in lowland forest that means that the birds get quiet very quickly. Still we pressed on, and had a few more good birds- a flock of Green Imperial Pigeons we tried very hard to turn into Spotted Imperial Pigeons, numerous Yellow-breasted Fruit Doves and a Black-chinned Fruitdove, and calling Mindanao Blue Fantails and Yellow-bellied Whistlers we never got good looks at. We did see a group of nesting Philippine Falconets visiting their nest hole, in a tree where I've also seen Coletos and Blue-crowned Racket-tails using the numerous holes, as it if's a natural apartment building. As the birds got quiet, the insect activity took off; SNA is also a gold mine for cool insects of many types, shapes and sizes, and I can still get nice butterfly and moth lifers even now on my 7th or 8th visit. 

Philippine Falconet in its nest hole

Tarucus waterstradti

Orange Skimmer

Common Three-ring

Some kind of Begonia

A young Coloratobistus dilawitimpakpak, I think

Formosan Swift

Common Line Blue

Common Hedge Blue

Eustenogaster spinicauda, an endemic wasp

Hypena gonospilalis

Moduza thespias

We drove further into the forest, until we got to a stretch of road that was too dodgy even for Pete's car. All of this was perfectly drivable a few years ago when I was there last, but dirt roads fall apart pretty quickly when they're not maintained regularly. It was fairly quiet by then, although it was the time of day when birds are likely to come soaring over- this time it was a Pinsker's Hawk-eagle and a nice group of swifts, including Pygmy Swiftlets, Grey-rumped Swiftlets, Philippine Swiftlets, and a typically weird-shaped Philippine Spine-tailed Swift. The insect life was also spectacular- hot, sunny weather isn't great for birding, but it's great for looking for bugs which is a reasonable consolation.

Pinsker's Hawk-eagle

Philippine Spine-tailed Swift

White Tiger

Wallacean (Zethera hestioides)

Neogea nocticolor, a spider that appears to be mimicking a butterfly with its web

Fluffy Tit, fairly common in mainland Asia but quite rare in the Philippines

Paper Kite (Idea leuconoe)

Some kind of moth caterpillar (Traminda sp. I think)

Ragadia melindena

Lorquin's Satyr

Three-spot Grass Yellow

Rhinocypha colorata

Pale Ringlets (Acrophtalmia leto)

Some kind of robber fly

Some kind of stripy cricket (Rhicnogryllus sp.)

A beautiful and poisonous-looking tussock moth caterpillar

Emerald-banded Skimmer

Another beautiful sharpshooter (Cicadellinae sp.)

Forest Quaker

Black-kneed Meadow Katydid

Some kind of net-winged beetle

Some kind of hoverfly

What makes SNA good birding is that there are roads running directly through the forest, making it unusually accessible for birding (scary driving aside). It also means you run into people coming through occasionally, even in such a remote area. Usually that just means smiles and waves, or at worst a weird look, but this time we had one of the oddest encounters I've had yet out in SNA. As we were peering into the roadside forest, we heard the puttering of a motorcycle behind us, and I turned around to see a young 20-something guy riding along with a younger kid I assumed was his younger brother. It's the sort of thing that happens daily here, but this time upon seeing Pete, Larry and I the driver immediately freaked out. He gunned his accelerator, swerved to avoid Larry, skidded on the dirt road, and fell off his motorcycle. Instead of checking on his little brother or his motorcycle, he proceeded to sprint down the road away from us at full tilt, never to return. 

There was a moment of consternation where we were worried he might be being pursued by armed insurgents, but no, there was no-one there but us, the birds, a slightly bruised child and a still-running motorcycle. I'm very tall and beardy and can admittedly look a bit haggard and fearsome after a full day of birding, but I'm not sure I've ever terrified anyone enough to make them run away and abandon family and property. I was trying to convince Roy and Dodong, our minders, that they should just keep the motorcycle considering this dude was nice enough to leave the key in it, but they instead drove it off to find the runaway man. They got no other explanation besides that he was "afraid", leaving this one of the most surreal experiences I've ever had while birding. 

After some walking we ended up in a very nice little shaded valley that seemed like the perfect place to park ourselves and hang out in the heat of the day. There was a sizable mixed flock with Mindanao Blue Fantails, Yellow-bellied Whistlers, Philippine Leaf Warblers, Mindanao Pygmy Babblers, and our first Rusty-crowned Babblers of the trip, which seemed to be collecting spiderwebs to build nests. Larry spotted a little brown flycatcher that at first we thought might be a never-before-photographed female Little Slaty Flycatcher. We eventually managed to relocate it and after a while established it as a Cryptic Flycatcher, down at the lowest end of its altitudinal range, giving a song that as far as I know has never been recorded for this species. The bird was acting weird in general, so we suspected it may be attending a nest with young birds. A bit later I heard several small birds giving alarm calls, and used that to locate an immature Blue-capped Kingfisher (the third one of the day!), perhaps harrassing a nest or something.

Rusty-crowned Babbler

Cryptic Flycatcher

Blue-capped Kingfisher- these are actually very uncommon and difficult to see birds, despite how often they've been popping up on my SNA blog posts!

Amblychia praeumbrata, a beautiful geometrid moth

In the early afternoon it started to rain, first as a drizzle we hoped might jump-start bird activity. Eventually, it became clear that it wasn't going to stop, so we got back in Pete's car and made the long, scary drive back to our hotel before the roads became impassibly muddy. It wasn't quite as long of a birding day as we hoped, but we did appreciate the chance for some rest and an early bedtime.

The next morning, we made the decision to try owling, as Larry still needed a number of owls, including Everett's and Giant Scops Owls and Mindanao Hawk-owl. The state of the roads was such that we needed to get up at 2:30 AM in order to get to the site on time, a brutal ask for Pete who nonetheless agreed to do so (thanks Pete!). We tried owling in the same spot we'd stopped the previous day, which got us calling Everett's Scops-owl and Chocolate Boobook, and after some effort a good look at a pair of Mindanao Hawk-owls. 

Mindanao Hawk-owl

As usual at this site we were socked in by heavy fog as the sun rose, which meant we were able to hear but not see a calling Metallic Pigeon in the trees nearby. As soon as the fog had lifted a little bit we started walking around in search of Larry's last targets. Unfortunately it was another relatively quiet morning, one of the quietest I've had at this site. We did eventually get good looks at a calling male Black-and-white Triller and distant looks at Philippine Oriole and Black-bibbed Cuckooshrike, three of Larry's targets. There were also several Philippine Cuckoo-doves, a Philippine Drongo-cuckoo, and many Bar-bellied Cuckooshrikes, along with more cool insects.

Philippine Drongo-cuckoo

Bar-bellied Cuckooshrike

Some kind of striking stick insect

A very large huntsman spider of some sort

Some kind of scopula moth

Some kind of cool robber fly

Janardana Bushbrown

Some kind of little ichneumonid wasp

Ancyra Blue

The day soon got sunny and even quieter. We still had to drive all the way to General Santos that day, so we elected to leave the site by mid-morning. Larry and I took another short walk down the road in search of some last-minute additions. This worked out quite well- Larry spotted a few Spotted Imperial Pigeons flying across the road, another lifer for him, and we got on a fruiting tree full of Southern Rufous Hornbills, the flagship bird of SNA. I absolutely love large hornbills, and will take any chance I can get to watch them doing their thing. 

Awkward-looking juvenile Southern Rufous Hornbill

Male Southern Rufous Hornbill- this one seems to be missing the tip of his lower mandible

By then it was 8:30 in the morning, and we decided to wrap things up there and head out of the site, as there was a great deal of driving ahead of us. I was originally hoping to make this one blog post, but I think I'll leave Lake Holon for the next post to avoid making this one into yet another small novel.