Panay Part 2: Exploring Sibalom

 

After spending some time around Aningalan, I still had a few days left in southern Antique before flying back to Manila and then Bicol. I had several meetings and so could only spend half days birding, but nonetheless I decided that there was enough time to take a look at Sibalom Natural Park, located in the municipality of the same name. Sibalom NP covers a reasonably-sized bit of lowland forest in the southern part of the Central Panay Mountain Range, one of the few remaining forest patches in that part of the island. Along with the usual Western Visayas endemic birds, I was hoping I might be able to find some of the more uncommon endemics such as White-winged Cuckooshrike and Negros Scops-owl, or even some of the Panay specialty birds such as Negros Bleeding-heart or Walden's Hornbill. Both are critically endangered endemics that generally require tough hikes to find, but are known to have occurred in Sibalom at the very least in the past, so I was cautiously hopeful.

I decided to visit the park on a Tuesday afternoon to arrange a guide and entrance permit for the following morning. Getting to Sibalom NP itself is more difficult than one might think: from the town of Sibalom I drove for about 20 minutes before arriving at Imparayan, the barangay closest to the park headquarters. Though there are signs pointing to the park, it's unclear how to get there from the barangay hall. After I asked around the locals pointed me to a narrow cement road that descended precipitously from the town before ending suddenly in a rice field. From there I had to walk another 300 meters along a muddy trail through rice fields, dodging unfriendly cows before arriving at a nice metal bridge crossing the Sibalom River to the park itself. 

Sibalom NP from the outside

The bridge across the Sibalom River

Once across the bridge, the path to the park headquarters mysteriously turns from a muddy pathway to a wide, well-constructed concrete stairway with lots of rest areas leading up to the ranger station. I have no idea why they decided to spend all that money only on the park interior, leaving tourists to pick their way across muddy cow pastures to get there, but it was nice to have an easily navigable path the rest of the way. I certainly don't envy all the workers who had to schlep the several tons of concrete on foot to make it, though.

Just as I crossed the river, I ran into a mixed flock with Visayan Fantails, Visayan Bulbuls, Black-naped Monarchs, and, surprisingly, a couple of White-winged Cuckooshrikes, which I figured must be a good sign for the following day. I walked slowly up to the park headquarters, an uphill walk on nice concrete stairs, but didn't see any more birds. That was probably because the forest on the outskirts of the park, which looks amazing from a distance, is actually one big monoculture plantation of non-native Mahogany trees, which look nice but hold precisely zero birds. 

Once I arrived at the park headquarters, the rangers were shocked to see that I'd made my way there on my own, as apparently I was supposed to stop in the barangay for an entry permit and guide (in my defense, there were no signs anywhere saying this). They were happy to assist me once I explained that I wanted to go birding there, and walked with me back to Imparayan to meet with Bhong, who works for the park and helped arrange an entrance fee and guides for me the following morning. The guides turned out to be the two park rangers who I had just met, as well as Bhong and his cousin Wyn. I ventured to ask them if they had seen any Walden's Hornbill recently (dulungan in Kinaray-a, the local language), but to my disappointment I was told that it had been more than a year since the most recent record. Still, I resolved to give things a try.

The following day, I met with Bong and Wyn bright and early before dawn in Imparayan, and we walked to the park, arriving in the forest about a half hour before sunrise, as I hoped to look for owls. Wyn took us to a trail he had been along before that seemed good, and indeed I was soon listening to several calling Luzon Hawk-owls, and then finally a single Negros Scops-owl! I had only seen them before in Liptong Woodland on Negros, so it was great to see one again up close, and in an area they're not supposed to be in according to the latest field guide. As the sun rose, there were many calling Spotted Wood Kingfishers and Philippine Nightjars in the pre-dawn darkness.

Negros Scops-owl!

At the park headquarters, we met with the park rangers and proceeded uphill into the park proper. I had mentioned that my main target was the dulungan, so as the first stop they took me to the "canopy walkway". I was excited to here there was one, as canopy walkways are a birder's dream, particularly when looking for canopy-dwelling birds like hornbills. The nice concrete stairway ended after a while and then it was a steep hike up to the canopy walkway, without too many birds as most of it was still through the mahogany forest. I did get a small mixed flock of Visayan Fantails and Visayan Bulbuls, and heard a few Visayan Shamas singing. Near the top of the small hill where the walkway was, we happened upon a Buff-eared Brown Dove feeding on a small tree full of berries.

Buff-eared Brown Dove

Before we got to the walkway, Bhong warned me to manage my expectations, and he was unfortunately correct. There were two issues with the canopy walkway: first, both the walkway and the observation tower only got into the middle of the treetops, meaning that the view was mostly just of tree branches. Second, the "canopy" walkway was, uh, four feet off the ground. I'm not sure why one would go to all the effort and expense of building a hanging walkway at the top of a steep hill only to have it go no higher than the average stepladder, but it meant that from a birder's standpoint it was about as useful as a screen door on a submarine. 

The very optimistically-named canopy walkway

The view from the walkway

That's not to say that I didn't enjoy the walkway; from one part of it I could peer through the trees to the side of Mount Poras, the highest point of the park, which was the most recent place Walden's Hornbills had been observed. I had some of the usual mixed flock birds such as Visayan Bulbul, Visayan Fantail, Visayan Balicassiao, and Elegant Tit, and disappointingly lots of Black-naped Orioles, which shouldn't be this far into a forest area. Sadly, there were no hornbills to be heard and seen. The coolest wildlife find, however, was a beautiful North Philippine Temple Pitviper coiled up next to the start of the walkway. I've seen precious few snakes in the Philippines, despite the impressive diversity of them present in the country, so it was great to finally have a close encounter with this one. 

North Philippine Temple Pitviper!

After a while scanning from the walkway, we decided to head further into the park in search of better-quality forest. Unfortunately, the introduced mahogany forest continued quite a ways into the park, meaning that the first couple of hours of birding were mostly spent picking our way through bad-quality forest. Things picked up a little bit as we got in further, with the highlight being a nice little family group of Yellow-faced Flamebacks. There were several Visayan Hornbills calling in the distance (sadly none of them were Walden's Hornbills), and in amidst the noisy Black-naped Orioles I heard a single calling Philippine Oriole, a rare bird indeed in the western Visayas. The lowlight was happening upon a hornbill nesting hole with a ladder right next to it, put there by poachers to steal nestlings. If Walden's Hornbills really are gone from the national park, I think I can guess the reason why...

Yellow-faced Flameback

Nesting hole with a nest-robbing ladder right beside it

Common Banded Demon (Notocryptos paralysos)

With the lower elevation forest being a bust, we decided to hike up towards Mount Poras where the deeper forest was located. This meant more scrambling up steep slopes, this time in the mid-morning heat, but the forest quality greatly improved, and there were more birds around even though it was later in the day. We ran into a big mixed flock with Visayan Fantails, Visayan Bulbuls, Black-naped Monarchs, Sulphur-billed Nuthatches, and even a couple of White-winged Cuckooshrikes, and later on one that also had a couple Maroon-naped Sunbirds and a leaf-warbler of uncertain ID- most likely a Philippine Leaf-warbler, which hasn't yet been confirmed to be present on Panay.

Visayan Fantail

White-winged Cuckooshrike

Maroon-naped Sunbird

Visayan Bulbuls

Most tantalizing was a single loud, honking call heard in the distance. When I heard it my first thought was that it was a big bird of some sort, which was confirmed when it was soon after accompanied by the sound of very heavy wingbeats. I suspect that it may have, in fact, been a Walden's Hornbill, but I have been unable to find any recordings of them giving a single-note call so I'm not going to attempt to claim it as a record. We scrambled over some steep slopes to try and get closer, but never heard the call again, or saw any hornbills. There were lots of well-forested gullies around as well that seemed potentially good for Negros Bleeding-heart, but I never encountered any which wasn't surprising given it was the middle of the day.

We eventually reached a clearing in the forest with a small rice field and a house, apparently owned by Nong Tambu, who has lived inside the park for years, probably since before it was a park. There was no-one there except a carabao, and we hung out in the clearing for a little while in hopes a hornbill might fly over (none did). I finally decided to call it a day, as it was getting very hot and sunny, and I needed to return to my hotel for a meeting. I had lunch with the rangers back at the HQ, and then walked out to the village with Bhong and Wyn. On the way out I had good looks at a Black-belted Flowerpecker and another Visayan Fantail, as well as some cool Amorphophallus plants, though sadly none were in bloom. There was also a huge flock of House Swifts above the rice fields outside the park- though mostly an urban species, they also nest in some riverside caves in Sibalom. 

Visayan Fantail

Black-belted Flowerpecker

House Swifts

Wizard (Rhinopalpa polynice)

Some kind of very cool stick insect- not visible are its bright pink wings

Common White-flanked Water Spider

Amorphophallus of some kind

Overall it was a fun visit to Sibalom, even though I was disappointed to miss out on some of my major target birds- particularly Walden's Hornbill, which I suspect is now either mostly or entirely extirpated from the park. I think the best strategy for birding in the park is to start very early and immediately head toward the deep forest on Mount Poras, as the forest on the outskirts is almost entirely non-native trees that won't hold much of interest. I wouldn't be surprised at all if there is Negros Bleeding-heart still around in the deepest parts of the forest, and even a steep hike into there would be far easier than the multi-day slog that I hear is necessary to see them in northwestern Panay (sadly, I'll probably be doing that slog sooner or later). The rangers and the park management also do a great job, and were extremely helpful in arranging park access for me and showing me around the park. While at present there's not much at Sibalom that's not much easier in Aningalan, I hope more birders can also go and explore, as I'm positive there are more interesting birds and other wildlife to be found there.

I had to spend all of the following afternoon and the next day working, which meant I only had an evening and a morning left in Antique before I had to leave Panay. I left the town of San Jose, where I was staying, in the later afternoon and stopped by an estuary at the coast, where I hoped to find some water birds to boost my province list. It was rainy and windy and I didn't see much besides a couple of Common Greenshanks, a Common Redshank, and a few Greater Crested Terns. I then went back up the mountain to Aningalan, where I once again stayed at the Casa de Montero. 

It was dark by the time I got up there, so I decided to try some owling in the high-altitude forest. I don't generally enjoy solo owling, but this time there was a full moon and a cloudless sky, making everything just a little bit less spooky. In fact, it ended up being a thoroughly enjoyable evening, with lots of Philippine Nightjars, Philippine Frogmouths, and Luzon Hawk-owls calling all over. The best was a Negros Scops-owl calling from the same clearing I'd had Yellow-faced Flameback, Metallic Pigeon, and other birds in earlier- clearly an excellent birding spot! Sadly I never got a good look at the owl, which was fine since I'd photographed one just the previous day. I also saw a small mouse of some sort, and a feeding fruit bat of some sort. Back at the Casa de Montero were the usual spectacular moths, including a few new ones.

Philippine Frogmouth

Some unknown mouse

Lesser Rice-Leafroller moth

Some kind of beautiful uraniid moth (Pseudomicronia sp.)

A striking little crambid of some sort (Nacoleia sp.)

Another weird little crambid (Paraponyx sp.)

The next morning I had an hour or so of birding before I had to head to Iloilo and fly out. I decided to spend some more time in the high-elevation forest in hopes of more suspicious babblers or other interesting things. Unfortunately it ended up being extremely quiet, with barely any birds singing or seen. I did get good looks at a pair of White-bellied Woodpeckers and another Metallic Pigeon, and on the way out had a close look at a perched Brahminy Kite.

White-bellied Woodpecker

Metallic Pigeon

Brahminy Kite

Ptychandra leucogyne, a surprise butterfly lifer

Some kind of carpenter bee (Xylocopa sp.)

I might have wanted to stop in a few more places, but my flight was that afternoon and I had to make the long, twisty drive back to Iloilo. I admit it was a little annoying to spend this long in Panay and miss most of the specialty birds there, but all of those require a long drive and some very strenuous hiking, which I just didn't have time for. I suspect my next visit will include all of those, however...