Subic is weird

Between a month full of birding in Sorsogon and some end-of-year international travel, Nikki and I had one more birding outing in the Philippines planned for 2022. Nikki had to be in Manila for work at the end of November and there were a few national holidays in early December, so we decided to take the opportunity to do a working vacation for a couple of weeks in northern Luzon, a spot we had been wanting to visit for a while.

The ultimate destination of the trip was Ilocos Norte, on the far northern tip of Luzon. It was an area I'd never been before, and one that held a number of potential lifers, both Philippine endemics and uncommon migrants. The first stop, however, was Subic Bay, a well-known birding spot that I'd been to a couple of times before (in fact, it was my first major birding trip with Nikki, way back in 2016!), although not for some years. There were a number of birds at Subic that I hadn't seen since and still needed decent pictures of, and the remote chance of a new Philippines bird such as Grey-headed Fish Eagle.

This being a very long trip, I was renting a Toyota Innova from a Manila-based rental car company. The car itself was great, being spacious enough to fit the necessary gear for a long birding trip and with enough horsepower to get up some tough mountain roads. The rental agency on the other hand turned out to one of the worst companies I've ever had the misfortune to deal with. Suffice it to say that if you're renting a car in Manila, be sure to read the negative reviews before deciding on a rental agency! 

After a nice morning of birding at La Mesa Ecopark with some new members of the Wild Bird Club, we headed out on the afternoon of November 30. Rental car in hand, we made our first stop for some errands in Binondo, Manila's famous Chinatown. This proved to be a bad idea, as we got caught in some of the worst traffic I've ever seen, spending 3 hours to drive less than two kilometers. The highlight of that was spending a full hour trying to get out of a parking garage. Fun times in Manila!

Once we escaped from central Manila, the rest of the drive to Subic was easy by virtue of the nice expressways that go practically all the way to the birding site. Ideologically I know that the investment in freeways over other forms of transport like rail or a decent bus system is a symptom of overdependence on private vehicles and the inequality and negative externalities they create. Practically, I appreciate nice roads that turn what would be a 6-hour drive in the rest of the Philippines into a comfortable 2 and a half hour journey. It was evening by the time we arrived at our AirBnb in Subic, a very well-put-together apartment in an very creepy old apartment building that probably used to be an army barracks. 

I'll get to the birding soon, but first a quick explanation of what Subic Bay is: originally the ancestral domain of the Aeta people, it was occupied by the Spanish colonizers in the 1850s and turned into a base for the Spanish Navy. After the Americans pulled the old switcheroo and colonized the Philippines after pretending to help kick out the Spanish, it was then turned over to the US Navy. Following the brief (but disastrous) Japanese occupation in World War II and Philippine independence, it remained in the hands of the US, becoming the largest overseas naval base until the 1990s, when the Philippine government finally decided to kick out the Americans. 

Since the Americans left, Subic has been turned into a freeport and special economic zone, making it a shipping hub and manufacturing center. There's still a fairly large population of foreigners, mostly American retirees, and the leftover infrastructure of the US era plus the economic boons of the freeport mean that town of Subic overall feels much wealthier and more developed than the rest of the country. It's easy to find wide sidewalks, orderly traffic, quiet suburban neighborhoods, and modern shopping complexes within an easy drive of each other, all very unusual anywhere else in the Philippines. There's a darker side to Subic as well, including the ongoing marginalization of the indigenous Aetas, the distinctly creepy red light district, and the plethora of biracial children abandoned by their US service member fathers. I'm not sure if I love the vibe there, although I admit I can appreciate nice roads and the surprisingly good international food scene.

Of course, birders don't visit Subic for the decent Thai food or uncomfortable reminders of American colonization. As it turns out, Subic also holds one of the largest (and certainly the most accessible) areas of lowland rainforest in Luzon, set aside by the US military of all things so that troops could practice jungle survival. Against all odds the forest has remained more or less intact since then, making it a prime birding destination, with much easier birding than the rest of Luzon. It's also just about the only accessible spot for a few endemics such as Blackish Cuckooshrike, Northern Sooty Woodpecker, and Green Racket-tail (formerly it was also a good spot for White-fronted Tit and White-lored Oriole, but those are now extremely scarce, with no records in accessible areas since 2018 or so). Although I'd seen all of these before on previous visits, it had been five years or more, and I certainly didn't have any decent pictures. In general, I also just wanted to re-familiarize myself with the spot on this visit. 

Our first morning, I headed out at sunrise to walk around the Cubi neighborhood, which had some surprisingly good birds despite being a residential area. It certainly had the typically weird Subic vibe- a mix of nice roads, mostly-abandoned apartment buildings, and large but somewhat run-down houses mostly occupied by Americans or their descendants. It honestly felt more like a quiet suburb in California or Hawaii than part of the Philippines. However, there aren't many neighborhoods of California that have Blue-naped Parrots flying overhead or Luzon Hornbills feeding next to the road in people's back yards! Seeing endangered Green Racket-tails fly screeching past apartment buildings was somewhat of a surreal experience. It was also a little saddening, as this is the sort of thing that would be commonplace in the rest of the Philippines if not for rampant hunting and habitat destruction. 

The forest edge from the Cubi neighborhood

The Cubi neighborhood- this apartment complex often has Blue-naped Parrots flying around it!

The morning started quietly as I headed out, with mostly Large-billed Crows and Brown Shrikes and a few Coletos. It only picked up when I reached a fruiting ficus tree, which held lots of White-eared Brown Doves, a family of Luzon Flamebacks, and surprisingly an Ashy Drongo of the white-faced leucophaeus subspecies, a rare vagrant to Luzon. Blue-naped Parrots flew over a few times, a refreshingly common resident that has been driven to near-extinction in most of the Philippines thanks to the caged bird trade. Balicassiao were all over, getting on my nerves by doing pitch-perfect imitations of Philippine Hawk-eagle and Blackish Cuckooshrike.

Leucophaeus Ashy Drongo

Luzon Flameback

Blue-naped Parrot

Balicassiao

White Tiger

I tried walking a little further uphill towards the old Subic hospital, often a good birding spot, but the forest was quiet, with only Trilling Tailorbird added to my list. Things were better in a little residential area on the far side of Cubi, where I had several flybys from Green Racket-tail, a heard-only Northern Sooty Woodpecker, and lots of Ashy Minivets and Bar-bellied Cuckooshrikes flying over. Other highlights were a pair of Philippine Serpent Eagles on an exposed snag, a Philippine Falconet devouring an insect on a phone wire, and a very friendly male Luzon Hornbill perched right next to the road. A surprise on the way back was a Philippine Warty Pig foraging in the deep underbrush, a nice endemic mammal to start the trip with.

Philippine Serpent Eagle

Philippine Falconet

Luzon Hornbill

Bar-bellied Cuckooshrike

Golden-tailed Hairstreak

Philippine Warty Pig, locally known as baboy ramo

Lesser Grass Blue

This was a working vacation, so I had to be back at our AirBnb after a couple of hours for work meetings. In the afternoon I tried some balcony birding, which turned out to be surprisingly good: several Rufous-crowned Bee-eaters, a couple noisy Coletos, a camera-shy flock of Luzon Flamebacks, and best of all a pair of extremely vocal Blackish Cuckooshrikes, a very uncommon Luzon endemic that's practically only seen in the Subic area. This was my first time getting proper looks and photographs of this species, so it almost felt like getting a lifer. That night we were awoken by the haunting calls of a Philippine Eagle-owl. I rushed outside to try and see it, but it fell silent- still a nice heard-only bird.

Rufous-crowned Bee-eater

Coleto

Blackish Cuckooshrike!

The next day, Nikki and I did a proper morning of birding along the Nabasan Trail, a road cutting through a nice area of open forest near the coast. I'd already seen more or less all of my targets for Subic, so this was mostly just for a bit of a fun and a try for some better photos. We saw a White-bellied Woodpecker making its way up a tree next to the road as we got out of the car, and as the sun rose enjoyed great looks at the Rufous-crowned Bee-eaters perched along phone lines. Several Green Racket-tails flew over although I wasn't prepared enough to get flight pictures, having to settle for a distant perched one. Rufous Coucals were chattering away next to the road though always hidden deep within bushes, and after a bit of searching we were able to get great looks at a family group of Northern Sooty Woodpeckers.

White-bellied Woodpecker

Rufous-crowned Bee-eater

Green Racket-tail

Northern Sooty Woodpecker, a very uncommon endemic woodpecker restricted to good-quality lowland forest in Luzon

The biggest surprise of the day came in the form of a Black-winged Cuckooshrike seen while I was trying to photograph Rufous Coucals. Having seen them several times in Cambodia I immediately recognized what it was and rushed to get some record shots, knowing it was a very rare bird in the Philippines. I was able to get Nikki on it and to get some decent pictures, enough to verify my sighting with the Records Committee. It ended up being something like the 10th Philippines record, a mega bird and actually only the first of several good rarities to be seen on this trip! Further along the road we had several displaying Blackish Cuckooshrikes and a nicely perched Blue-naped Parrot, after which it was time to head back.

Black-winged Cuckooshrike!

Blackish Cuckooshrike in display flight

Blue-naped Parrot

On our way back, we had our first of several run-ins with the Subic Bay police, who are certainly the most annoying part of any visit to the area. While driving in most of the Philippines is essentially unregulated, in Subic the local cops approach traffic enforcement with gusto. Unfortunately they're far more interested in finding excuses to give people tickets than they are in traffic safety. Favorite tricks of theirs include speed traps on blind curves right after a speed limit change, stop signs hidden in foliage, and waving vehicles through four-way interchanges only to stop some of the vehicles they've waved through at random to ticket them for not coming to a complete stop. Any stop by the police generally requires some persuasion I'm not legally allowed to discuss on this blog, as they refuse to actually issue tickets, waiting until they get the hint to do the obvious. It's extremely frustrating, and something that makes a visit to Subic much less enjoyable than it would otherwise be. 

In town, we stopped for lunch, and then I headed into Olongapo City next door to get my Philippines visa extended. It was there that I had my second-biggest surprise of the Subic trip: a Grey-headed Fish Eagle flying overhead! I had seen these in Cambodia, but they are also very rare residents of the Philippines, restricted to mostly-undisturbed waterways. It was certainly a weird surprise to see one flapping over the center of a large city! It's one of the many birds that are otherwise restricted to undisturbed habitat that are fine straying into populated areas in Subic due to the lack of hunting pressure. Like I said, Subic is weird. 

That afternoon, we once again had to work so I had to satisfy myself with the Blackish Cuckooshrikes hanging around outside our balcony (only in Subic is this a backyard bird!). Around sunset, I headed to the local fruit bat colony to see the resident Large Flying Foxes and Golden-capped Fruit Bats, the latter of which is an endangered endemic and one of the largest bats in the world. After dark I headed to the Nabasan Trail for some owling, and while I heard Luzon Hawk-owl, Chocolate Boobook, Philippine Scops-owl, and Philippine Frogmouth I wasn't able to get a look at any of them before I had to return for dinner. Driving slowly along the road looking for herps produced only a single Tokay Gecko.

Sunset from our balcony- not the worst view imaginable

Blackish Cuckooshrike

Large Flying Foxes

Golden-capped Fruit Bats

Tokay Gecko

The visit to Subic was a great success, with several good new year birds that practically felt like lifers, and a surprise two new additions to my country list. The following day we continued northwards for the next segment of our road trip, but that will have to wait for the next blog post.