The Samar Slog

 

Doug and Andrew started out their first time in the Philippines nice and easy, with a few days in Infanta and Subic picking up some of Luzon's best endemics. This was all well and good, but those spots aren't exactly typical of Philippines birding; they're nicely paved roads through good forest, and you could practically see all the birds without getting out of your car. Boring! After a few days of life in the lap of luxury, it was time to bring them to the place where I've had some of the most difficult, unpleasant birding of my entire Philippines birding career: Samar. 

I've been to Samar a few times, but my last visit in June of 2022 was the first time I'd actually made it to Samar Island Natural Park. SINP is the main birding site on the island, and where birders generally come, at least the few that make it out this far. It was certainly a, uh, memorable experience, and while I did manage to see the mysterious Leyte Plumed Warbler as well as a few other very good birds like Blue-backed Parrot and Southern Sooty Woodpecker, I missed a photo of the plumed warbler and completely dipped on Visayan Pygmy Babbler, the other Samar specialty. Thus, even though I would have liked to never return to Samar I had unfinished business there. Doug and Andrew, meanwhile, had requested some adventurous birding for their visit to the Philippines, and if they wanted adventures then I was going to deliver them some gosh darned adventures. 

We flew into Tacloban City the evening of February 7, picking up our rental car at the airport. After getting fast food dinner at one of the local malls, we bid goodbye to civilization and started the drive to the SINP headquarters in Paranas, Samar. Despite being the closest city to the park, Tacloban is actually on the neighboring island of Leyte, which Leyte Plumed Warbler is named after despite not having been seen on that island in decades. We crossed the San Juanico bridge to Samar after a half hour or so of driving, and were immediately greeted with one of Samar's signature features: the worst paved roads you've ever seen in your life. Despite being the main thoroughfare for traffic from Luzon to the Visayas and Mindanao, Samar roads are full of deep potholes, enormous bumps, and lanes that start and end with no warning. The politest way I can put it is that the roads are absolute dogshit. 

After a few hours of white-knuckle driving, we arrived at the SINP headquarters, where we stayed as usual in the surprisingly nice lodging house at the DENR headquarters. The next morning we were up at dawn to meet Joselito the boat driver at the torpedo boat launch. Joselito is the only boat driver familiar with the spots birders visit, but finding him is a bit of a chore as he doesn't have a phone, nor is there signal in the area to contact him with anyway. Someone at the DENR office always promises to find him for the next morning but never actually does, meaning that this time as with my last time we had to wait for someone else to wander by who can go find him and tell him he has clients. It's a bit of a chaotic operation but it seems to work out eventually. 

Joselito made his way down to the boat launch around 6:30, joined as usual by his young son and his brother the grinning, goggled one-armed bowman. The ride down the river was somewhat less wet and splashy than my previous experiences, though still exhilarating and noisy, with the thunderous engine leaving me almost deaf by the time we got to the transect jump-off point. I looked for Northern Silvery Kingfishers along the bank, but we saw nothing but Brown-breasted Kingfishers.

The Ulot River

For those who didn't read my previous blog about Samar, there is one reason to visit the Ulot River transect: the Leyte Plumed Warbler (also known as Visayan Miniature Babbler), a bird that was practically unknown until Michael Kearns found it at this site back in 2016. Despite Samar having one of the largest expanses of primary lowland rainforest in the Philippines, the plumed warbler has been seen by birders in exactly one spot- this little 200-meter stretch of trail in the middle of the natural park that requires a 30-minute boat ride through a rushing river to get to. I'm sure it's in many other areas as well, but birders have spent years looking for other, more accessible sites to no avail. So here I was back at the transect, hoping for another babbler and hoping for a better time birding than my last visit. Larry and my uncle Kevin, both of whom had gone there after me, reported having much more fun than I had on my visit, so I was cautiously optimistic.

Boat trip selfie- two of these four people have no idea what's in store for them

That optimism, alas, was misplaced. It was about 7:30 AM by the time we got up to the part of the transect where the babbler can be seen, and we were greeted with a chillingly silent forest. I figured it was just a lull in the activity, so we started walking up and down the path, looking for birds and hoping for a mixed flock to come through. Sadly, this was not to happen: it ended up being one of the quietest days of birding I've ever had, even by the standards of Samar. We recorded fewer than 30 species of bird in over 8 hours of intense birding, a criminally low total for some of the most intact rainforest in the Philippines. Most of these weren't even seen, as the great thing about the transect is that the canopy is so low it's impossible to see anything in the treetops, including some birds we would have very much liked to see like Southern Rufous Hornbill, Black-and-white Triller, and Philippine Oriole. Add to that the constant sound of chainsaws in the background from people cutting down trees in the middle of the protected area and it makes for a truly unpleasant day of birding, though I suppose it's my own damn fault for electing to do it again after knowing what was in store for me.

That's not to say there were no birds at all; I was able to tape in some Yellowish Bulbuls for Andrew and Doug, and more exciting for me a was a little flock of Striated Wren-babblers of the Samar-endemic minuta subspecies. This was my first time actually seeing this subspecies, and I was surprised by how distinct it looked from the birds on Mindanao- smaller, darker brown above, and with much more distinct streaking on the back. We also got good looks at a very cute Olive-backed Flowerpecker, this one a different subspecies than the ones we'd seen in Infanta. All cool birds, but not exactly worth eight hours in birding purgatory.

Striated Wren-babbler

Yellowish Bulbul

Olive-backed Flowerpecker

As with my last time, I saw far more non-bird life than I saw bird life, and the absolutely abysmal bird density gave me an excuse to spend more time getting pictures of cool bugs and things. One of my favorite things about my old 300mm lens was the good macro capabilities, and I'm pleased to report that the 150-400mm lens performs excellently in this respect as well.

Ophicrania palinurus, a common endemic stick insect

Faun (Faunis sappho)

Tanaecia phlegethon

Crematogaster inflata, a colorful Southeast Asian acrobat ant

Some kind of long-necked tiger beetle (Tricondylus sp.)

Metapocyrtus derasocobaltinus, a beautiful endemic weevil

Euphaea amphicyana, an endemic damselfly

Another beautiful metapocyrtus weevil of some sort (Metapocyrtus cf. erichsoni apparently)

A huge huntsman spider of some sort (Heteropoda sp.)

A very cute little jumping spider (Chalcotropis sp.)

A tailless skink- I think Rough Mabuya

Purple Broken-Band Oakblue (Arhopala alitaeus), a butterfly lifer for me

Rough-backed Forest Frog (Platymantis corrugatus)

Cosmocoris sellatus, a gorgeous endemic shield bug

Another cool stick insect (Orthomeria sp.)

We finally gave up around 3 in the afternoon and walked back down to the river. We did some birding in the little coconut plantation, where Handsome Sunbirds and Purple-throated Sunbirds were flitting around in the palms. I decided to explore up a little sidestream, and was soon rewarded with the bird I hoped to find: a tiny, adorable Northern Silvery Kingfisher. I was able to get Doug and Andrew on the bird and we approached close enough for some record shots of what's surely one of the best kingfishers in the world. It was a nice consolation prize for what was so far turning out to be a real kludge of a first day in Samar.

Northern Silvery Kingfisher

It was another 30-minute boat ride back to the boat launch, where we bid goodbye to Joselito for the day and returned to the headquarters. There was still some daylight left, so we decided to explore the "nature trail" behind the HQ. I had only been up there once in the middle of the night for owling, but Larry had explored it during his visit and had birds like Celestial Monarch and Philippine Dwarf Kingfisher so clearly there was good birding to be had. 

It was only an hour or so before sunset by the time we started walking up the steep steps to the limestone plateau above the road, and the birds were fairly quiet, with only a few Yellowish Bulbuls and Yellow-wattled Bulbuls near the start of the trail. We got to a flatter section with a fairly open understory, and started scanning for birds in the weakening light. On a whim I decided to play a pitta call to see if any were around. Almost as soon as I played the call, an Azure-breasted Pitta popped up next to the trail, seeming to materialize out of thin air! It did a circle around us and then perched quietly on a vine just above eye level, watching serenely as the three humans on the ground below freaked out and started pointing giant camera lenses at it. It was one of those mind-blowingly good birding moments we always dream of, and it turned what had been a disappointing day into yet another great one. 

Azure-breasted Pitta! This picture taken handheld at 1/5 of a second at 800 millimeters, in case you're wondering how Olympus does with image stabilization

Pitta selfie!

We left the pitta alone and headed up the trail a bit more even as the sun started to set. I noticed a tiny bird sitting motionless on a vine, but it flushed just before I was able to get bins on it. I'm almost positive it was a Philippine Dwarf Kingfisher, but not sure I got a good enough view for me to officially call it. Also tantalizing was an unknown owl calling just after sunset- certainly a boobook, but definitely not Luzon Boobook, which is supposed to be the main boobook on Samar. In fact it sounded more like Mindanao Boobook, but not an exact match for that one either. It was an intriguing sound, and annoyingly enough it never came into view, and stopped calling before we were smart enough to think of recording it. If someone ends up discovering and describing Samar Boobook, I'm calling that one as what it was...

Hiking down in the dark, we heard several Everett's Scops-owls and Philippine Frogmouths, and were eventually able to get a look at one of the latter although it flew off before we could get pictures. There were also a few cool bugs of various kinds to keep me entertained with my flash, at least until it somehow broke and completely separated from my camera! Very annoying. Down at the headquarters, someone from the DENR had captured a Philippine Blunt-headed Tree Snake and put it in a bottle. We took pictures and asked when they would release it, but they said they were keeping it in the bottle overnight so that their boss could get pictures the next day. Not sure where in the DENR handbook it says to stuff wildlife into coke bottles and leave it, but I did feel bad for the poor snake.

An unceremoniously captured Philippine Blunt-headed Tree Snake (Boiga angulata)

Some kind of cool-looking giant cockroach

Some kind of ground beetle (Chlaenius sp.)

Yet another Rough-backed Forest Frog

The next day we arrived back at the boat launch at sunrise bright eyed and bushy-tailed, ready for yet another day of drudgery in the birding purgatory of the transect. It was a lovely, misty morning and we made good time up the hill to putative plumed warbler habitat. Things started slow, even at dawn, and mostly we were listening to singing Yellowish Bulbuls, although a Black-bibbed Cuckooshrike coming through was a nice surprise. It wasn't too long, however, before things got more interesting. First, a few Everett's White-eyes came through, and we rushed to follow them in hopes they'd brought along a plumed warbler as they often do. They hadn't, but what they did bring was a group of Visayan Pygmy Babblers! This was my one remaining East Visayas endemic and the only possible lifer of Samar, so I was thrilled even if they proved well nigh impossible to photograph as they came through.

Visayan Pygmy Babbler

The white eyes and babblers proved to be the vanguard of an enormous mixed flock of passerines that came through and lasted for over an hour. Mixed flocks are thrilling of course, but the great thing about this trail is that the trees are so close together and the leaves so thick that it's almost impossible to get a good look at the birds passing through, even with lots of neck-craning and squinting at backlit foliage. We could barely even enjoy the many birds coming through the mixed flock as we were monomaniacally focused on finding the plumed warbler we knew was likely mixed in. To make things even more fun, our constant trudging up and down the path had churned the ground up into mud that became deeper and slipperier with every pass we made. I managed to slip and pull a muscle in my shoulder as we were searching a particularly promising group of birds, really driving home how much I hate birding in that particular site. 

If seeing the birds was hard, photographing them was even harder so I'll mostly have to give a descriptive list of what was coming through: the plumed warbler was mysteriously missing, but we did manage Everett's White-eyes, Visayan Pygmy Babblers, Visayan Blue Fantails, Brown Tit-babblers, Metallic-winged Sunbirds, Rufous-tailed Jungle Flycatchers, Buzzing Flowerpeckers, Yellow-bellied Whistlers, Philippine Fairy Bluebirds, Philippine Leaf Warblers, Sulphur-billed Nuthatches, and Black-naped Monarchs to name a few. It was a bit surreal to be completely surrounded by birds after waiting all day the previous day without a single mixed flock. I suspect that the issue is partly that there's so much remaining habitat that birds just form mega-flocks that traverse kilometers at a time without running out of forest, meaning that the flocks are far apart but huge in size. 

Visayan Blue Fantail

Visayan Pygmy Babbler

As always, the long lulls in bird activity meant I could distract myself with insects and herps, and the trail once again proved to be far better for those, with the highlights being a very creepy-looking giant centipede, a tiny Light's Toadlet, and some cool flies and jumping spiders.

Light's Toadlet

Scolopendra spinosissima, a dramatic name for a dramatic-looking endemic centipete

Some kind of spineplate millipede

Pseudosophira bakeri, a cool endemic fruit fly (this is maybe the first-ever photo of a live one in the wild)

Some kind of tiger beetle (Therates sp.)

Some kind of jumping spider

Some kind of stilt-legged fly (Mimegralla sp.)

A lull came in the flock, and it seemed that the bird wave had passed without any plumed warblers to show for it. We returned to our usual sitting log to wait for other birds to come through, and were rewarded with a singing but difficult-to-see Little Slaty Flycatcher and an Olive-backed Flowerpecker. Around 11AM, we heard the song of Everett's White-eyes and went to go investigate. We tracked them to a clearing, when suddenly a tiny bird darted up into a tree: Leyte Plumed Warbler! Doug and Andrew both had a good look at it while I saw only a bird silhouette flying away as they tried to get me onto. That was fine, as I had already seen it so it was important that they did before me, although I would have liked to get a picture.

Alas, after about 5 seconds it was gone again, remaining one of the most difficult and mysterious Philippine endemics. As mysterious as it was, it also seems to follow strangely consistent patterns. Both times I've seen it was at the exact same GPS point, flying into the exact same tree, and at the same time of day.  To make things stranger, I saw it the same way both times: flying briefly into the backlit tree on my second day, after a brutally slow first day. This is also the exact GPS point where Michael Kearns had discovered the bird in 2016, and where Larry saw it on his own visit. At least the bird is dependable, in a weird way?

The sittin' log post plumed warbler

After the bird had disappeared, we returned to our favorite log and waited for another bird wave. One indeed came along, right along the same time as it started to rain. We scrambled uphill after the birds even as the rain got heavier, and it was worth the discomfort as there were some good birds accompanying it: a beautiful Short-crested Monarch that gave us great looks before disappearing into the rain, and a frustratingly heard-only Visayan Broadbill. It was raining torrentially the whole time the flock passed through, so the good birds were accompanied by wet gear, slippery trails, and precisely zero pictures. 

Around 2PM we finally called it quits and headed back to the river, satisfied with the plumed warbler and excited to never have to return to the transect again. We got a nice parting gift in the form of a flock of Southern Rufous Hornbills flying over the river just as we were getting in the boat.n Back at the headquarters, we decided to head up the nature trail once again for birds. Once again it proved to be much better birding than the transect, with a calling Azure-breasted Pitta, lots of Yellow-wattled Bulbuls, and a Crested Goshawk perched silently in the midstory looking for prey. More annoyingly, we heard the sounds of a distant mixed flock, including a singing Celestial Monarch! We tried desperately to find it and while it briefly responded to playback it remained resolutely out of sight, one of the most gripping heard only birds of the trip. Walking down in the dark, we had great looks at a Mindanao Horned Frog, an endemic herp I'd been hoping for for a long time.

Yellow-wattled Bulbul

Crested Goshawk

Mindanao Horned Frog (Pelobatrachus stejnegeri)

The next day we decided to finally reward ourselves with a morning on the nature trail, which had had great birding the previous two afternoons and had some very good lists from others as well. Samar must have known we had high hopes and decided once again it was going to give us a hard time: it was a very, very quiet morning of birding, and despite our best efforts we saw only the tail end of a single mixed flock, with Philippine Drongo-Cuckoo being the only new bird. We spent some time playing tape for good birds at a nice hanging bridge at the top of the trail, only to vacate the bridge very quickly when it started making ominous creaking noises and jerking downward suddenly. 

While it wasn't a great morning for mixed flocks as we'd hoped it would be, it proved to be a fantastic day for photography, as a viewpoint along the trail gave us great looks at some good birds, including Yellowish Bulbuls, Purple-throated Sunbirds, Rufous-crowned Bee-eaters, Hair-crested Drongos, and best of all an immature Pinsker's Hawk-eagle. There was also lots of other interesting invertebrate life along the trail, including an intimidating-looking whip scorpion hidden away in a little grotto.

Yellowish Bulbul

Everett's White-eye

Male Purple-throated Sunbird, certainly one of the best-looking sunbirds in the world

Female Purple-throated Sunbird

Immature Pinsker's Hawk-eagle

Rufous-crowned Bee-eater

Hair-crested Drongo

An impressive blue-colored millipede

An even more impressive bright blue earthworm

Charon grayi, a very cool tailless whip scorpion

Some kind of beautiful fungus moth (Coryptilum sp.)

It was late morning by then, so we decided to check out of the headquarters inn and do a bit more birding elsewhere before heading back to Tacloban to catch our flight out. Upon checking out, I found out that the fee for hiking the nature trail was 800 pesos per visit! Something no-one had bothered to inform us about as they saw us hiking up there three times. I'm fine paying national park fees, even unnecessarily steep fees for hiking a trail that clearly isn't being maintained, but I have to admit it's a little aggravating doing so after being in the middle of the national park listening to chainsaws all day. When I mentioned that to the park staff they essentially shrugged their shoulders and said it was too remote for them to do anything about it, but I guess when people want to go into the park to look at birds they remember how enforcement works.

(I know, I know, I'm being unfair to the DENR here, and it is genuinely a dangerous task enforcing forestry regulations when staff risk violence or retribution if they're not careful. This is especially the case in Samar where paramilitary groups and insurgents abound. There's certainly lots of good people working there and doing really important work. It's also incredibly frustrating seeing mountains of red tape heaped upon people who just want to enjoy nature in a non-extractive way even while deforestation, poaching and illegal mining continue unabated.)

We headed eastwards along the highway to an area where I'd had some very enjoyable birding on my previous visit. Unfortunately, the road here proved to be much less nice for walking as it had been recently devastated by landslides and was full of roadwork. We instead continued on to the famous Loop de Loop, a completely unnecessary 360-turn in the road as it goes down a very gentle slope. It's as if the engineer's pencil slipped as he was drawing the plan for the road and they decided to keep it because it looked cool. There was some good forest by the Loop de Loop however, and we were rewarded with a big group of Southern Rufous Hornbills soaring through the forest right in front of us- a species that was very quickly becoming a favorite bird of the trip. 

Southern Rufous Hornbill

We would have liked to stay and bird more, but we had a flight to catch and a very long drive on awful roads before we could catch it. It was a white-knuckle drive back to Tacloban, and I had to use all of my offensive driving skills picked up over the years in the Philippines to get us to the airport in time. Still, we made it, and boarded our flight to Cebu after what was certainly one of the more memorable and adventurous segments of the month. Every time I go to Samar I tell myself I'll never go back there again, but I suspect I'll be back again sometime nonetheless, trying to get pictures of the monarchs and find a new spot for the plumed warbler that's not so much of a slog. But we'll see...