Palawan Down Low

 

After a successful but rather tiring hike up Mount Victoria, we had a single day of birding left in Palawan, before Andrew flew home to the US and I flew home to Sorsogon. Our schedule was cramped enough, and Mount Victoria took long enough, that I took a gamble on seeing enough birds on Mount Victoria that we would only need a single day to clean up everything else we needed. That was only partially successful; while we had some good birds on the mountain, the best ones were mostly heard only or poorly seen. 

My hope had been to go with the inimitable Randy Tibor, likely the best bird guide on Palawan and one of the best guides in general I've ever met. Unfortunately Randy ended up being busy that day, so he put me in touch with Alon, another local guide. Alon picked us up from our hotel in Puerto Princesa very early the next day, and we headed out to the Napsan road, where I had high hopes of seeing the rest of our targets. It ended up being a very good but also very frustrating day of birding: very good because we got great views of some very good birds, including some I'd never seen well before, but frustrating because there were some major dips as well. 

Our first stop was by a small bridge over a dry river, where Alon said Palawan Hornbill sometimes hung out. There were no hornbills to be found, and not many interesting birds beyond a heard-only Blue Paradise Flycatcher, lots of Common Ioras, a couple of Brown-throated Sunbirds, and a migratory Grey-streaked Flycatcher. We continued on to another part of the road that proved to be much birdier, with singing and conspicuous White-vented Shamas and Blue Paradise Flycatchers, a small group of Palawan Tits, some Sulphur-bellied Bulbuls, a fruiting tree with a couple of Green Imperial Pigeons, and a pair of gorgeous Lovely Sunbirds.

Grey-streaked Flycatcher

Female Brown-throated Sunbird

White-vented Shama

Blue Paradise Flycatcher

Palawan Tit

Sulphur-bellied Bulbul

Lovely Sunbird

Green Imperial Pigeon

We continued up the road, scanning out the window for hornbills and other birds. There were no hornbills, but we did stop for a trio of Spot-throated Flamebacks hanging out on an exposed dead tree, and ended up having great looks at a Yellow-throated Leafbird and a brilliant male Palawan Fairy-Bluebird at the same spot. A bit further on was a big flock of Ameline Swiftlets (sometimes split as Palawan Swiftlets), but still no hornbills.

Spot-throated Flameback

Yellow-throated Leafbird

Palawan Fairy-Bluebird

Ameline Swiftlet

The highest part of the Napsan road was where I had had excellent looks at Red-headed Flameback and Blue-headed Racket-tail on my previous visit, among other things. It was nice and birdy this time, but sadly without any flamebacks or racket-tails. We did have great looks at a weird and wonderful Chestnut-breasted Malkoha, a flock of gorgeous Fiery Minivets collecting spiderwebs, some Elegant Tits, and Common Hill Mynas. We heard the calls of a Palawan Peacock-Pheasant just off the road but were unable to tempt it toward us- in fact it stopped calling altogether when we tried playback. On the other hand we did get amazing looks at a beautiful Dark-throated Oriole, my first time getting a good look or a picture of this species. The birds in Palawan and Borneo are sometimes split as Ventriloquial Oriole, which should give you an idea of how easy they usually are to see...

Chestnut-breasted Malkoha

Fiery Minivet

Palawan Tit

Bar-bellied Cuckooshrike

Dark-throated Oriole

Common Hill Myna

Eventually we decided to head back down the hill and look for other targets, as it seemed that the Red-headed Flamebacks weren't going to appear. We scanned out the window for hornbills but didn't see any, once again to my disappointment. We stopped by the fruiting tree we had seen previously in case there were any hornbills around, but alas there were not, though we did get amazing up-close looks at a pair of Lovely Sunbirds. 

Female Lovely Sunbird

Lovely Sunbird

We stopped at the bridge area once more, which still had lots of birds even though it was getting quite hot. Best were a couple of Philippine Cockatoos and Blue-naped Parrots, both some of the rarest parrots in the Philippines but still quite easy to see in Palawan. We also got nice close-up looks at Common Ioras.

Philippine Cockatoo

Blue-naped Parrot

Common Iora

We had a late lunch on the outskirts of Puerto Princesa, where we got to enjoy some inasal chicken and halo-halo (Doug and Andrew were not impressed). We then headed to the Puerto Princesa Wildlife Rescue, where  I expected to have a good chance at both Palawan Hornbill and Palawan Peacock Pheasant. Annoyingly enough, when we got there I found out that neither species had been seen there for months, despite being reliable all of 2022. It would have been nice to know that before we got there since I would have insisted on trying much harder for the hornbills elsewhere- I had been under the mistaken belief that there was a solid backup option. 

Instead we headed to Irawan Ecopark, a nice forest park across the road that is another well-known birding spot. We tried stake-outs for Red-headed Flameback, Palawan Hornbill, and Melodious Babbler without luck, although I was able to spot a gorgeous little Oriental Dwarf Kingfisher, which turned out to be Doug's 2,000th life bird! We also had a flyover from a Blue-headed Racket-tail and a heard Asian Koel, which weren't nearly as satisfying. Near sunset we ran into Randy, who had been in the process of setting up a blind for Ruddy Kingfisher. Sure enough, there was a gorgeous Ruddy Kingfisher hanging out outside the blind, which we were able to get great looks at even though it was almost dark. With some effort we were able to tempt in a Palawan Flycatcher, another lifer for Doug and Andrew. With the last light of day we decided to head to a spot where Randy said he sometimes saw Palawan Hornbill, but once again came up empty-handed.

Oriental Dwarf Kingfisher

Ruddy Kingfisher (taken handheld at 1/5 of a second!)

Palawan Flycatcher

Some kind of crab spider

Some kind of assassin bug

We returned to the entrance of Irawan to wait for night to fall and for night birds to come out. In the gathering darkness we heard the calls of a Hooded Pitta, and then to our surprise a Philippine Pitta! This had been a target bird that we dipped on multiple times throughout the trip so it was great to pull it out of the bag at the absolute last minute. We searched for it but only got a brief view as suddenly an Oriental Dwarf Kingfisher popped up in front of it instead! We were able to get much better views and pictures than what we had had of it previously.

Oriental Dwarf Kingfisher

Night fell, and I played the tape for Spotted Wood Owl. Almost instantly, a pair of Spotted Wood Owls exploded out of the trees and started calling! It was my first time getting a proper look at these, definitely one of the best-looking owls out there. When we had had our fill of the owls, we looked for Large-tailed Nightjars and had good looks at several flying over, though they never paused for a picture. Randy then took us into the woods to a spot he knew for Palawan Scops Owl, pausing to prepare some branches for it to perch on first (Randy is seriously a pro). We soon had great looks at Palawan Scops-owl too! The final night bird was Palawan Frogmouth, which took a fair bit of work but eventually paid off with great looks at a bird at another nearby spot. We tried hiking out to look for Brown Boobook, a scarce resident owl, but had no luck. Nonetheless, it had been an extremely successful evening of night birding in Palawan, with great birds and great photo opportunities. 

Spotted Wood Owl

Palawan Scops Owl

Palawan Frogmouth

Common Southeast Asian Tree Frog

Philippine Toad

With the full suite of endemic night birds taken care of, we returned to Puerto Princesa for a shower, a late dinner, and some victory drinks. It was a bit disappointing to miss a few key targets, but in retrospect it was also wildly optimistic to expect a full clean-up in a day. It seems that October is also overall a much better month for Palawan birding than March. Regardless, it was a great trip through the island and we ended up with some of the best birds of the trip, including my new favorite babbler. 

Andrew and I flew out the next day, while Doug had one more day of birding with Randy as a guide, where he was lucky enough to see a few more very good birds like Palawan Hornbill and Mantanani Scops Owl. It was the end of an amazing month of birding with Doug and Andrew, where we managed to see 350 species of bird, including a 194 endemics and near-endemics, all for about a quarter the price of a usual guided tour. I also personally managed to add 6 birds to my Philippines list, including three endemics. It says something about how tough it is to add birds to my list at this point when a month of intense birding only gets me six new ones, but it was also a chance to reconnect with some of my favorites that I hadn't seen in years, and to get much better photos and views of many more. And most importantly, it was a chance to do some very fun birding with great friends. I only wish I had time to do this sort of thing more often!