Aurora Explorations

 

One of the joys of living in a woefully under-birded country like the Philippines is the unparalleled opportunity for exploration. I've spent countless hours scrolling through the satellite view on Google Maps looking for patches of undisturbed forest, or better yet newly-constructed roads that make that forest accessible. I've even been able to visit many of them, and more often than not they've turned out to be excellent birding sites- among them SNA, San Remigio, and the Solsona-Apayao road. I'm not the only one who does this, of course, and sometimes timing and schedules work out so that a group of like-minded birders can go on an expedition together to explore a little-birded area and see what treasures it might hide. 

That's exactly what happened at the end of April this year, when me, Nikki and some other birding friends of ours found ourselves free for a holiday weekend to explore a newly-built road through the Sierra Madre mountains in far eastern Luzon. The Infanta road to the south has become one of the best birding spots in Luzon, and we hoped that this one had similar potential. The little we knew about birds there was promising: a small breeding population of Philippine Eagles was known from the nearby mountains, and another birder had made a brief stop there a few years ago and found Golden-crowned Babblers, a scarce northern Luzon endemic that would be a lifer for all of us. Other that that though, the area was completely un-birded, which obviously made it a very exciting proposition. 

This road, specifically

It ended up being a whole gaggle of us going: me and Nikki, plus Cheta (who had the original idea to explore the road), Ens (who drove almost the entire way and thus deserves our eternal thanks), Jasmin, Angel, and Jao. It was a great group of folks, and the ideal crew to have along when exploring a new place: good birders who care at least as much about exploring new areas as list building, and young and silly enough to be able to handle constant early mornings and long drives on bad roads. 

We departed from Manila very early on the morning of April 29 and made the long drive north toward the beginning of the road in the province of Nueva Ecija. The drive took us through Luzon's central valley, a vast, perfectly flat expanse of farming communities and rice paddies, interspersed with dusty urban centers choked with tricycles (including the Tricycle Capital of the Philippines apparently). The road we were exploring went from the town of Bongabon in Nueva Ecija to the city of Baler on the Pacific coast of the province of Aurora. Baler is well-known on the tourism scene for its beaches and excellent surfing, and a common weekend destination for travelers from Manila. There's a much quicker, flatter road running northwards through a low valley, but apparently the DPWH decided that wasn't enough, and so built an incredibly curvy, unstable road through the most rugged bit of mountains they could find. That makes no sense to me and it's definitely bad news for the local environment in the long term as it means more people can move in and cut down trees, but in the short term it means that there's a nice, paved road running through excellent forest. 

It was 8:30 in the morning by the time we got to the actual road, well past peak birding hours. As soon as we started driving uphill the road got very, very curvy indeed and we rolled down the windows to listen for birds. We stopped in an unassuming bit of forest before long as we could hear the calls of a mixed flock, and that proved to be a very good decision indeed: it was absolutely full of birds, despite being a scrubby bit of disturbed forest on a mostly-bare hillside. There was a huge mixed flock feeding in fruiting trees next to the road, including lots of Sulphur-billed Nuthatches, Yellowish White-eyes, Blue-headed Fantails, Lemon-throated Leaf Warblers, and some gorgeous and pleasingly tame Scarlet Minivets We heard the song of a White-browed Shama and I was able to tempt it into view- a lifer for some of us. Surprisingly, a Philippine Hawk-Cuckoo started calling as well, and flew over the road, making it a long-overdue lifer for Cheta. As we were about to get in the car, I noticed a Sulphur-billed Nuthatch hanging out on top of a fence post, and I realized it was likely nesting inside there! 

White-browed Shama

Male Scarlet Minivet

Female Scarlet Minivet

Yellowish White-eye

Sulphur-billed Nuthatch probably visiting its nest site

Zythos sp.

Prime bird habitat, apparently

We kept going down the road, and soon crossed the border to Aurora province. We stopped anytime we heard birds or saw something interesting, but overall it was rather quiet. Even the mixed flocks were rather sparse, with the only interesting birds being a mixed flock of small birds that included Purple-throated Sunbirds and Bicolored Flowerpeckers. We got as far east as the Villa Aurora Bridge, where the road crossed over a wide, boulder-strewn river. There were a few small shops and a swimming hole, and this was also an area where Philippine Eagles have been seen in the past. I got my scope out and spent some time scanning the mountainsides for eagles, but with no luck- the only raptor was an Oriental Honey-Buzzard. There were lots of swallows and swifts swooping around the bridge, including to my surprise some House Swifts, uncommon outside of urban areas. The plants were the real highlight of that drive- a rare endemic begonia, and a beautiful Salingcogon tree, sometimes called the native cherry blossom. 

Juvenile Bicolored Flowerpecker

House Swift

Nepenthes sp., probably Nepenthes graciliflora

Begonia oxysperma

Salingcogon (Cratoxylum formosum)

Birding along the Aurora side

The view from the Maria Aurora bridge- there be eagles in them thar hills

The group at the Maria Aurora Bridge

It was mid-afternoon by then, so we headed back westwards to the beginning of the road, where our hotel was located. The start of the mountains is demarcated by the valley of the Labi River, which is a popular swimming hole for folks from the surrounding towns. As such it was crowded with people during the holiday weekend, but it at least meant that it was easy to find food after we had checked into our hotel. This road is a bit further from Manila than the better-known Infanta road, but at least there are a number of places to stay close to the birding area. The area is also a fascinating example of the rainshadow effect of the Sierra Madre- the hills on the western side of the mountains are dry and scrubby, but it gets progressively greener eastwards toward the coast, as the prevailing winds drop their precipitation on the mountains. It's what's responsible for keeping the western part of Luzon relatively safe from typhoons, especially since the mountains are still protected from erosion by their thick tree cover. That last part is threatened though, and the new policy of building ever more roads through them to allow informal settlers and mining companies to come in and clear trees definitely isn't helping...

The Labi River

We headed out again that afternoon once we'd had time for a nap and a shower. This time we went across the Maria Aurora Bridge to explore a bit of the eastern part of the road before it got dark. We stopped along the way for a suspiciously small crow perched by the road, all of us hoping that it might be a rare Sierra Madre Crow. I tried some playback and it immediately took off and flew toward us with shallow, fluttery wingbeats, which is supposedly diagnostic of Sierra Madre, which made all of us very excited. Unfortunately, reviewing my photos it was definitely a Large-billed Crow, with a thick bill and a long tail. In fact, Large-billed Crows proved to be fairly common there. I suppose the range of Sierra Madre Crow starts somewhat north of these mountains, unfortunately.

Large-billed Crow

We kept going until we got to the highest point in the road, an overlook at about 600 meters above sea level. This had a beautiful view over the forested mountains to the west, and down the slope to the coast of the Pacific Ocean in the east. We were treated to some gorgeous sunset light, along with Purple Needletails and Rufous-bellied Eagles soaring overhead. Weirdly enough Philippine Hawk-Cuckoos were calling all over, and we even got a brief look at one. We also enjoyed an informational sign the DENR had put out about the park, which had some of the most embarrassingly incorrect information I've ever seen- par for the course I suppose...

Rufous-bellied Eagle

Purple Needletail

Atmospheric Purple Needletail

Philippine Hawk-Cuckoo

I think I saw more than 8 species of birds just from where this sign is, but sure DENR you tried

Selfie at sunset

The view eastwards with the Pacific Ocean in the distance

Sunset in the Sierra Madre

We started heading back as it got dark, stopping in a few places to look for night birds and mammals. We had good looks at Philippine Nightjar and heard Luzon Boobook and Philippine Scops Owl calling, but didn't see much more than that. I had a quick view of a mammal on the ground that might have been a palm civet, but nothing more interesting than that even using my thermal scope. We did run into some rangers from the national park who said they often saw cloud rats around, but sadly we saw absolutely nothing. That night we tried to head to bed early because we were still exhausted, only to be woken up at midnight by the sound of hundreds of motorcycles driving up the road directly next to our window. I counted over 1,000 motorcycles passing in the space of a couple hours, all starting at midnight! There was apparently some event happening in Baler the next day and the motorcycle clubs decided that the best time to drive through was the middle of the night. We ended up only getting a couple hours of sleep because of the deafening noise, which definitely soured that part of the trip a little.

Lack of sleep aside, there was still more birding to do, so we got up before sunrise the next day and drove back eastward to a promising stretch of road we'd seen earlier. It was surprisingly quiet at sunrise when we got out of the car, with barely any birds singing. A couple of White-bellied Woodpeckers flew by, and there were Guaiaberos and Colasisis feeding high in the trees. We heard the call of a Cream-bellied Fruit Dove, always a good bird, but were never able to see it. Things picked up, however, when I spotted a gorgeous male Northern Rufous Hornbill perched high in a tree across the valley. We watched him clambering over the tree branches, until suddenly he took off and flew directly over our heads! It was by far the best look I've ever had of a Northern Rufous Hornbill, which have to be very high on the list of the best-looking hornbills in the world, as well as one of my favorite birds in general.

Northern Rufous Hornbill

Shortly after, things started picking up bird-wise as well. We saw a few Luzon Hornbills chasing each other around in a distant tree, and got quick looks at a Rough-crested Malkoha next to the road. Around 8AM, an enormous mixed flock started coming in. It included most of the usual suspects- Elegant Tits, Yellow-bellied Whistlers, Blue-headed Fantails, Sulphur-billed Nuthatches, Buzzing Flowerpeckers, Philippine Bulbuls, Trilling Tailorbirds, Yellowish White-eyes, and the like. We realized that this was our opportunity to start looking for something really interesting, and finally after half an hour of frantically shifting our binoculars from backlit bird to backlit bird, it paid off- Cheta and I saw a pair of Golden-crowned Babblers fly in front of us! We were able to get everyone on them and I got a couple of record shots before they moved onwards. It was the bird highlight of the trip and a lifer for all of us- one of the few remaining endemic lifers for me in the Philippines, in fact. 

Golden-crowned Babbler!

Luzon Hornbills

Embarrassingly enough, this is still my only photo of Trilling Tailorbird

Orthomeria pandora, an endemic stick insect

We continued down the road until the overlook, stopping in various places that looked interesting. We didn't add too many birds to the list this way, but there were plenty of other things to catch our interest- a valley full of the cascading flowers of a rare jade vine, cool stick insects, moths, and damselflies, a rare butterfly, and tiny, jewel-colored jumping spiders. The highlight however was, surprisingly enough to all of us, an earthworm- specifically an enormous, blue and yellow Archipheretima middletoni, better known by its strange but extremely accurate Fried Eggs Worm! We discovered it crawling across the forest floor in a very un-earthworm-like manner, and when I picked it up it was weirdly un-slimy and almost unsettlingly muscular, more like a snake than a worm. This was only the second record of it on iNaturalist, and apparently it was so unusual when it was first discovered that Gizmodo (RIP) wrote an article about it. It was also what made our group such good company- there for the birds, but interested enough in any type of wildlife that we were never bored even when the birds were quiet.

The famous Fried Eggs Worm

Male Orthomeria pandora

Eumelea rubrifusa

Some kind of jumping spider I'm still trying to ID

Some kind of click beetle

Green Palmfly (Elymnias esaca), a very rare butterfly with only a few records in the Philippines

Strongylodon juangonzalesii, also known as "JC's Vine"

Aeschnanthus sp.

That night we explored the riverbed to see if we could find Savanna Nightjars, which were lifers for a few of this. We never heard any calling, but Nikki was able to spot a Savanna Nightjar that flushed in front of her, and eventually the rest of us got on it. Philippine Nightjars were much more common and vocal in the same area, and the only ones I was able to photograph. 

Savanna Nightjar

The next morning we only had a couple hours to bird before we needed to head back to Manila. We started at first light in the spot where we'd had the mixed flock the previous day, but it was dead silent. Instead we started in a nice wooded valley further east, where we tried without success for some of the birds we hoped we would find there such as Sierra Madre Ground Warbler. We did run into a small mixed flock that included the first Olive-backed Flowerpecker of the trip, and we had a fairly cooperative pair of Luzon Flamebacks, which was a lifer for Ens. Driving back westwards, we stopped for a very friendly Chinese Sparrowhawk presumably on its way north, the first time I'd had a good perched view of these species that's usually seen soaring very high up.

Luzon Flamebacks

Chinese Sparrowhawk

We made one last stop in the area we'd had a nice mixed flock on our first day, and to our surprise it was still present two days later- perhaps because the trees were full of fruit. We had great looks at the usual mixed flock birds like Yellowish White-Eyes, Sulphur-billed Nuthatches, Buzzing Flowerpeckers, Bicolored Flowerpeckers, and others. There was even a flock of Northern Rufous Hornbills in the hills above the road. It was a great way to say goodbye to the Sierra Madre as we started the long drive south to Manila.

Yellowish White-Eye

Bicolored Flowerpecker

Buzzing Flowerpecker

Sulphur-billed Nuthatch

Southern Rufous Hornbills

This was one of my favorite birding trips of the year, mostly because it combined three of my favorite things: exploring unbirded areas, easy, self-guided roadside birding, and great company. The Aurora road proved to be a good if not spectacular birding destination: similar birds to the Infanta road with the notable exception of Golden-crowned Babbler instead of Black-crowned Babbler, but without the mid-elevation birds that draw people to Infanta like Whiskered Pitta, ground warblers, or Flame-breasted Fruit Doves. Our brief visit also didn't uncover some of the very good birds we might have hoped for such as Luzon Striped Babbler, Blue-breasted Blue Flycatcher, or Short-crested Monarch (though Jasmin did have a brief view of a possible candidate). Still, a 3-day visit isn't nearly enough to exhaust all of the possible locations or birds, so hopefully others will visit in the future and uncover more good stuff. There's so much left to discover in the Philippines, and I can only hope the growing popularity of birding means that there will be more people going out on their own to find it.