Big Day Bleeding Heart

 

As has become somewhat of a tradition at this point, I found myself in Sorsogon for eBird's 2023 Global Big Day on May 13, and once again I put a plan into motion to try and get myself the biggest totals I could. I'd done this twice before, in May and October of 2022, so I'd learned a few lessons on how best to do it. First, I learned the hard way that it's best to rent a car so that I wasn't torturing myself with hours on the motorcycle driving across the province. Second, I learned that May is an awful time of year for a proper big day, with virtually no migratory birds. Thus, I decided to not stress myself out trying to break records I had no chance of breaking, and instead focus on the endemic birds and other residents and just have fun birding. 

We were only recently back from Aurora at this point, so Nikki decided to sleep in that morning while I woke up at 3AM to make my way out to Mount Bulusan. As always, I was joined by kuya Noel, the national park guide with an uncanny skill for spotting birds deep in the foliage (I suspect because he has a past as a hunter). We started walking up the access road before dawn, with the calls of Luzon Boobook and Spotted Wood Kingfisher in the distance. I stopped in a spot where I had seen Philippine Scops Owl before and played tape. I was excited to hear it responding, and even more excited when a bird flew in- only to raise my binoculars and realize it was actually a Balicassiao! They're infamous for mimicking the calls of other birds, but this was the first time I've seen on doing a perfect scops-owl call...

Some more wildlife came out as the sun started to rise. I spotted a small snake crossing the road and excitedly took some pictures, although it was only a Common Mock Viper, a species I've seen several times before. I'm terrible at herping though, so any snake or frog is cause for excitement. A Scale-feathered Malkoha flew over the road and perched briefly, and we saw a few Cream-bellied Fruit Doves feeding in a fruiting tree, illuminated by the sunrise. To my surprise, I heard the call of a Philippine Pitta from a gully far below us- a new Sorsogon bird for me, and one kuya Noel had never seen before! The pitta isn't uncommon, but it's one of the more difficult endemic by virtue of the fact that they never seem to stick around in one spot, especially in areas like this with lots of contiguous habitat.

Common Mock Viper

Scale-feathered Malkoha

Cream-bellied Fruit Dove

We made good time up the access road, and got to Bulusan Lake while the sun was still low in the sky. Kuya Noel spotted a Luzon Boobook roosting in its usual spot next to the dock, always a nice bird to see in the daytime. I scanned the sky for raptors but it was still early, and there was nothing flying but Pygmy Swiftlets and a single Rufous Night Heron along the lake.

Luzon Boobook

We started walking down the trail going along the perimeter of the lake, our usual route. As we rounded a corner, kuya Noel stopped suddenly, and whispered excitedly "Bleeding-Heart!" Sure enough I was able to get a quick glimpse of a Luzon Bleeding-Heart as it disappeared down the corner. We made our way quickly but quietly down the trail, craning our necks around corners trying to catch a glimpse of it, and it became clear that there was a pair of them walking quickly along the path as they often do at sunrise. We spotted them a couple of times, but only as quick blue-grey blurs speed-walking out of view. Each time, I wasn't quite fast enough with my camera.We got to a straight section of path and I thought we had lost the birds, until suddenly one starting calling just off the trail! Tiptoeing into the woods, I finally spotted it: a big, fat blue-grey dove with a bright crimson patch on its chest, pacing up and down a tree branch giving its long, wailing call. It was practically pitch black and he was constantly hidden behind branches so I wasn't able to manage anything more than record shots, but any photo of a Luzon Bleeding-Heart is an achievement, especially one not sitting on a nest.

Luzon Bleeding-Heart!

Birding more after seeing a Luzon Bleeding-Heart feels almost superfluous; it's one of the best endemics in the Philippines, between being heart-stoppingly gorgeous and practically impossible to see. The Philippines isn't a great place to be a tasty ground-dwelling pigeon, so all bleeding-hearts tend to be extremely cryptic, walking quietly along the ground in thick shrubbery. The best most people get is a heard-only bird, or if they're lucky a very quick glimpse. This was actually my second time photographing a bleeding-heart, after my magical moment in SNA a few years ago, which means I have three more to go- the critically endangered Negros Bleeding-Heart, the virtually extinct Mindoro Bleeding-Heart, and the actually-extinct Sulu Bleeding-Heart. I hope to see at least one of those before they slip away forever, but it's getting more and more challenging.

The birding outing was already a success, but we continued around the lake to look for more species for my Big Day list. We spotted a Northern Indigo-banded Kingfisher perched on a log just as it was flushed by a passing fisherman, but to our surprise we eventually spotted it again perched on the scaffolding of a construction site next to the lake! Having just seen its southern cousin a couple weeks ago, it was nice to finally get a proper look and decent pictures this species. 

Northern Indigo-Banded Kingfisher

There were some more good birds as we continued around the lake: a few Amethyst Brown Doves feeding directly above the trail high in a tree, a gorgeous male Philippine Trogon, and a Yellow-breasted Fruit Dove hiding in the deep foliage. I was more focused on getting a decent list than on trying to get good pictures, so virtually all of my pictures from this day are fairly crappy record shots. Birds aside, there were also some very cool bugs and lizards to keep me entertained. 

Philippine Trogon

Amethyst Brown Dove

Yellow-breasted Fruit Dove

Dark Evening Brown

Red Helen Swallowtail

Saptha macrospila, a gorgeous little metalmark moth

Alex palparia

Philippine Clipper

Cepora boisduvaliana, an uncommon pierid

Jagor's Sphenomorphus

Yellow-striped Slender Tree Skink

The walk back down the access road was, as usual, pretty hot and quiet. One reason I don't bird in Luzon much is that the birds in the lowlands start getting scarce around 8 in the morning, meaning that there's really only a couple hours every day when it's worth being out. There were a few good new ones on our list though: a Stripe-headed Rhabdornis perched high in a tree, and a few Guaiaberos feeding on a fruiting ficus just above eye level. Near the parking lot there was a beautiful male Purple-throated Sunbird feeding in a flowering tree, although it wasn't a good angle for pictures.

Stripe-headed Rhabdornis

Female Guaiabero

Purple-throated Sunbird

It was 10AM by then and well past sensible birding hours, but it was also Big Day, so I pressed on, stopping by the Buhatan fishponds on the way back. It was, as expected, hot, sunny, and quiet. Still, I managed to add lots of the usual grassland and wetland birds to my Big Day list- flyover Philippine Ducks and Wandering Whistling-Ducks, Zitting Cisticola and Golden-headed Cisticola, and the usual waterbirds like Barred Rail, White-browed Crake, and Buff-banded Rail. Surprisingly there was also a Little Grebe there, an uncommon resident I don't usually also see at those fishponds. That time of day, most of my pictures were of insects, since they're the main wildlife active in the middle of the day rather than taking a nap in the shade.

Zitting Cisticola

Little Grebe

Peacock Pansy

Black and Scarlet Cicada (Huechys sanguinea)

Some kind of cool weevil (Pachyrhynchus sp. I think)

Oriental Blue Dasher

Grizzled Pintail

Mount Bulusan as seen from the fishponds

I returned home for a nap, since I already knew I wasn't going to be breaking any records, and there wasn't any point torturing myself any more than necessary in the birdless midday heat. Later in the afternoon, Nikki and I drove up to the Bac-Man Geothermal access road, to add some more endemics to the Big Day list. Bulusan Lake is great for non-passerines like doves, kingfishers and trogons, but strangely bad for mixed flocks (a relatively recent development, as it was excellent before a typhoon ripped through in 2020). Thankfully, Bac-Man is decent for many of those, so we had a few hours to make those additions to our list. 

We started walking uphill at 4:30 PM, just a couple hours before sunset, but the forest was disappointingly quiet, with no mixed flocks moving through. We did get to add some birds to our list like Elegant Tit, Rough-crested Malkoha, Coleto, and Buzzing Flowerpecker, and we even saw an Oriental Dollarbird, the first time I'd seen that species along the road. A male Luzon Hornbill perched briefly and distantly, but otherwise it wasn't great for photography either.

Oriental Dollarbird

Luzon Hornbill

Scarlet Mormon Swallowtail

Vagrant (Vagrans sinha)

The real reason to visit the Bac-Man road is for the nighttime fauna though, and this visit didn't disappoint. We heard the hooting of Luzon Hawk-Owls and Philippine Scops-Owls after the sun went down, and with my thermal I was able to spot a nest of endemic paper wasps and a rat of so far unknown identity. I had noticed a very ripe hagimit vine on the way up, and we checked it out on the way down. Along with some impressive Erebus owl moths, we found what I had been hoping too: a very fluffy Southern Luzon Giant Cloud Rat, certainly one of the best endemic mammals of the Philippines. I've found cloud rats every time I've looked for them at this site, but they're always a pleasure to see. I was also happy I could finally show it to Nikki, who had never seen one before. It was the perfect way to close out a very fun, if not record-breaking, Big Day.

Polistes philippinensis

Some sort of unidentified rat

Erebus clavifera

Erebus ephesperis

Southern Luzon Giant Cloud Rat

With the addition of the Plain Bush-Hen I heard outside my window that night, I ended the day with 90 species- not my record for Big Day, but still by far the highest total for the Philippines (as usual, I was the only birder in the Philippines to take it seriously). I also managed to personally at 5 or 6 species to the official Global Big Day count worldwide- a good reminder that every bit of birding data helps. It was about as good of a day I could have hoped for- a new province bird, a much-awaited photo lifer, and some great non-bird wildlife to boot. I'm currently in the process of moving away from Sorsogon, but it's days like this that remind me just how good birding there can be.