Parting Pitta Part Two

 

In May of this year, I found out that my job was unceremoniously extracting me from the Philippines, and relocating me to headquarters in Washington DC. This was mostly actually good news, as it meant that I was being promoted to something closer to a real job, with all the bells and whistles like health insurance and retirement. The bad news was that I would have to make the move alone: while we applied for a spousal visa for Nikki way back in June of 2022, the application was still processing with no end in sight thanks to the USA's dysfunctional immigration system. In fact, two months and some change later, she still doesn't have a visa, though there are some rumblings that it won't be too much longer. 

Obviously neither Nikki nor I wanted me to leave the Philippines, particularly not on my own. We tried our hardest to get me to telework for at least a bit, but the byzantine bureaucracy of international organizations and the [redacted] of HR meant that that was not a possibility. So it was that we flew to Manila in late May for a few last days in country before I flew to the United States. Most of this was for some last-minute food trips, souvenir buying, and general spending time together before I jetted off once again. Still, I wasn't going to go out without another birding outing. A few messages to the Philippines birder group chat and we arranged to head to La Mesa Ecopark with some birding friends on the morning of May 19. 

Enrico and Angel picked us up from our hotel before sunrise, and we drove out to La Mesa on the far edge of Manila where we met up with Bambi as well. La Mesa is one of (very generously) three or four decent birding spots in Manila, and has the only thing approaching forest birding in the city. Even as they've made birding more difficult lately, particularly by inanely closing the forest trails off to walkers, it's still usually an enjoyable destination. Most notably, it's the most reliable spot in the world for Ashy Thrush, an otherwise skulking and unobtrusive Luzon endemic that somehow loves this little bit of scrubby forest in one of the largest cities in Asia. That was the main target bird of the morning, as it was a new year bird for me, and one I hadn't seen well in ages. 

We didn't have to wait long; almost as soon as we entered the park, we heard the tinkling songs of an Ashy Thrush! I eventually spotted it perched on a low branch, but my camera was too fogged up for pictures. Eventually it flew up to a higher branch and kept singing, giving all of us great views. They really are one of the best-looking thrushes out there, and their song is just as beautiful as all the others in their family. I have no idea why they're so easily seen in La Mesa considering that it's an uninspiring grove of mostly non-native trees filled with noisy people and feral cats, but I'm not complaining. 

Ashy Thrush

The forest trail of La Mesa, which generally has the best birding in the park, was annoyingly still closed off, supposedly due to downed trees. It had been since the pandemic in 2020 and I can't believe there would be any fallen trees big enough to merit closing down the entire thing, so I can only assume it was because they didn't feel like maintaining the trail or something. Or maybe because city governments in the Philippines are determined to keep as many people as possible from anything resembling green spaces, so that they can build more malls instead. Whatever the reason, there was a side trail going into the forest and from what we'd heard they didn't seriously enforce the rule, so we decided to risk it in case there were good birds there. Unfortunately there were not: instead it was hot and quiet, with no sign of the specialty birds like Spotted Wood Kingfisher or Hooded Pitta. The only interesting birds we got for our troubles were a nesting Philippine Bulbul and a few Lowland White-eyes.

Philippine Bulbul on her nest- spotted only thanks to my thermal scope

Lowland White-Eye

Back outside the mini forest, there was lots of bird activity in the acacia trees next to the ponds. The highlights were Philippine Pygmy Woodpecker, Pied Trillers, a very cute juvenile Coppersmith Barbet, and a juvenile Stripe-headed Rhabdornis. The latter was unusually cooperative, giving me by far the best looks I've ever had at that species which usually prefers to stay high in the canopy. 

Baby Coppersmith Barbet struggling to eat a large fruit

Stripe-headed Rhabdornis

It was getting hot by then, so we made our way back out to the car park. Near the entrance we spotted a female Philippine Pygmy-Woodpecker with a big caterpillar in her beak. To our surprise, she brought it over to a hole in a tree right next to the path at eye level! We got to watch her feed it to her baby, then see the almost-fledged baby poke its head out of the nest hole. It was a real treat, and the sort of up-close bird experience that's hard to get in the Philippines, especially Manila.

Mama Philippine Pygmy Woodpecker

Baby Philippine Pygmy Woodpecker safe in its nest hole

I heard the song of another Ashy Thrush in the valley next to the trail, and soon after the call of a Hooded Pitta. Ens and I went to check it out and got decent looks at the Pitta singing from a high branch before it flew off.

Hooded Pitta

It was a nice way to close out my time in the Philippines, and funnily enough it rhymed with the last time I moved out of the country: that time I finished off with a photographed bleeding-heart and a trip to La Mesa, and this time I did too, albeit with a different bleeding-heart and different company at La Mesa. Of course, I've since been back to the Philippines and I'll be back again quite a bit this year - the Philippines will always be my home, and I'll always return as long as there are still birds to see there.