It's good to be... home?

 

My first stop in the Philippines was the mountains of Antique, but after that I was able to return home to Sorsogon and spend a blissful few weeks there before having to go to the US once again. Most of that time was spending time with Nikki and catching up with work and sleep, without much birding at all (I had certainly done enough of that in the last couple of weeks). In fact, most of my birding was done from my balcony, enjoying the usual backyard birds. 

Red Collared-Dove, a relatively uncommon visitor to the balcony

Lowland White-eyes are dirt common but weirdly hard to photograph

The one backyard excitement was a baby Mangrove Blue Flycatcher that I first saw by our gate when taking out the trash. I'd never seen one of any age in our yard before- or even anywhere near it- but they were clearly nesting nearby. Mangrove Blue Flycatchers in the Philippines don't usually actually hang out in mangroves (one of the reasons they'll likely be split to become their own endemic species at some point), but I guess no-one told these ones as that's just about the only suitable habitat nearby our house. The baby one came by our apartment window a few days later as well, making it a welcome new balcony bird.

Fledgling Mangrove Blue Flycatcher

My one birding foray was up to my usual patch spot of the Bac-Man access road. In all honesty I was feeling lazy enough I might not have gone up at all, but our friend (and Nikki's cousin) Vitto wanted to do some bird photography so I figured it was a good excuse to get out at least once. We left from home at 4:30 AM and got up to the usual birding spot a little after sunrise. It was unusually quiet at the usually active spots, although a singing (but unseen) White-browed Shama was a nice addition to the site list. Further up we had a very noisy Grey-backed Tailorbird and a cooperative male Luzon Hornbill.

Grey-backed Tailorbird

Luzon Hornbill

The real highlight of the morning, however, was a fruiting Ficus with dozens of doves inside it- White-eared Brown Doves, Amethyst Brown Doves, Yellow-breasted Fruit Doves, and at least 7 Cream-bellied Fruit Doves! We spent an hour or so watching the doves flying in and out and trying to get some decent pictures, although the cloudy weather and intermittent rain made for less-than-ideal conditions.

Amethyst Brown Doves

Yellow-breasted Fruit Dove

Cream-breasted Fruit Dove

Coleto

Further up we enjoyed good looks at the usual Brown-breasted Kingfishers and Buzzing Flowerpeckers as well as a perched Philippine Serpent-Eagle and another male Luzon Hornbill. We spent a bit more time at the fruit dove tree walking down to the car, and a bit further down had surprisingly good looks at another Amethyst Brown-Dove feeding next to the road along with some Red-keeled Flowerpeckers. 

Luzon Hornbill

Brown-breasted Kingfisher

Buzzing Flowerpecker

Philippine Serpent-Eagle

Yellow-breasted Fruit Dove

Amethyst Brown Dove

Red-keeled Flowerpecker

Jagor's Sphenomorphus

Our final outing of July wasn't actually for birds- it was a trip up to Albay province, where Mount Mayon had been erupting for the past few weeks. I have a strange obsession with volcanoes (it's half the reason I moved to the Philippines, and to the Bicol region specifically), but I've been "unlucky" with catching good eruptions, managing to be out of town whenever Bulusan or Mayon, my two neighborhood volcanoes, are doing their thing. Thankfully this time we finally found the time to do it, and Nikki and I met up with Vitto and Jen to go see Mayon at night. We drove around in a little farming neighborhood until we found a clear view of the mountain, and spent half an hour or so with our tripods out figuring out the right angle and exposure. 

It didn't disappoint; Mayon in the daytime is an impressive sight, a perfectly symmetrical cone looming ominously above Legazpi City like some ancient guardian. At night with glowing red streams of lava flowing down it it's downright terrifying. The pictures weren't amazing and we didn't spend the whole night there like the truly dedicated photographers do, but it was still a major bucket list item I got to tick off.

I would have loved to spend another month or two in Sorsogon, but sadly a few weeks was all I got as I had to return to Indonesia and then to the US. Two months later and I'm still in the process of moving back to the US, but looking forward to another bit of rest in Sorsogon before we say goodbye completely.