Migration in Manila

 

Way back in October of last year, I finally made it back to the Philippines for the first time since May of 2024. Now that Nikki is properly here in the US I have fewer excuses to go back, but the stars finally aligned this year and I had several projects for work that justified a return trip. Two return trips, in fact, but more about that later. 

I arrived in Manila on Friday, October 8 and had a weekend to settle in before work meetings started in earnest. And by "settle in" I mean "get up at 3AM on Saturday morning to go birding." I had been in touch with the birding network as I got ready to go, and birding friends Gwen and Moleen graciously offered to take me out to Infanta. Obviously I wasn't going to turn down the offer, especially since that Saturday happened to be fall eBird Big Day. I have a long history of taking Big Day in the Philippines more seriously than I probably should, and while I wasn't going to be out the whole day this time it was still a chance to add some species to the global list. 

The thing with birding Infanta is that it has a very long list of specialty birds, most of which will be dipped on any given visit. Andrew and Doug described it as "slot machine birding" when I took them there, and it's one of the things that keeps birders going back–seeing all of the targets in one day or even a few days is almost impossible. On the other hand, it's possible to spend a whole day there and dip on basically everything, which is what we did on this visit. I've been to the site more times than I can count, but this was easily the nadir of my Infanta birding experience in terms of how few birds we saw. Still, even a bad day at Infanta is still full of cool endemics, and it had been so long since I was in the country that even Philippine Bulbuls were a welcome sight. 

We arrived at Camote's house, the first stop along the birding road, just before sunrise. That was early enough for a disappointingly tepid dawn chorus, a harbinger of things to come. White-browed Shamas were singing from deep in hillside thickets and we had a small mixed flock with Citrine Canary-flycatchers, Elegant Tits, a Sulphur-billed Nuthatch, and a Lemon-throated Leaf Warbler, but no photo ops. Philippine Dwarf Kingfisher had been seen in that area recently, as had Philippine Trogon, but we certainly didn't see them. It was the same story in the other roadside stops we tried–the hagimit figs weren't fruiting so there were no interesting doves or flowerpeckers, mixed flock activity was essentially zero, and the resident hornbills were completely silent. The only birds that seemed willing to come out in the open were Elegant Tits and Philippine Fairy Bluebirds. Not that I'm complaining about either of those mind you, but I wouldn't have exactly objected to a nice hornbill or fruit dove or something.

A carpenter bee (Xylocopa ghilianii) feeding on a Bengal Trumpet (Thunbergia grandiflora)

The Infanta birding road, sans birds

We stopped at the famous "Rizal bust" house further along the road. Jake, the owner of the house, is a birder as well and is always happy to show visitors around his place which often has some interesting birds. There wasn't much besides a little flock of Ashy Minivets, so we risked the steep hike downhill into the ravine, reasoning that if the birds weren't along the road they might be further down. They were not, in fact, further down and while we heard Blue-headed Fantails and I had quick looks at an Orange-bellied Flowerpecker and a Philippine Trogon there were few good views. Back up along the road there were a few Flaming Sunbirds feeding in the flowers by the house, which was a nice addition to the day list. There were also lots of cool bugs to keep me occupied even when there weren't any birds. 

Ashy Minivet

Orange-bellied Flowerpecker

Flaming Sunbird

Some sort of gorgeous jewel weevil (Metapocyrtus sp., I think)

Metapocyrtus quadriplagiatus, another jewel weevil

Cardiodactylus kondoi

Some kind of pygmy grasshopper

Rhicnogryllus paetensis

Telostylus maccus

Some sort of crab spider

Cyrano unicolor

We continued down to the very end of the road, where there are some little trails that often have decent mixed flocks and good vantage points to look for Rufous Hornbills. There was about the same amount of activity there, which is to say absolutely nothing. On the way back we stopped at the Querocep Bridge to scan the surrounding hills. It was here where we had our best bird of the day: a Philippine Hawk-Eagle perched in an agoho pine near the bridge! This is one of the specialty birds of Infanta, and among the more difficult ones as they're uncommon throughout their range and usually seen soaring high above. In fact, this was only my second ever good look at one. We enjoyed extended views as it sat and preened, and were even able to get it in the scope and show it to various passersby. All it takes is one good bird to turn a disappointing outing into a successful one, and this was ours. 

Philippine Hawk-Eagle

We headed back to Manila after that, with possibly the smallest species list I've ever gotten at Infanta but nonetheless with a good 6 or 7 species that were seen by no-one else on Big Day. I was just happy to reconnect with birds and birders I hadn't seen in more than a year. 

The next day was Sunday, which meant there was time for one more birding outing before I had to get to work. Gwen was nice enough to take me out once more, this time to the Las Piñas-Parañaque Wetlands Park. LPPWP is one of the best-known birding sites in Manila, and is frequently visited enough that a number of good migrants are often seen. I had somehow never been there before, mostly because it's in south Manila far away from my usual hotels or workplaces and requires a permit to enter. Thankfully Gwen always has a permit, and was happy to take me along that morning. 

We arrived at the park just after sunset, when it was still nice and cool and the traffic relatively manageable. After checking in at the surprisingly nice visitor's center we started by scanning Manila Bay for interesting waterbirds. There wasn't much of interest besides a couple of distant Common Terns in amongst the many Whiskered Terns, but I did enjoy the hundreds of herons of different types: Black-crowned and Rufous Night Herons near shore, and further out masses of Great Egrets, Little Egrets, and a few migratory Grey Herons. In the mangroves near the parking lot I spotted a big bird that turned out to be a Philippine Hawk-Cuckoo! While not a migrant, this is weirdly one of the more difficult Philippine endemics, seeming to randomly turn up in various parts of the country without having any reliable sites. This was by far the best look I'd ever had at one, so I was as happy about that as I would have been about any rare vagrant. 

Black-crowned Night Heron

Rufous Night Heron

Philippine Hawk-Cuckoo

Manila Bay from the LPPWP visitor's center

We then spent a bit walking around the dirt roads near the visitor's center where other birders had recently reported some good birds including Philippine Nightjar, Philippine Scops-Owl, and Ruddy Kingfisher. In the process we ran into Sherwin, another Manila-based birder who I'd known online for about a decade but never met in person. We dipped on the owl and the nightjar, but eventually the three of us had quick looks at a Ruddy Kingfisher as it darted through the forest. There were also some of the usual common birds like Yellow-vented Bulbuls, Golden-bellied Gerygones, and surprisingly enough a singing Philippine Bulbul very far from its usual forest habitat. 

Eventually we gave up on trying to get pictures of the kingfisher, so Gwen and I headed into the forest toward the boardwalk. Since this was my first time there, I'd been expecting a short little jaunt through the woods like at La Mesa. Instead, I was surprised to see that the park had a few kilometers of nicely maintained trails, a birding hide, and a long boardwalk above a picturesque mangrove swamp. It's exactly the sort of wetland park that there should be more of in Southeast Asia, especially in the Philippines, and it's a damn shame that the park remains such a pain to access. I like to think that if there were more areas like that then birding and general appreciation of nature would be a much more common thing. 

The boardwalk at LPPWP

The forest itself was fairly quiet, although we did see a couple of Asian Koel and had a quick flyby from another Ruddy Kingfisher. At the boardwalk there were a few Common Redshanks hanging out in the mangroves, and some Common Kingfishers flitting through the forest. There had been recent sightings of a Ferruginous Flycatcher, which would have been a lifer for me, but the only migrants we saw were a Grey Wagtail and about a million Arctic Warblers. One of them had me going thinking it could be a Dusky or Radde's Warbler but it was, alas, just a dark Arctic. There were some cool non-birds as well, including a Marbled Water Monitor on the forest floor and a little group of jewel bugs that Gwen pointed out hiding under a leaf. We ended the morning with a respectable 45 species, and I was happy to have finally been introduced to the spot. Even though we didn't see anything incredibly rare it absolutely has migrant trap potential, and I figure it's only a matter of time before something mega like a Fairy Pitta or a Japanese Night Heron shows up. 

Common Redshank

There was an endless stream of Arctic (or Arctic-type) warblers, but none of them bothered to pose for a good picture

Female Asian Koel

Grey Wagtail

Chrysomya megacephala

Leucauge argentina

Amata deflocca

Mangrove Dwarf (Raphisima bispina)

Gasteracantha panisicca

Calliphara excellens, a gorgeous shield bug

Marbled Water Monitor

Austroscolia ruficeps

The next week was full of interminable meetings with various government officials and NGOs that I mostly spent either in a government office or in a van stuck in EDSA traffic. The only birding breaks I got were quick lunchtime walks to give me my daily eBird checklist (hey, I did get to add Philippine Pied Fantail and Eurasian Tree Sparrow to my year list). The following weekend I went on an amazing, harebrained adventure up in the mountains with Cheta and Jasmin, but that will get its own dedicated blog post. In the end I didn't get any more proper Manila birding outings in before I headed back to the US on October 24th. 

That wasn't the end of it though, as I spent less than 2 weeks back in DC before jetting right back to Manila for a different work trip on November 7. This one was for an academic conference where myself and many coworkers were presenting our research, which meant that between endless keynote speeches, seminars, presentations, and post-presentation bar hopping there was even less time for birding than the previous trip. I only managed to leave downtown Makati after the conference was over and I had a few other work meetings I'd managed to tack onto my trip. 

One of these meetings was fortuitously on the campus of the University of the Philippines Diliman. It was all the way on the other side of Metro Manila but I was excited to go both because it has some decent birds and also because it's where I spent almost every day my first few months living in the Philippines, more than 10 years ago (yikes). After my meeting I had a couple hours to wander around, and I made a beeline for the mini-arboretum behind the Marine Science Institute where good birds have a tendency to show up (it's also the last place I went in the Philippines to twitch anything–a Naked-faced Spiderhunter back in 2024). 

It was late morning by the time I started properly birding, and things were pretty quiet except for a few Philippine Jungle Crows (which were called Large-billed Crows last time I was in the Philippines) and the usual Brown Shrikes, Arctic Warblers, and Yellow-vented Bulbuls. I was in no hurry to get back into Manila traffic so I took my time there in hopes that something more interesting would show up. That paid off–soon I heard an unfamiliar chip note coming from a bamboo thicket and raised my bins to see a Narcissus Flycatcher hanging out in the undergrowth! Narcissus Flycatchers are uncommon migrants to the Philippines and this was the first in years I'd seen one. They're also certainly one of the best-looking winter migrants in the Philippines, especially adult males like this one. 

I put the word out on the group chats and it turned out Tsarina, one of the local birders, was already on campus to drop off her daughter. She stopped by the arboretum to look for it and while it took a bit for it to reappear, it was soon perched right in front of our faces, close enough for cell phone photos! I spent a while filling my memory card with pictures, then had to head out to get back to work. It ended up hanging out long enough for Tsarina to show it to her daughter later on–not a bad "rare bird" for helping non-birders understand why we're into the hobby. 

Philippine Jungle Crow

Yellow-vented Bulbul

Narcissus Flycatcher!

The next day was my last day in the Philippines and the plan was to visit LPPWP again, this time with Ens. I got up early and had breakfast, but just as I booked the Grab I got a message from Ens that he'd arrived at the park and it was unexpectedly closed for a DENR event. That was a drag, but I wasn't about to spend my last day in the country not going birding. Eventually I decided to head back to Quezon City on the other side of Manila and try Ninoy Aquino Parks and Wildlife Center. NAPWC is mostly a nice urban park (one of the only of its kind in all Manila) with some captive animals confiscated from the wildlife trade but recently there had been a few surprisingly good birds there, including a Japanese Paradise Flycatcher and a pair of Philippine Eagle Owls that had apparently taken up residence. This was another nostalgic visit for me as it was a spot I visited over 10 years ago in my first weekend in the Philippines, long before I was a birder (in my blog post at the time I wrote that these were birds I'd probably never get to see in the wild–hah!).

I arrived there at 7:30 in the morning, early enough to escape the worst of the Manila traffic and midday heat. I had only a vague idea of where to look for the birds there, but luckily enough I ended up running into Jon-jon Salvador, a local bird photographer who was guiding visiting birders Aimee (who I'd known from Facebook for years but never actually met) and Gilbert. Jon-Jon quickly pointed out a pair of Philippine Eagle-Owls roosting over an old basketball court, casually hanging out in the open as if they weren't one of the rarest endemic owls in the country in the middle of its biggest city. I've seen Philippine Eagle Owl a few times before, but this was my first time getting extended daylight views like this. Not bad for a casual outing in Manila!

Philippine Eagle-Owls

I joined up with the others as they headed to the area where the Japanese Paradise Flycatcher had recently been found, but it was nowhere to be seen amidst the many more common birds like Yellow-vented Bulbuls, Eurasian Tree Sparrows, and Brown Shrikes. Instead it was a good chance to catch up on the latest birding gossip (because if there's one thing you can depend on the Philippines birding community for, it's a constant supply of juicy gossip). We walked around the rest of the park to look for other interesting birds, and I did manage to find another Narcissus Flycatcher although this one was instead a female. Eventually I needed to return to my hotel to get work done before I had to fly out. I took the long way around the lagoon, where there was a Grey Wagtail, a flock of Blue-tailed Bee-eaters, some Black-crowned Night Herons and Little Herons, and a large group of very noisy Boy Scouts. 

Brown Shrike

Narcissus Flycatcher

Grey Wagtail

Little Heron was called Striated Heron last time I was in the Philippines

Alas, that was all I had time for as I flew back to the US that evening. While I didn't get out of Manila nearly as much as I'd have liked this time, it was still a much-needed chance to catch up with birds and birders I hadn't seen in over a year. I even managed a very good endemic lifer on my trip, but story will have to wait for my next blog post.