Not Quite Furtive Enough

 

As I enter old age (my mid-30s), I find my birding philosophy shifting from being a reasonably hardcore lister to caring more about just having a good time and seeing some cool birds. That said, there is one list that I expect that I will always take seriously and do my best to build up, and that is my Philippines list–or more specifically, my list of Philippine endemic birds. At this point there are precious few of those I haven't seen, and most are either in places that I don't dare to visit if I value my life (the Sulu endemics), are in areas with restricted access (the Mindoro mountain endemics), or are likely extinct or at least almost there (Mindoro Bleeding-Heart, Cebu Brown Dove, Negros Fruit Dove).

Of the remaining endemics I haven't seen, a disturbingly large proportion of them are in Luzon, despite the fact that's the island I've spent 3 years living on at various points in my life. Some of those are vanishingly rare with no recent records (Luzon Rail, Luzon Buttonquail, Rufous-breasted Blue Flycatcher until recently), are in remote areas I haven't spent much time in (Luzon Jungle Flycatcher, Blue-breasted Blue Flycatcher, Luzon Striped Babbler), or that I refuse to look for out of spite (Ashy-breasted Flycatcher). Now that I don't live in the country anymore and my birding time is restricted to weekends during infrequent work trips, it's even more difficult to target any of them, as they're found in places it would take a day or more to even get to. 

Furtive Flycatcher is one of those birds, or at least it was until late last year. It's an unassuming little Luzon endemic closely related to Cryptic Flycatcher and Palawan Flycatcher, and like them is a skulking bamboo specialist. It's also by far the least commonly seen of the three; there's lots of bamboo in Luzon and it seems to like disturbed forest, which is most forest on the island, but for some reason it's very picky about which disturbed bamboo forest it hangs out in. It also doesn't help that it's rather, well, furtive. There are just over 60 records on eBird (compared to almost 500 for its lookalike cousins), most of which are in remote areas of eastern and northeastern Luzon. 

I had long dismissed that bird as one I would have to wait to see until I made a dedicated trip to northeast Luzon. However, in 2022 birding friend Cheta was hiking Mount Maynuba in the southern Sierra Madre just east of Manila when he heard an unfamiliar bird singing. He was with non-birders who were uninterested in stopping for too long to stare into bamboo thickets, so he just recorded the call and finished the hike. It was only when he got down the mountain and listened to the recording that he realized it sounded suspiciously like a Furtive Flycatcher. Others concurred, but without a sight record the best conclusion they could come to was "probably Furtive but who knows." It remained at that for a few years, as it was in an area with unimpressive habitat where even Manila-based birders had few reasons to go. Our friend Bambi did visit once in 2024 and thought she heard it as well, but also never saw it to confirm. I had long been tempted to visit myself, but I try to minimize my time in Manila and when I did visit I went to other spots with more birds like Infanta. 

Fast-forward to October of last year, when I was in Manila for a work trip and trying to figure out what to do on one of my few days off. I asked Cheta for ideas, and it turned out he was already going to be in Manila that weekend. He suggested we finally give Mount Maynuba a try to see if it really did have Furtive Flycatchers, and I was more than happy to give it a try. So was our friend (and frequent companion on birding adventures) Jasmin, and so on October 18 the three of us piled into Cheta's car and made the 2-hour drive to the trailhead, in a little rural barangay in the municipality of Tanay.

Mount Maynuba is a popular day hike for Manileños needing an escape from the city, and even at 6 in the morning it was easy to register with the barangay, pay the environmental fee, and get our assigned guide. The guide was an local farmer who, like most mountain guides, was over twice our age and at least twice as fit. As we started the hike, we asked him if he'd every seen Furtive Flycatchers around but there's only so far you can get with "have you seen this really boring brown bird that looks like a bunch of other really brown birds but has a rufous tail and is also way harder to see?"

The hike led us from the barangay hall through the residential areas at the bottom of the valley then up through agricultural land into the scrubby forest that covers this part of the Sierra Madre foothills. Yellow-vented Bulbuls in town gave way to Philippine Bulbuls at the forest edge, and Collared Kingfishers to Brown-breasted Kingfishers. 

Brown-breasted Kingfisher

Xanthoneura telesinus

Metapocyrtus adspersus, a disappointingly drab species in an otherwise spectacular-looking genus

Tagiades trebellius

Banana plantations near the bottom of the trail

There's little to no primary forest left on Mount Maynuba, but it does still have some reasonably advanced secondary growth and we saw a number of decent forest birds on the way up. Luzon Hornbills were honking in the distance, and there were some little mixed flocks with Elegant Tits, Philippine Bulbuls, and Grey-backed Tailorbirds. The forest was full of stands of bamboo, and we kept listening out for Furtive Flycatchers the whole time as they can theoretically show up in any given bamboo grove. We thought we may heard one, but were reluctant to say so for sure especially after a Mangrove Blue Flycatcher (which has a very similar call) showed up next to the trail. It was migration season, and kettles of migrating raptors flew overhead throughout the hike, mostly Grey-faced Buzzards with a few Oriental Honey-buzzards. One of the nicest surprises of the hike was a vocal pair of Luzon Flamebacks that showed up briefly. 

Luzon Flameback, one of my top 10 favorite woodpeckers but still only the third or fourth best woodpecker in the Philippines

Mangrove Blue Flycatchers in the Philippines are notable for refusing to go anywhere near mangroves

Grey-faced Buzzards are one of the most common migratory raptors in the Philippines, and a good day of hawk-watching can see tens of thousands of them passing through

Some sort of cool leafhopper (Atkinsoniella sp.)

Northern Wallacean (Zethera pimplea)

Hiking through bamboo thickets

As we got higher, the hiking got tougher even as the birds were getting more interesting. This was the rainy season which meant the trail was full of mud, and even with ropes and handrails in particularly steep parts it was treacherous going. At one point I lost my footing and managed to do a comically long slide downhill, covering my clothes and camera gear in mud that still hasn't completely come off several months later. We came across a few more mixed flocks, this time with Blue-headed Fantails and Lemon-throated Leaf Warblers along with the usual Black-naped Monarchs, Elegant Tits, and Philippine Pygmy Woodpeckers. After reaching the crest of the ridge we began walking along a saddle toward the summit. It was here that we had another nice surprise in the form of a Slaty-legged Crake skulking around in the bamboo undergrowth, with all of us getting good views although no time for pictures. 

Blue-headed Fantail

Black-naped Monarch

Elegant Tit

One of the most macabre natural phenomena I've ever witnessed: a spider wasp (Auplopus sp.) with a jumping spider whose legs it's amputated to bring it back to its nest. It will then lay its eggs in the spider's abdomen so that the larva will feed on the spider while it's still alive. 

Some sort of cool fruit fly

We thought we'd gotten way out of Manila, only to arrive at an overlook and realize we were just barely on the outskirts...

Near the summit of Mount Maynuba the secondary growth gave way to a thick bamboo forest. It was there that Cheta recalled hearing his possible flycatcher on his first visit, so we tried a bit of playback to see if any were around. We heard some possible whispers of song, but it was almost impossible to see anything in the bamboo thickets, especially with much noisier White-browed Shamas singing next to the trail. I tried going up the trail a little, and just then a Furtive Flycatcher shot out of the undergrowth and almost hit me in the face! 

What followed was a full half hour of awkward shuffling as we tried to navigate the steep, slippery slope to get a proper view of the bird. It would pop up briefly and perch long enough for exactly one person to see it, then disappear before the rest of us got on it. In the end we all got good views and I even managed a few decent pictures but it was damn hard as they are extremely skulky birds, not at all like Cryptic Flycatchers or Palawan Flycatchers that like to pose nicely for pictures once taped in. I guess there's a reason they don't call it Extroverted Flycatcher. Still, we were thrilled–it was a lifer for me and the first time Cheta and Jasmin had managed a good look. It was also one of only 60-some eBird records of this species, and I got some of the only pictures ever taken of it. 

Furtive Flycatcher!

The gang post-flycatcher (photo by Cheta)

The Cryptic Flycatcher spot–yes it really was that steep and muddy (photo by Jasmin)

By then we were only about 30 minutes from the summit, so we figured we might as well get to the top even though that wasn't the main point of the outing. At the summit we enjoyed a nice view of the surrounding Sierra Madre and watched Grey-faced Buzzards migrating through at eye level. At least, that's what we did for about 5 minutes before the clouds opened up and drenched us in monsoon rains as we tried to get downhill and into the cover of the forest. 

The view from the summit

The gang at the summit (note impending torrential rains)

Grey-faced Buzzard

We made our way down much more quickly, as the day didn't seem like it was going to get any less rainy. We still tried for Furtive Flycatcher along the way, as the whole mountain was full of habitat and it seemed like there should be more birds around than in just that one spot. Unfortunately no flycatchers made themselves known, and we added only a little flock of Ashy Minivets to our list. 

Furtive Flycatcher

Discophora ogina

Grey Glassy Tiger (Ideopsis juventa)

Conocephalus vestitus, a little endemic katydid

Some sort of tussock moth caterpillar

We stopped for some celebratory seafood on the way home, sweaty and muddy but flush with success. It says something about how much is left to be learned about Philippine birds that a site for one of the rarest endemics can be discovered literally within view of the country's largest city. There are probably only about 10 birders in the country adventurous enough to try something like this to find it, and 20 percent of them were in the car with me. I'm hopeful that the rapid increase in birders in the last few years will lead to more adventuring and more discoveries like this in the future–and ideally lead to more public interest in conservation so that there will still be endemic birds around to find.