Birding Adventure Philippines birder Trinket Canlas shares her recent experience with a pair of Greater Flamebacks in Subic Bay, Luzon, Philippines.A male Greater (Luzon) Flameback minding his own businesswhile the female violently pecks away at its own reflection
"On the wall, flameback," Adri communicated to me in a low voice. He was standing maybe 10 meters away from me, having come down the stairs while i stood on the sloping asphalt driveway.
We were at the parking lot of the (former) legenda suites at cubi-triboa district in subic, having left local birders drew, kitty and ivan at the street corner looking at blue-naped parrots on the agoho trees.
I looked at the tree beside the hotel wall, and saw a male woodpecker creeping up and down the tree trunk going about the usual woodpecker routine.
"yup, male!" i answered adri.
"SA WALL!(ON THE WALL!)" he said again.
"oo nga! male! (yes! male!)" i wondered what the insistence was about.
"tignan mo SA wall! (look ON the wall!)"
and then i saw it...
the female flameback was actually perched on the vertical concrete wall of the hotel!
"ahhhh... oo nga no! (oh, yes there it is) "
Talk about un-natural perches. not only that... the female seemed quite agitated. she seemed greatly threatened by another female flameback mirroring, literally, her every move.
She would swoop, fly in, attack, peck. a huge display of aggression... at herself! i could feel her hostility with her every charge and dip. it was of course, just her reflection on the large glass windows of the building she was threatening/threatened by. it was pretty comical to watch, this display of non self-awareness. by this time, kitty, drew and ivan had joined us in our observation.
It was also interesting to note that while this was going on, the male calmly went about his business pecking away at the tree trunk, up and down, peck peck peck. Initially i would think that the male of the species would be the sole aggressor. but then again...
... apparently not.
After all, we each have our own antagonists... (and maybe like the woodpecker, once in a while we don't realize that our greatest antagonist is our self!)
hmmmm....
The Luzon Water Redstart is a an uncommon endemic found only in the islands of Luzon and Mindoro. They favor clear mountain streams and rivers above 300 meters, usually in pairs. They forage for insects disturbed by running water in clean mountain streams. This female individual was captured in one of the highland streams in Mt. Polis, Ifugao and Mountain Provinces in the Cordilleras of northern Luzon, Philippines.
Aside from the Redstart, Mt. Polis holds several other birds that are difficult to get elsewhere in the Philippines. This includes the montane species such as Luzon Scops Owl, Luzon Bush Warbler and if lucky the beautiful Flame-breasted Fruit-dove plus many more Luzon montane birds. Be sure to check out our gallery for a sampling of Mt. Polis birds.
One of the main targets of a birding trip to the Philippines is to see the country's six endemic kingfishers. We have Philippine Dwarf Kingfisher for the major islands, Spotted Wood and Indigo-banded Kingfishers in Luzon, while Mindanao and its satellite islands have Silvery Kingfisher, Blue-capped Wood Kingfisher and the one featured here in this video: the Rufous-lored Kingfisher.
The Rufous-lored Kingfisher usually inhabits the lowland forests of Mindanao, Bohol, Samar, Leyte and its satellite islands and feeds on small vertebrates such as lizards, frogs and other invertebrates. Like its relative in Luzon, the Spotted Wood Kingfisher, the Rufous-lored Kingfisher is very active in the early morning and is usually given away by its loud and harsh calls. These individuals were recorded during one of our birding trips to PICOP, Bislig, Surigao.
Here is a video of an Ashy Drongo that Nicky videoscoped from Makiling a few months back. This is the subspecies leucogenis, a rare migrant to the Philippines, with just one other report a few years back in the local bird club's records. Incidentally, the previous sighting was also from the lowland forests of Mt. Makiling, Laguna. The other race leucophaeus shown below the video ranges only in Palawan where it is a common bird, often found in exposed perches. What big difference in terms of plumage! Possible split? 🙂
Ashy Drongo, Dicrurus leucophaeus leucogenis
Mt. Makiling, Laguna, Luzon, Philippines
Ashy Drongo, Dicrurus leucophaeus leucophaeus
Coron, Busuanga Island, Palawan, Philippines
Here's sharing with you a short video clip of a Yellow-breasted Fruit-dove trying to collect twigs as nesting material. This was taken during one of our custom tours for Jeepney Projects Worldwide. Jeepney Projects Worldwide is a partnering of benefit art projects and regional conservation groups working to inspire support and restore lost habitat of critically endangered birds. They are doing an art benefit project for the Philippine Eagle Foundation in conserving the Philippines' national bird, the Great Philippine Eagle.
The Yellow-breasted Fruit-dove is one of the five endemic fruit-doves found in the Philippines. It can be found allover the country except the Palawan region and inhabits forest and forest edge in lowland and montane forests usually taking advantage of fruiting trees. Locally called Punay, it is one of the most colorful fruit-doves in the Philippines.
Which one do you think is prettier, this Yellow-breasted Fruit-dove or its high-elevation-Luzon-only cousin, Flame-breasted Fruit-dove?
Yellow-breasted Fruit-DovePtilinopus occipitalis
January 2011, Mt. Kitanglad, Bukidnon, Mindanao, Philippines
Video by Nicky Icarangal, JR.
Digiscoped with a Swarovski ATM 80 HD, Canon Powershot S95.
This is a pair of Luzon (Greater) Flamebacks "doing it" in Subic Bay, Zambales, Luzon, Philippines.
These woodpeckers prefer forests and forests edge more commonly in lowland forests. Their strong bills are used for drilling holes into tree trunks to extract worms and insects. Luzon Flamebacks are found all over the Philippines with four races having distinctive characteristics. This pair is from the haematribon race and are considered as endemic subspecies found only in the islands of Luzon, Catanduanes and Marinduque.
EDIT: The Greater Flamebacks have been split and the birds shown are now called Luzon Flamebacks.
Luzon Flameback Chrysocolaptes haematribon
August 2010, Subic Bay, Zambales and Bataan, Philippines
Video by Nicky Icarangal, JR.
Digiscoped with a Swarovski ATM 80 HD, Canon Powershot S95.
Check out this video clip of a Cinnamon Ibon clearing out a nest hole during one of our sorties in Mt. Kitanglad
Cinnamon Ibons are high-elevation Mindanao endemics residing in submontane and montane forests above 1000 meters. They are usually seen in mixed feeding flock with Mountain and Black-Masked White-eyes, Black and Cinnamon Fantails, Sulfur-billed Nuthatches, Elegant Tits and other montane flocking birds.
The excellent (and one and only) guidebook "A Guide to the Birds of the Philippines" by Robert Kennedy lists this bird as common yet the nests and eggs of this Mindanao endemic have not been described. This video clip maybe the first documentation of the nest of the Cinnamon Ibon.
This video clip was captured in using a Swarovski 80mm HD scope with the new 25-50x eyepiece mated with a Canon Powershot S95.
Check out our Swarovski Digiscoping Section for more superb stills and videos of Philippine birds.
