Guided Bird Watching with Wild Bird Club of the Philippines, in LPPCHEA

Guided Bird Watching with Wild Bird Club of the Philippines, in LPPCHEA

By: Ramon Q. Gayas Jr. (Ser Montaineer)

AT THE MARKER OF LPPCHEA

One year ago, I joined the Wild Bird Club of the Philippines’ (WBCP) Guided Bird Watching trip in U.P Diliman. It was a nice experience that enabled me to see birds like the White-collared Kingfisher and Black-naped oriole for the first time. I’ve made to continue this recreation after, and I would say I am now enjoying it evenly like how I indulge to my other outdoor activities. Sometimes, I do DIY bird watching and practice bird photography in our backyard, nature parks, commercial gardens and some woodlands near to my workplace. As I am getting more interested about birds, I joined the club again on their Guided Bird Watching event last September 09, 2018, at the Las Pinas-Paranaque Critical Habitat and Ecotourism Area (LPPCHEA), a Wetlands Ecosystem situated at the south of Manila Bay. To equip myself for that trip, I brought out some of the Solognac stuff usable for birding from my department, Wild Discovery, Decathlon Philippines. A khaki hat to protect me from sun, green breathable t-shirt to blend myself with the surroundings, waterproof boots for an hour of walking, and 10x42 Binoculars for watching.

GUIDELINES FOR VISITORS

Together with my girlfriend Heide Banday, we left home (from Merville, Paranaque) past 5 in the morning to meet the WBCP in Macapagal Blvd. A short registration and carpool briefing after, we headed to our birding venue, where we reached at around 7 in the morning. At this point, the members of the club huddled us, distributed binoculars and gave instructions how to use it, and reminded everyone to be silent not to scare the birds and have a successful birding. They also briefly discussed the Bird Watching opportunity in the country, which impressed me to knew that the Philippines is a home for diverse feathered creatures, owing to have a vast record of 695 avian species consists of resident birds, migrants and 241 endemic (only found in the Philippines). Then, our birding quest begin!

PARTICIPANTS ON BIRD WATCHING

The quest initially greeted with birds in flight, which identified by the club members as the Cattle egrets. Thereafter, Jops and some participants took advanced on trails. While, the other joiners goes with Mike - including me and my gf - we stayed and resume to watch the other birds can view at the spot of our first sighting. From there, Mike led us to the bird watching station where we saw the overlooking mangrove swamp showcasing numerous Egrets and Whiskered terns flying and wading. We also contemplated - via spotting scope - some perched Common Sandpiper, and Gray-tailed tattler when we surveyed the other spots in the area.

WATCHING BIRD VIA SPOTTING SCOPE

In the continuation of the quest inward the LPPCHEA, there are instances that both group congregated in one location and shares bird encounter along the way. Several birds species appeared onwards such as; Spotted dove, Chestnut munias, and Brown shrike  with food in mouth, which repeatedly spanked its prey - a bee as identified by Jops - on a tree branch using its beak. Upon walking the trail leading to the conjoin ponds, we beheld the Black-crowned night herons, from juvenile to adult. The White-collared kingfisher and Philippine Pied fantail which occasionally chirped emerged on the latter part, followed with a Yellow-vented bulbul. I also noticed many Eurasian tree sparrows. Interestingly, speaking of bird’s call, the sounds coming from Zebra dove and Golden-bellied gerygone lingered throughout the quest. While, some members of the club recognised calls of Clamorous reed warbler and Barred rail. Surprisingly, some Gerygone finally revealed themselves during our debrief (almost 10am). Though, it was only few seconds of appearance, these tiny birds flew from somewhere, and jumped over the cable, rewarded us a fun finale.

SPOTTED DOVE, FRAMED VIA SPOTTING SCOPE

Overall, I am grateful for the Guided Bird Watching trip I had with the Wild Bird Club of the Philippines in the LPPCHEA. The combination of good weather and accommodating folks made me had a very pleasant birding experience. While, the birds encounter left delights to my birding eyes. No regret if I missed watching the other bird species in the place, as this could be a great reason for me to go back there in the future.

BIRD WATCHING FIELD GUIDE

WILDLIFE DISCOVERY - BACKYARD BIRDING QUEST

WILDLIFE DISCOVERY - BACKYARD BIRDING QUEST
By: Ramon Q. Gayas Jr. (Ser Montaineer)

BACKGROUND

You're wrong if you think I have a beautiful backyard. No its not, as the place where I live - in Sitio All-Top to be exact - is near a dirty creek, which we fondly called "gillage" means beside the village, as its just few meters across the exclusive village named Merville Park in Paranaque City. However, the dirty stream on my backyard is still possessing some vegetation where birds can perch, rest, and eat. There are trees living on it's bank such as; Talisay, Bangkal, Ipil-ipil, and fruit-bearing trees like Mango, Bilimbi, Guava and Star Apple, as well as cultivated trees like Papaya, Banana and Malunggay. Though not as dense wayback 1990s, yes! there still life on our backyard. I'm a bit lucky because there still remaining patch of greeneries from the past, where I can still see different birds living and pass through. On the otherhand, my involvement in hiking and other outdoor activities for several years exposed me to the beauty of wildlife specially birds; which I had the most experience in terms of wildlife encounter, in the form of listening and appreciating their flight. Bird is one of my fascination in the outdoor. I've been delighted by seeing the beauty of their presence and having enjoyment from music they bring. Moreover, to see some of them within my neighbourhood, is another great thing I truly celebrate. Making me have a pretty laid back birding spot, just on my backyard!

BACKYARD BIRD WATCHING

My backyard bird watching started when I brought home the Solognac 8x42 500 serie Binoculars from Decathlon Philippines for test. I tried it countless time by watching birds on my backyard, which happened after the two outdoor trip I did - where I also brought the said optic - in the month of October and November last year. However, the binoculars testing I had on my backyard did not end as trial. Indeed, It resulted to a preliminary spotting, which followed with focus backyard bird watching. So, on November 17, 2017 around 6:30 in the morning - few days after my last outdoor trip with the optic - I visited my backyard to watch birds again. Through the Solognac 8x42 500 serie Binoculars, I repeatedly watch birds, and record the color patterns on their feathers, wings, crown, vent, belly and tails, which eventually served as key for me to named them later on, with the help of internet. I felt glad to recognised variety of birds that morning - from Pied fantail to Yellow-vented bulbul, Eurasian tree sparrow to Asian glossy starling, and Brown shrike to Golden-bellied flyeater - showing the power of their flight.

Solognac 8X42 500 serie Binoculars on my backyard 11-17-2017

On the other hand, watching birds through the binoculars is truly entertaining. I was ogled with the birds I've seen, and it piqued my interest to think of ways to share this kind of enjoyment. Then, I come up to plan a photoshoot documentation like other birders do. But it didn't go easily, as I don't have zoom camera and It took a month before I am informed that I have the privilege to borrow our company's DSLR camera, thanks to my colleagues Aya and James! They made my backyard birding quest continue ---

BACKYARD BIRD PHOTO SHOOT

The backyard bird photoshoot I had - in the morning of February 02 to 04 this year - did not easily goes through. I'm just a beginner and I had encountered difficulties dealing with the camera. There are times I am over excited and unconsiously made noisy moves, which made birds became intractable and fly faraway. However, learnings goes along the way. I learned to deal with the camera, to hide myself, to silently observe them from distance and to carefully glimpse to see where they are mostly hop and perch, until I managed to take photo of them one by one.

Pied fantail

The Pied fantail (Rhipidura nigritorquis) - This bird has been the first product of my bird photoshoot. Mostly, I see it flies together with eurasian tree sparrow. It is very visible in the morning because of it's fan-shaped tail and black and white color combination. But to take photo of it is not just easy, as it is constantly moving, agressively attacking other birds, even the rat roaming on the tree branch. I just had a good timing to take a photo when it perched on the branch of Talisay tree.

Pied triller

The Pied Triller (Lalage nigra) - At first, I thought it was a "shrike" because of the black-stripe passing through it's eye. Then the pied (black and white) patterns on it's wing confirming that bird is definitely a Pied triller. However, very few than the Pied fantail.

Eurasian tree sparrow

The Eurasian tree sparrow (Passer montanus) - This is the most dominant bird I always seen everywhere on my backyard. They are mostly very busy in getting dried stem to build nest on neighbor’s external ceiling, and sometimes joining the roosters eating on ground.

Yellow-vented bulbul

The Yellow vented bulbul (Pycnonotus goiavier) - The most active among the birds I've seen during the quest. Very easy to recognise as they are mostly perches in inclined position, making it's yellow vent to be visible. They flies and hop everywhere in a cluster.

Brown shrike

The Brown shrike (Lanius cristatus) - Same as Eurasian tree sparrow; this bird species is very common on my backyard. They hop in different trees and very comfortable to perch on barbed wire, wall and cable.

Zebra dove

The Zebra dove (Geopelia striata) - It has an occasional appearance - mostly in pairs - when I conducted the photoshoot. Perches on a high spot and not too much moving, yet active in surveying the ground like a chicken.

Yellow-bellied sunbird

The Yellow-bellied sunbird - Though I'm unlucky to see again the Asian glossy starling and golden-bellied flyeater during my photoshoot, the presence of a Yellow-bellied sun bird which suddenly landed in tall Malunggay tree is a nice complementary.

Blurred Photo of Philippine Pigmy Woodpecker

The Philippine Pigmy Woodpecker (Dendrocopos maculatus) - The most intractable bird I saw during the photo-shoot. I seen it pecking the dried tree branch for only seconds and haven't had a clear shot. Though I regret, yet still thankful for this very surprising encounter. To see my backyard accommodating an endemic bird, is such a pleasant discovery!

Overall, I am pleased to finally document different kind of birds from my backyard. Hoping I could see again and take photo of their other breed I haven't yet include in the photo shoot. Very thankful to the Decathlon Philippines' Solognac 8x42 500 serie Binoculars! This tool exposed me to the idea of enjoyable wildlife discovery without living my comfort zone and left high importance to my "birding eyes", in learning to identify the birds. For sure, I'm gonna bring out this optic again; to check out new birds encounter on my backyard or try it for a longer birding quest in the future.