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.
