INSPIRED by stories of fellow bird photographers who have birded and photographed birds in various countries such as Colombia, Costa Rica, Thailand, and Vietnam, a group of Filipino bird photographers has banded together to offer bird photography tours in the Philippines for foreign bird photographers and birders.
While birding sites around the country have already been visited by many bird photographers, usually done in three to four days, there are only a few who attempt to offer birding tours for foreigners.
Birdwatching tours have long been organized by birdwatchers, but still, the number of avian tour operators is very small, and most offer hard-core birding that would usually require hiking for hours and is not designed for bird photography.
Most foreign bird photographers that have birded in the Philippines almost always complain of the difficulty of photographing birds in the country because, on top of the challenges in getting to the sites, the birds are also very shy, a behavior they have developed because of hunting.
Birds in other countries are friendlier and many establishments have set up bird feeding stations and bird hides that facilitate the capture of quality frames.
To validate once again the status of birding sites and the degree of difficulty in photographing Philippine endemic birds, four members of Haring Ibon and Bird Finder Philippines – Djop Tabaranza, Ben Maputi, Vinz Pascua, and yours truly – embarked on a 12-day bird photography tour around Mindanao.
Day 1 – Mapawa, Cugman, Cagayan de Oro City
It was already past noon when we reached Mapawa Nature Park, and to our surprise, our Bird Finder Ronnel “Dodong” Paglinawan has already prepared a hide at the roadside for a stake out of the Southern Philippine Dwarf Kingfishers which, he said, have already laid eggs inside a termite mound just across the road.
Rain poured, but we waited. After a couple of hours, an impatient Vinz got up and went after a pair of Short-billed Brown-doves and a Philippine Magpie-robin calling nearby, while the rest of us waited still. And the sun went down and decided to try again the following day.
Mapawa Nature Park is a forest and highland pasture, part of a 2,500-hectare property managed and operated by the Emmanuel Pelaez Ranch.
Emmanuel Pelaez was the Vice President of the late President Diosdado Macapagal from 1961 to 1965.
Dodong said the park is currently not operational as the land tenure is in question following an ancestral domain claim that led to the non-renewal of the lease. The road from the highway is mostly paved except for a portion that remains muddy as the owner refused to donate a patch of his land where the road traverses. We no longer entered the park as the nesting area of the kingfisher is outside of it.
Day 2 – Cagayan de Oro City and Intavas, Impasug-Ong, Bukidnon
Daybreak is the best time to bird as our feathered friends usually wake up to a new day by feeding and showing off, and the best daybreak for birding is the one after a previous day and night of rain since birds will be very eager to feed and to dry their feathers out.
True enough, we were just alighting from our vehicle when we heard a familiar call and Bird Finder Dodong was already pointing to the Southern Philippine Dwarf Kingfisher just a few meters from the road. We could no longer approach our hide so we shot just near our vehicle. Over the next couple of hours, the kingfishers appeared, perched, and flew away several times but not without giving us enough time to frame each time.
Considering they were a nesting pair, we tried to be farther from the nest. After taking hundreds of shots, we decided to leave them and go inside the park and look for the Southern Silvery Kingfisher.
The park was dead silent. The absence of people in the park was quite noticeable, including the untended grasses and plants. We looked for the Southern Silvery Kingfisher along the river, but it was not there.
Dodong said they must have been driven away by those coming early to wash clothes. We played the song of the Southern Rufous Paradise-flycatcher, having previous experience of its presence in the park years ago. Instead, we saw a Drongo-cuckoo flying around and posing, which was followed by the familiar call and flight pattern of the orange flycatcher we were calling. We left before lunch to catch up with the birds of Intavas.
At Intavas, we heard the calls of the Red-eared Parrotfinch. The presence of hundreds of wild sunflowers blooming around assured us that the parrotfinches were there. These birds eat the seeds of wild sunflowers. We saw one and then another, but their shyness hindered us from framing them.
The sky above us showed Oriental Honey Buzzards and Rufous-bellied Eagle. The other star birds of Intavas, however, did not allow us to see and photograph them, even if our Bird Finder Marlon Sayoron, who belongs to the Higaonon tribe, accompanied us and even brought us some food from the birthday celebration of his son Daryl.
There is no argument that mere human appearance in the birds’ habitat and environment is an actual disturbance, whether one belongs to the community, a birdwatcher, a bird photographer, a tourist, or even a biker or hiker.
Minimizing such disturbance is always the foremost consideration in birdwatching, photographing birds, and in enjoying nature. Once one sees some kind of reluctance, uneasiness, or a break in the seemingly normal behavior of the bird, it is time to move away and let them be.
Early morning is always the best time to bird when light is manageable.
We have yet to adopt and practice rest time between 10 am to 2 pm as this is the time when birds are noticeably not around and the sun is at its harshest, so we might as well use the time to sleep and rest. But as the saying goes, kailangang masulit ang bawat oras, sayang naman ang gastos at pagkakataon, so we continue to bird.
The way to Intavas is carpeted with blooming wild sunflowers, and hundreds and thousands of yellow dots along the road, in the farms, around gardens, and everywhere.
But that excitement blows away when the vehicle reaches the highest point that can be navigated and the hiking starts. The rocky trail is much worse this time. Several years ago, vehicles could still reach the birding area in the shade, but this time, we had to hike one to two kilometers of steep rocky trail before reaching the birding area.
Noticeable also is the farming that is encroaching on the lower portion of the protected area. Intavas in Impasug-ong is the jump-off and gateway to Mt. Kitanglad, a dormant volcano, which is an ASEAN Heritage Park and the fourth highest elevation (2,938 meters asl) in the Philippines.
It was in Intavas that I have seen the Philippine Eagle for the second time soaring above.
Bird Finder Ben would always tell us that the name “Kitanglad” was derived from a legend that there was once a great flood that submerged the native lands of Bukidnon and only the tip of the mountain, the size of a “tanglad” (lemon grass), remained visible “kita”” in Visayan.
Alain Pascua is an environment advocate and a former government official.
Email the author at [email protected]
