The chirp of the birds and the ebb and flow of the ocean woke me up. I checked the time and it said 6 AM. Jumped out of bed, did a quick morning ritual then grab my binoculars and a guidebook for birds. It was a cold and beautiful morning. The sun was not out yet but the horizon looked pretty okay. Must be a good day in the offing. I was heading to the secluded area behind the jagged rocks at the end of an unnamed beach. The beach was located at the beginning of the Jungle Trail. This was the trail tourists take if opting to walk all the way to the famous Underground River instead of taking a boat. This was the place I saw an eagle some five weeks ago hovering while I and a friend spent a day there bathing in the sun and enjoying the waters and where I saw three people came out of the woods near the jungle trail head with bins around their necks. I was thinking this must be the place to see lots of birds.
As I trod on the sand, stamping my footprints and mixing up with those of the dogs running up and down the the stretch of the beach I couldn't help but still get amazed with the beauty of the place. I lost track of how many times Iv'e been here but never lost interest and appreciation. It gets better every time and didn't seem to diminish even a bit. I wonder if it's still in the running for the New 7 Wonders of Nature, an initiative started in 2007 by Canadian-Swiss Bernard Weber to create a list of seven natural wonders chosen by people through a global poll. The resort's dog that slept at my cottage's doorstep last night was now walking with me as if he knew me for a long time. No barks, no commands, he was just cruising it with me along this beautiful cove.
I reached the end of the beach and passing through the last of the cottages when I tried to direct my lens on top of a coconut tree. I've been hearing birds' calls but can't figure out how to spot them, I need more experience, though. It was a zebra dove. It took me a few minutes before I was able to identify her. Lots of swallows were diving above me and two Cattle Egrets seemed having a great time with a water buffalo on a hole. As I got to the mouth of the mangrove river, the boundary between the main beach and the secluded one, I heard lots of noise coming from the trees on the other bank. Tried to get closer to the edge of the estuary river so I can get a better spot to where I believed the sound were coming from. Took the small path leading to the main office of the Mangrove Paddle Boat Tour trying to zero in the chirps, the songs of the cicadas, all different but sounded like an orchestra to my novice ear. This was really beautiful. I asked myself if these sounds entertaining my soul right at the edge of this Protected Area was fascinating enough, what more deep inside the wilderness of the Park itself. With this amazement I decided not to pursue my original plan of bird watching at that secluded beach behind those jagged rocks. The place I was standing right at that very moment was best spot I thought.
The sound was getting louder and coming from different directions. Standing from the side of the river which was some 10 meters wide, I lifted my bins, scanned through the leaves, tried to point to the direction of the moving branches and leaves on the other bank, and guess what I found? The noisemakers to my surprise were not winged-animals. They were monkeys. Hahaha. I just can laugh at my inexperience in determining sounds. It was a family of macaque, at least to me, feeding on the fruits of the trees I wasn't able to identify. I can hear my favorite to imitate plaintive cuckoo but didn't know how to find her. I can hear other chirps but didn't know where to spot them. Patience must be the key. As I pan my 8x42 Hahn scope one more time to get a glimpse of these elusive flying creatures, three birds went flapping above my head leaping from the tall and old mangrove tree in my back trying to get to the other side of the river. Poor boy! They must have been there for a while right above me in that same tree I was taking refuge and I didn't even know. It's a shame. And as if they knew I was trying my luck to see some birds, they split into two different directions right after getting into the other bank. One of the birds flew to the left and vanished behind the trees, the other one to the right and faded away while the third one landed on a branch of a mangrove tree. Adjusting the distance of my lens, I tried to take note of the size, color and distinguishing marks for better identification. She was much bigger than the usual Munias or Eurasian Tree Sparrows. She had a long tail, black head, blue wings and black underparts. She moved from side to side giving me a better view of her entirety. Hopped to another branch and there she flew away. As I flipped through the pages of my guidebook, the closest bird to her colors and looks was the Asian Fairy Bluebird. I hope I did get it right. Too bad my point and shoot camera can't capture her image. It was too far for my camera to get a frozen image of her. I can't really recall if this bird is a rare one, a hard to find. If she is then I must be lucky to have spotted her.
In any case, I was happy to be able to see at least one good bird, a lifer for me. Alice Villa-Real of Wildbird Club of the Philippines told me a lifer is your first bird. The bird you see the first time as a birdwatcher is called a lifer. Just as I was about to pack up, I tried to scan one last time. There you go. A yellow bird was suspending itself in the air like an F-16 fighter picking up on the fruits high above a tree. I believe it was a Flowerpecker. Much to my delight, the dog was still there beside me, in the sand, watching and guarding me. He didn't leave even for a second to do his thing. He stayed with me for the whole hour. As I walked back to my cottage happy and smiling, the dog was leading my way by some 10 meters ahead, would stop from time to time to glance at me, checking on me if I was still on the track. What a good day for me indeed.
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