Birding Phillipines: Villa Escudero, Ayala Greenfields and Bangkong Kahoy
When: November 2016 Weather : Cool 22C
Nikon P900. Leica M 35summilux
We spent a couple of days birding at Ayala Greenfields, Villa Escudero and Bangkong Kahoy, all within a couple of hours of Manila. Ayala Greenfields is a beautiful gated community lush with greenery and interesting sightings….

Sunset over Ayala Greenfields

early our first morning, the first bird outside the house was the collared kingfisher

Long tailed shrike greeted us

grey wagtail

the Phillipine version of the white throated KF commonly seen in other parts of Asia, is the Brown Breasted KF, which has much less white on the throat..

And after a glimpse of a white browed crake which I failed to capture, this beauty appeared…the Barred Rail..

And here’s looking at you!

brown shrike

a magnificent back lit long tailed shrike

long tailed shrike

and then another long tailed shrike perched spectacularly on this thin branch

Long tailed shrike

Intense activity in a tree saw numerous little birds zipping about…golden bellied gerygones!

golden bellied gerygone

lowland white eye

coppersmith barbet way up high…

zebra doves

Pygmy woodpecker

last bird of the day was this spotted black bird..

a blue rock thrush migrant
The next morning we set off for Villa Escudero, a former coconut plantation where we had cottages by the river and we tried to find the indigo banded KF …alas to no avail…..

bamboo rafts on the river….most scenic

the coconut plantation

walking around the grounds of the resort, the pied bushchat

chestnut munias

and then the Grassbird appeared….splendidly patterned

grassbird

as night fell on the river, this black and white image captured the tranquility of the scene

daybreak saw the crescent moon reflected in the still waters…
We set off at 6am from Villa Escudero to the valley of Bangkong Kahoy, between the mountains of Cristobal and Banahau…this was to be the most fruitful birding area….

the beautiful valley of Bangkong Kahoy, taken from the Lodge.

Poinsettias greeted us

one of the first and most impressive birds we saw was the blue headed fantail, an endemic.

ashy minivet

the gorgeous and endemic sulphur billed nuthatch

sulphur billed nuthatch

the turquoise flycatcher, formerly mountain verditer FC was shy

orange bellied flowerpecker

buzzing flowerpecker

the bicolored flowerpecker, another endemic

and then this beauty peeked out….

another star bird of the morning…the female white browed shortwing

white browed shortwing

farewell Bangkong Kahoy
We also had a good sighting of the chestnut faced babbler but it was too quick to shoot.
Both Ayala Greenfields and Bangkong Kahoy were excellent birding locations. Villa Escudero was slightly disappointing but that was prob due to timing…the Indigo banded will have to wait for another time….