Subic - 27th to 29th Oct.

A nice family trip to Subic, with a couple of mornings of birding thrown in, lovely. All the usual suspects were present, lots of Woodpeckers (Northern Sooty, White-bellied and Luzon Flameback), Bee-eaters (Rufous-crowned) and Kingfishers (White-throated, White-collared and Common), with Whiskered Tree-Swifts on the wires, and Brahminy Kites on the updrafts. Parrots were represented by Colasisi, Guiabero and Green Racquet-tails. A nice sighting was a Philippine Hawk-Eagle on the wires early on Monday. Other birds included; Coleto, Red-crested Malkoha, Bar-bellied Cuckoo-Shrike, Rufous Coucal and Luzon Hornbill. Heard-only birds included Philippine Scops, Luzon Hawk-Owl and Rufous Hornbill.

The most unusual sighting was an Ashy Drongo at the entrance to the trail going up hill 394. Before I had registered how unusual a record this was it had gone, so no photos unfortunately. The three most obvious candidates appear to be: leucophaeus (resident on Palawan and spread across Indonesia), leucogenis (Manchuria and E China wintering to S Indochina), and salangensis (Resident SE China and S Thailand, wintering to Hainan and Malaysia).

Apart from birds, the bats and monkeys were entertaining, and a Tangalong Civet (Viverra tangalunga) on the road to hill 394 on Sunday morning was a big surprise.

Male Northern Sooty Woodpecker...

...this time with a female. These two were part of a noisy party of 5 or 6 birds in the botanical gardens on Monday morning

Male White-bellied Woodpecker, ssp confusus. This bird appeared to be excavating a nest, however the next morning when I revisited the site I watched a bat fly into the same hole...

 Rufous-crowned Bee-eater

White-throated Kingfisher

Philippine Hawk-Eagle on a wire in the early morning

Coleto

Bar-bellied Cuckoo-Shrike

Guiabero

Halloween seems to be in the air!