Birding at UP Diliman by Allan Gil Fernando

Location: UP DILIMAN
Date: February 16, 2003
Time: 6:30 AM - 11:30 AM
by MIKE, MADS, LU-AN and ALLAN

The birding activity at the PAWB two weeks ago was my initiation rites to the "birding" world. Although I had a hard time differentiating a yellow-vented bulbul from the brown shrike, I still enjoyed the activity. The highlight of the day was the colasisi pair Kitty and Andrew saw perched on a eucalyptus (?) tree. My life was never the same again. I began dreaming of birds nesting on my hair - the very reason why I decided to cut my hair short, much to my parents' delight.

When Mads texted me about the birding activity to be held in UP on the 16th of February, I became very excited. So very excited that on the same day, I did a "birding practice" in the Math-Science-NIGS area (see attached map). I saw long-tailed and brown shrikes, pied fantails, kingfishers and two black birds with a "white spot" on each wing. These black birds, I learned from Mads, are crested mynah.

February 16. Meeting time was 6 am at the park near the Math Building. I woke up at 6:30, flew like a bird and arrived at the place at 7:30 am. Mads, Mike and Lu-An were already at the North Side of the College of Science Building near the Marine Science Institute (see attached map for reference). They already saw some shrikes, kingfishers and fantails. The highlight of the day was the white-breasted waterhen near the Marine Science Institute. All except Lu-An saw the waterhen (Hi Lu-Ann! I still have to talk to the project leader of the Pampanga Poster. I'll try my best to communicate with him this week).

The grasslands between the Math Building and the Computational Science Research Center (CSRC) proved to be as exciting as the creek area (blue line in the map). In the area, we encountered striated grassbirds and Richard's pipit (Does anyone know who Richard is?). In the "hilly portion" between the Math Building and the unfinished NIP Building, we saw chestnut munia (to the delight of Mads), zebra dove, shrikes and swallows. Near the NIP Building, unidentified small birds were observed. Mads suspects that the unidentified small birds are bright-capped cisticola (Cisticola exilis), which was reported by Rabor (1936) but presumed locally extinct by Ong et al. in 1998.

Before proceeding to the Lagoon-Beta Way area, the group went to the NIGS Building to look at the Institute's fossil collection. The museum's centerpiece is a tusk of a stegodon (a relative of the modern-day elephant) found in Antipolo City in the early 80s. Along with the other bone and molar fragments, the tusk proves the existence of stegodon in Antipolo and other parts of Metro Manila 1 - 2 million years ago. Other fossils in the museum include 500 million-year old trilobites and insects trapped in amber (fossilized resin).

In the Lagoon-Beta Way area, the group observed white-collared kingfishers, pied fantails, the ever-present shrikes and yellow-vented bulbuls (see attached map). In addition, lemon-throated leaf warblers were observed.

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