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Andangan, Quezon Trip

Location: Brgy. Salvacion, Andangan, Quezon
Date: December 28-29, 2003
Birders: Kitty Arce, Andrew Galano and Arcy Salvacion
Weather: Strong winds (super strong at that..hehe), occasional rains on Dec 28 Windy with fast moving clouds making it cloudy now and sunny the next minute! No rains though on December 29.

Brgy. Salvacion in Andangan, Quezon is after Pagbilao. When you're in the highway you will reach a point where there will be a road going right - up the mountain or a road heading towards Bicol...in our case we went up the road that crosses some mountains and which brings us to the coastal area. If we went to the direction where Bicol is we will be passing by Quezon National Park (so they say).

In Brgy. Salvacion we went to Salvacion Beach. It is a super long stretch of beach with fine sand (not as fine and white as Boracay) but white and fine enough for me! :) Reminded me of Annette's pics in Olango. really :) The area is not too populated because it is somewhat private and i noticed that their main work there is fishing (both in open sea and fishponds) and looking for some sort of shells or whatever in the sand.

We stayed in a beach front house and behind the house you will see a swamp and a mangrove area. It was soooo cool. Lots of wildlife!

I only got to really bird on the 29th but saw some birds on the 28th too. Here is my list from the two days with some comments:

Note: There were more birds in the fishbond area that i couldn't identify.... the swamp also needs some exploring!!! The place is worth going back to :)

BIRD LIST:
 1. Intermediate Egret (egrets seen on the beach and on ricefields)
2. Little Egret (hey i got to finally see the difference between intermediate and little egrets!!!)
3. Little Heron - 1 - (swamp behind the house)
4. Philipppine Duck - 15+ (undisturbed fishpond, seen with Garganey - Philiippine Duck positively identified when it flew and from size)
5. Garganey - 15+ (swimming with Philippine Ducks but obviously in a separate groups and much smaller)
6. Japanese Sparrowhawk - 1 (had a good looklon this. Was able to identify it from the it's barred body and wings and the markings of the tail where i saw broad brown bands. It was also small compared to other birds of prey.)
7. Plain bush hen - 1 (swamp)
8. Plover sp. - 4-6 of them (seen on the beach; couldn't identify coz they were small)
9. Whimbrel - 1 (saw it at around 6:30am on the beach)
10. Common Sandpiper - 1 (seen on the beach)
11. Black-winged Stilt - 6 (these birds are just so beautiful and so elegant)
12. Guiabero - 1
13. Colasisi - 4 (I also saw lots of Guiaberos and Colasisis being sold in the Market)
14. Glossy Swiftlet - common
15. Pygmy Swiftlet - common (both swiftlets common on the beach at certain times of the day like in the afternoon)
16. White-Collared Kingfisher - common (heard and seen all day)
17. Philippine Pygmy Woodpecker - heard only
18. Yellow Vented Bulbul - Common
19. Black-naped oriole - quite common and heard a lot.
20. White Breasted WoodSwallow - 2 (observed a pair by the beach )
21. Crested Myna - 1 (picking on a cow)
22. Olive-Backed Sunbird - 2
23. Eurasian Tree Sparrows - Common
24. Chestnut Munias - 50+ (walkway along and towards the fishpond area)
25. Large-billed Crow - Common

Black-naped Oriole