The go-ahead signal came at around 9.00PM or roughly nine hours before the birding activity!

Our friend, Tiny Baguio came as scheduled at our meeting place at exactly 5:45AM. It took us only a few minutes and there we were at the entrance gate of the Naval Base. We headed straight to the Bachelor Officers' Quarters (BOQ) to park the car. On our way, I was amazed by the view of mangroves on both sides of the road leading to the Headquarters Naval Forces Central Philippines.

It was the way this area was reclaimed that caught my attention. I noticed that instead of covering the whole area with land fills, only the road and the building area were technically paved. The patches of mangrove were retained in their original state. This gave me some reassurance that wildlife was also preserved in the process. Outside of the perimeter fence of the base, however, I can see settlers building semi-permanent housing structures so I
didn't expect much on those areas.

We started at around 6.00AM and it was also low tide which exposed much of the coral bottoms and mudflats. Small, active and colorful crusteceans were all over! The first bird of the day was a lone Intermediate egret fishing along the small ponds left by receded tides. While Tiny and Ann moved to take a closer look at the egret, I noticed a flock of Asian Glossy Starlings perched on the adjacent electic post as if saying good morning birders! There were at least 5 with streaks on a light colored underparts which indicates that these are immature starlings.

The prominent features of the White-collared Kingfisher also caught our attention. Just like the egret, it is also keeping an eye on small ponds created during low tide. In less than 1 hour, we managed to list more than 15 species. One of the benefits of a restricted area like a military base is that it also offers birds and other wildlife temporary refuge from local hunters. This may not be true in other bases but at least here in MNOB they are protected.

Highlight of the trip:
As we walked towards the grassy lot, Tiny pointed at a group of green birds apparently feasting on the "mansanitas" tree. As I approached for a closer inspection, I realized that we are looking a flock of Pink-necked green-pigeons. I also can't believed my luck since the birds are literally a stone-throw away! This is by far better than the hide-and-seek experience we had with these birds in Caylabne Bay Resort in Ternate, Cavite during my previous trips.

They feed on the fruits of the mansanitas (local name of the tree) and I've seen at least 5 males with the distinctive pinkish color on the neck and some patch of yellow on the breast. These birds seem to be a regular visitor since the guard on duty at that time mentioned seeing the "punays" in the base quite often.