Last May 6, I together with Martin Alvendia, a PBP member went up the Alcoy mountains of Cebu. Our target bird to photograph was the Siloy, better known as the Black Shama. We were accompanied on this trip by Bobby Kintanar and his Japanese friend Osawa.

Alcoy is a good 3 hours drive from downtown Cebu. The terrain reminds me of Cavite plus the cool weather with the occasional fog gives it the Tagaytay feel also. We passed by for Pedro, a local bird guide who was really knowledgeable when it came to birds and their calls. When we arrived at the spot, no bird was to be seen except for a mangrove blue flycathcher in the understory. Pedro, whistled trying to mimic the call of the siloy with Bobby bringing out his call recordings and to our amazement, after a few seconds the siloy flew past our faces. This goes to show how territorial the male is.

We transferred to another area where we saw Everett's White-eyes and the most number of sunbirds I have seen concentrated in one area. We were hoping to see the Cebu Flowerpecker also but no luck.

We decided to go back the next day to try our luck and hopefully have a better view of the Black Shama. Luck was on our side as there were more birds with sightings of Crimson Sunbirds, Brush Cuckoo, Red- keeled Flowerpecker, Coppersmith Barbet and Mangrove Blue Flycatchers. We were lucky to have pictures of the Black Shama and the Everetts. Links to the photos of the birds are posted below: