Lifers, spark birds, and quietly happy birdwatchers

We left Manila before the break of dawn, making it to the South Luzon Expressway in an hour, giving view to the contours of the alluring Mount Makiling. On the road by the green paddies, we came to a halt at the sight of two black large-billed crows and a third that went flying off to a clump of trees. Superstition dictates that black crows are meant to be a bad omen, being as they are – dark and frightening like witches casting spells. But to us they were Lifers, the first of their species that we have seen from out of the pages of the field guidebook on birds in the Philippines. Once you turn to birdwatching – and loving every minute of it, a certain quiet happiness unmatched by anything else you have known – the word ‘lifer’ will form part of your vocabulary. It simply means a new type of bird that you have seen, and for each one memorable.

I have actually lost track of the number of lifers I have had since I began this meditative hobby a year ago. There are about 614 birds to discover in our country. There have been good expeditions and bad, but seeing those black crows that Sunday morning on the way to Quezon province was a sure sign that the day was going to be favorable to us. We stopped at a valley, hemmed in between what is known as the devil’s peak, Mount San Cristobal, and the famous Mount Banahaw for the deities. Seated on a largely untouched piece of land is a campsite for eco-tourists called Bangkong Kahoy, owned by a hyper-active man called Dion Pullan who regaled us with his stories over a vegetarian breakfast of paco fern omelet and breaded tofu. We came for the citrine canary-flycatcher, the lemon-throated leaf warbler, and the bi-colored flowerpecker on a trail below a rich man’s weekend bungalow that had a wooden deck expressly made for birdwatchers like us. Our guide was a 15-year old girl who must have been bored out of her wits watching us stand still under the morning heat, our heads craned up towards the tall canopy spying on flocks or other solitary creatures with our binoculars. They said there would be the sought after velvet-fronted nuthatch; we weren’t sure if what we had seen in a speck of a moment was the right one, because it wouldn’t stay on a branch long enough for us to identify it properly. We went to a thicker forest shortly past noon on the other edge of the camp, climbing over lichen-covered rocks and crawling through vines in the dampness of the earth. There I saw a white-eared dove, another lifer that I was proud to have seen from just the flicker of movement among the woods. In the clearing made for camping and horseback riding, we saw brown shrikes perched on a bush like an armored guard with a black mask – this is my life bird, the very first of the creatures that I saw in my birdwatching initiation. By dusk, as we were about to depart, the birds came flocking to a favorite medicinal tree, like a frenzy at twilight; had we known, we could have just sat there waiting for them. I write my list of lifers on a moleskin notebook at the start of this birding season, when the migrants come to us from the Eurasian mainland -- some as far as the Siberian Tundra, where they lay their eggs and raise their young without predators, before they fly south to escape the famine of winter. We pray that Dion Pullan will keep his place as untouched as a rustic meadow, where birds know people would be kind to them. In recent months, this valley among a few others in the Southern Tagalog region has been the site of our birdwatching expeditions. Our lifers have been generous. We remember once, at the botanical garden of the University of the Philippines campus in Los Baños, in Laguna, they came to us just as we were about to give up. Sitting on our folding stools by an abandoned greenhouse, they came looking for food at a wild macopa tree of fresh blooms. First, we spotted a blue-crowned racquet-tail and a guaiabero, both of the parrot family, whose colors blended in with the leaves. Then I shrieked after finding a stripe-headed rhabdornis. Then the tiny, colorful sunbirds and flowerpeckers came. These birds may announce their presence at any given time. They could sound like creaking doors or something like the dropping of coins, or the drone of a hammering. The coppersmith barbet, which is so tiny it would hardly fit on the palm of your hand, could be heard from wide distances with its steady pok… pok… pok... We remember them from how they came to us. After the rains last June, we drove to Mt. Palay-Palay in Cavite province, astounded by the fashion show of birds on high tension livewires along the road. Seated on the open back of four-wheel pickup, we stopped for the tarictic hornbills and the falconets that were the superstars of the day. But then the balicassiao made its pitch in the foliage and there we saw it draped with blue velvety feathers like an emperor. And all too suddenly a crested serpent-eagle swooped past us, disappearing before we could internalize its greatness. The raptors could really make your heart beat, just as the brahminy kite did, elegantly gliding above the clear skies that day. I have noticed that whenever I am on a field trip for birds, a kingfisher shows itself to me, usually the white-collared turquoise one. There is a silent communication between us. I had gotten used to seeing one perch on a guava tree by the sea of my writing place. It has become our mode of kinship – that a kingfisher would never fail to be wherever I go. And I am sure it is because it knows it is my ‘spark bird.’ This is a secret I cannot divulge, as to why a spark bird comes to you. You will only know what it is when you become a birder. – YA, GMA News