Back to the Petroglyph 2012-05-27

After a few weeks hiatus from my weekly hike, I decided to do it again now that the weather has improved a bit from last month's 36 degrees daytime temperature. I had to get up early, as usual, to avoid the noontime heat. After a quick meal, I left for the Angono Petroglyph. The climb was a sweat-fest as usual, I reached my usual stop (in front of Perlie's restaurant) in a little more than 30 minutes - a few minutes slower than my fastest record of about 27 minutes. I was slower due to the 3 short breaks I made instead of the usual 1 that I often do. Actually, the only difficult part of the hike was the short 20 minutes climb. The first 10 minutes was a walk-in-the-park through the residential area. I was practicing to improve my stats to avoid breaks, but I'm still not fit enough to do so.

Before reaching the guard station, along the way, you can usually hear some birds calling, but won't have the energy to watch birds because it's the steepest part of the way and I'm usually gearing towards finishing the most stressful part of the climb.

While resting at the bridge in front of Perlie's, I heard a collared kingfisher calling. I looked around a bit and saw 2 of them. I immediately took out my camera from the backpack and took some shots.

White collared kingfisher

When I had enough rest, I started walking again while doing birding. Along the way, I was able to admire this common bird which landed in front of me.

Yellow vented bulbul

I was also able to admire the view of the lake below.

When I reached the Petroglyph, I stayed there for sometime and took some shots of the owls. Initially, I saw the 2 owls side-by-side on a branch. Later, the female separated, charged some smaller birds and perched on a different tree. I leave them for maybe an hour or two to concentrate on my target bird - the Elegant tit which unfortunately I wasn't able to see. When I returned to the platform, the female was gone.

 Mr. and Mrs. PEO

Something's gonna come out...

 PEO doing the Undertaker (famous wrestler) eye.

I've read from the mailing list a day earlier that the bird club will be going there, but I didn't know what time they will arrive. Then Roden told me that he received a message from Jops saying that they will come. So I decided to stick around a bit expecting them to arrive in the afternoon. I just decided to stay until late afternoon, again to avoid getting sunburned.

I was surprised a lot of birders came, many of them visitors. After about an hour of watching and photographing the birds, they left. Just as they left the area, another lone birder arrived. She also did not stay long and left after taking some shots of the owl.

Now that all birders were gone, I decided to call it a day as well and head for home. The hike downhill was much more pleasant than the climb because the sky was already cloudy and cooler than in the morning.

Here are some of the other images I took:

White throated kingfisher

A millipede that looks like it just came from the Transformers movie.

 Oriental magpie robin

Scaley breasted munia

Baby spiders

Here is a short list of the birds I saw:

Yellow vented bulbul - 2
Long tailed shrike - 2
Swiftlet - 1
White breasted woodswallow - >3
Philippine eagle-owl - 2
Philippine pygmy woodpecker - 2
Black naped oriole - 6
Golden bellied flyeater - 1
White throated kingfisher - 2
White collared kingfisher - 2
Scaley breasted munia - 5
Oriental magpie robin - 3
Striated grassbird - 2

Heard only:

Philippine coucal
Olive backed sunbird - 1


Some other birds