Dogs – Tonji and Sylvia's Wildlife Refuge

Fruits! Flowers! New Bird! May 2026

The Big Pond has yielded another new bird for the farm refuge!

Bird #122 is White-browed Crake Porzana cinerea. It was walking on top of the lotus leaves, just like the illustration in the Kennedy field guide!

During our visit we also saw:

One Little Grebe. It’s probably a resident now!

8 Black-winged Stilts.

Egrets.

Buff-throated Kingfisher.

Barred Rails. There were two!

Swallows. I think this is a Pacific Swallow.

A lot of Philippine Ducks.

And Wandering Whistling Ducks! When I visited the Big Pond in the afternoon, at first all the ducks flew away. Then they came back and started grooming and settling in for the night. The Wandering Whistling Ducks and Philippine Ducks were mixed togther. It seems that they are now a mixed flock. Later in the evening, I saw the Wandering Whistling Ducks flying around in a V formation while calling out.

I got a nice photo of a Tawny Grassbird. I tend to have a hard time photographing them. This time I didn’t give up and after many shots of leaves and branches and bird bits, I got a good photo!

The Water Lily pond is ready for the upcoming rainy season! Tonji finished widening and deepening the pond.

Tubby climbing out of the Water Lily Pond. He’s a 4×4 puppy!

He also widened the channel that connects the left and right sides of the Water Lily pond.

We are enjoying the fruits and flowers of summer. The grass is all dried up and and looks like straw. But when you look at the trees, they are green and bursting with flowers!

Narra trees in flower beside the paddock

Balai Lamok with Narra in the background

The guava trees that grow wild all over the farm have small and delicious fruit. I am always on the lookout for ripe fruit. Oftentimes the birds beat me to the fruit. This time there were a lot of hantik (big red ants) making nests in the guava trees and crawling all over the fruit. I was able to get a few though!

I also ate a few aratiles. So sweet!

And here’s a cute video of Tubby bounding down to the grass like a little rabbit.

April 2026 – Hello Tubby!

We have a new, very squishy, very cute French Bulldog puppy. His name is Tubby. Tonji had been wanting to get a French Bulldog and I had been resisting. Then one day my sister messaged me asking if I wanted one. For free to a good home from her architect! I paused for a minute and thought, if it’s a male and black and white, then it’s a sign that I should say yes to this puppy and yes to Tonji’s dream of having a French Bulldog.

I’m glad I said yes and I’m grateful to his owner for giving him to us! We are enjoying having a little one again.

Tubby has such a great personality. He’s very curious and outgoing. Even if he falls into a hole in the ground, he gets right back up again!

I thought Ollie was the one who wanted another doggie buddy. I thought they would play together.

It turns out that Lulu is the one who enjoys playing with Tubby! She licks his face and lets him climb all over her. They play tug of war together. She has become much more active and playful now that Tubby is around.

We also took him for his first swim. He didn’t seem that excited about swimming. Maybe when he has a proper life vest.

Tubby enjoyed running in the grass and even managed to retrieve his toy hoop!

Tubby playing fetch!

the pack walking to the Big pond

It is so much fun to have a little dog again. Tubby’s spunky, go-getter personality reminded us so much of all the fun we had with Barkley that later that evening, I had a dream about Momo. In my dream I was looking for Momo. I kept asking, “Where’s Momo?” When I remembered that Momo was gone, I woke up with a start!

We didn’t get to do much during out visit because we were so excited about having Tubby and also because our visit got cut short by a medical emergency back home.

Tonji is taking advantage of the hot and dry weather to improve the Water Lily Pond. He’s using the CASE skid loader to make part of the pond deeper and wider so that it will hold more water when rainy season comes.

We have tree near the pool that always makes us whether or not it should be there, in such a prominent spot. We bought it in an agricultural fair many years ago, when we weren’t committed to planting Philippine native trees. This month, our “foreign” tree looked the prettiest it’s every looked! It gets to stay for now!

Tonji by the “foreign” tree with his dogs, Lulu and Tubby

It was a short but very nice visit to the refuge. I had to carry Tubby on the drive to the farm. This is him on the drive home!

July 2024 – Momo

On July 5 we went to the refuge with Momo, Lulu, and Ollie. We knew it would be Momo’s last visit to the refuge. Over the past few months Momo had been sleeping more and more, walking less and less. That week he had barely been eating. Just drinking water. He slept the whole time on the drive to the refuge.

We knew that as weak as he was, Momo would still be happy to visit the refuge. It was his favorite place! Back in the day, we couldn’t even say the word “farm” out loud if Momo was around. We had to spell it or else he would get all excited thinking we were going to the farm.

It was heartwarming to see Momo perk up when we brought him to the Water Lily Pond. It was like the Momo of old had returned to do his usual walking and inspecting of the grounds.

I thought had an even nicer video of Momo walking around, but my phone wasn’t recording!

A few days later on July 11 Momo passed away. He was 15 years old. It was tough to lose Momo. I just tried to think of all the happy times we had, especially at the refuge! Those were the best. I was also comforted knowing that he passed naturally, cradled in my arms. A week after he died, I got sick with Covid and was down for one week. I guess that was my body telling me I had to rest and recover from the stress of losing my heart dog.

When I was better, we went back to the refuge to celebrate our wedding anniversary. It was so sad to remember Momo’s last visit. He was on my mind. Then I noticed that there were a lot of butterflies. At first I didn’t think much of it. Then a butterfly brushed against my arm at Big Pond. When I got back to the cottage I saw butterflies on the trees, on the small kamuning bushes, and even inside the veranda. There were butterflies perched on the window! There were so many butterflies that I thought, “It’s Momo!”

Tonji was out for a walk. He had gone out to look for interesting birds to photograph. When he got back he was excited about butterflies! He said that he had never seen so many different kinds of butterflies before! He was amazed by all the butterflies he encountered. There were so many of them! He tried to photograph all of them but couldn’t because his camera battery ran out of power. He wasn’t aware though that butterflies are a spiritual symbol of life after death, so he didn’t think of Momo. Whether or not the butterflies were spiritual messengers from beyond, it brought us happiness to see so many beautiful butterflies in the refuge!

Here are Tonji’s butterfly photos, with a few moths and a bee. Click on the photos to see in full screen!

May 2023

In previous years we would avoid going to the refuge in May because it was so unbearably hot. This year however we had a lot of rain. Not just light summer showers but solid rain with thunder and lightning!

Ollie enjoys playing in the rain

Ollie playing with his soft frisbee. It’s easy to throw and easy for him to catch!

When the sun came out again, Ollie surprised me by going into the pool by himself! This was the first time he did this.

Our interesting birds this month were:

Plain Bush Hen – it was hanging around while Tonji was flattening the path beside the water lily pond

Rhabdornis – it was perched on the tall (non-native) tree near the camping area. We don’t see them that often.

Red Junglefowl – we finally photographed one at the refuge! Unfortunately it was with our iPhones. But still!

Can you spot the female Red Junglefowl on the left side of the path???

Philippine Nightjar – I forgot to write that in March we saw Philippine Nightjars flying around the pool and taking sips of water!