We are still enjoying the cool weather! February is a great month to visit the refuge. It is cold, windy, and a bit drizzly. It is so windy that things get blown off the table and hats get blown off your head!
Malabulak!
Momo is recovering from surgery on his perineal hernia. I am so glad I have option of letting Momo ride the Burley Bark Ranger! It’s spacious enough to fit Momo, Barkley, and my birding camera!
Barkley is happy to have Momo with him inside the trailer!my camera is under the towelso happy!
Tonji did some work on the new pond. Here he is explaining his vision for this site and how we will get from field of grass and weeds to a new pond.
It is a lot of work! One scoop at a time.
Aside from working on the pond, Tonji also maintains the trails with the tractor. The dogs are good at not getting in his way.
note the line of Malabulak trees!good dogs!!
Here is a new to me weed that I will add the the weeds gallery. I enjoy learning about weeds by drawing them. Trying to draw a plant makes you look at it very closely and for a long time!
It is nice and cool at the refuge. Our Malabulak trees have so may buds! It will be amazing to see them covered in flowers. The Katmon is also full of fruits. Or are they big flower buds? I am not sure!
KatmonKatmonKatmonlook for the Malabulak buds
Now that we have the Burley Bark Ranger, we can go walking for as far and as long as we want without worrying about Momo and Barkley getting too tired. Both of them fit inside!
We went on a 2 hour walk in the morning. First we saw the Pied Harrier getting mobbed by crows. At first there were just 2 crows. Then there were about 6 crows. Poor Pied Harrier!
Next we saw 2 Coppersmith Barbets in a small tree right by the path. They did not fly away even when we walked past them. This was very unusual. We don’t usually see Coppersmith Barbets and it’s much more common for the birds to fly away when they see us.
We walked to the pond, then decided to go to the mango area. After that we walked on the road to the pavillion area, then back to the cottage through the nursery. I saw a Grass Owl fly by when we got to the house. But no pictures of that.
Blue Tailed Bee Eater
Other Interesting things in January
CIVET CAT – Tonji saw one Civet cat at the start of the year
A VERY DARK DUCK – Tonji thinks it could have been a Wandering Whistling Duck, which we already have in our bird list
TURTLE – I found out that the workers saw a land turtle in the secret pond! I haven’t seen that!
2 PHILIPPINE DUCKS – it was good to see the ducks again, but why are there only 2 of them? What happened to the others?
MAYBE 2 GUIABEROS – We saw two birds flying and heard a high pitched call that was similar to but not quite a Colasisi call. Could it have been 2 Guiaberos? That would be new to our farm bird list! We just saw them as silhouettes and the shape looked possible for Guiabero.
MUCUNA sp – There is Mucuna / Cowpea vine is crawling on the ground at the top part of the pond. We need to remove it because the flowers are very itchy!
VISIT WITH FRIENDS – It’s nice to be able to show our friends the water lilies! It’s like we have an added attraction at the refuge.
lots of action going on at the pond!Olliedon’t mind me, I’m just swimming alongMucuna Mucuna
We went to the refuge for the day. I planted more water lilies and then I came down with long Covid! I had rashes all over my face and body. The next day my joints were swollen and painful.
Here I am admiring the water lilies! The newly planted ones are at the further end of the pond.
These are the things I’ve planted in the pond:
Nymphaea tina – tropical water lily with purple flowers
Nymphaea daubenyana – tropical water lily with light blue flowers
Nymphaea colorado -hardy water lily with peach flowers
Nymphoides indica – tropical water lily, native to the Philippines, aka Snowflake water lily
umbrella plants
papyrus
sagittaria – has white flowers that the bees like!
mosaic plant
October 2022
Tonji is starting a new pond! This one is in my former riding area, where we have what we call the “secret pond”. It’s a secret because it is small and hidden by a lot of plants. It had a tiny island and was popular with the birds. However it got overgrown with plants. The new pond will be bigger, deeper, and U-shaped.
And this is what I think the pond will look like!
Monica and Kristian got to try out the new “glamping” set up! Kristian said it was very nice and was the best tent experience ever!
I am enjoying having the water plants in the ponds. I love to go and see how the plants are doing, especially since they are thriving at the pond! They are growing so much bigger than the plants at home. I cannot check the ponds without couple of dogs going in for a swim!
Momo and Ollie love to swim in the ponds.the mosaic plants are spreading!taking bird pics while carrying Barkley
December 2022
We missed the entire November and managed to squeeze in a trip for the New Year’s eve weekend! It was our first time to spend New Year’s Eve at the refuge. The water lilies are amazingly beautiful! I planted even more of them!
trying to show how big the flowers are!
It looks like a Monet painting!
I got to use my Burley trailer at the refuge. It has removable front wheels so that it can be used as an off road stroller. Barkley is blind now and I have been carrying him so that he join our walks. The front harness I was using was better than carrying him in my arms. This Burley trailer is even better than the harness because it’s so easy to pop him in and out of the trailer. It also rolls so amazingly well through the grass! It’s much less tiring than carrying him plus my camera and binoculars. It can easily fit Barkley, Momo, and my camera. It’s amazing!
It’s great that we are getting back into our groove and working on our refuge projects! Here’s a Mangkono flower looking very festive!
I will do monthly posts for 2023. I plan to keep up this blog. I think it’s a good way to keep track of all the things we are doing at the refuge.
Rainy season came early this year. The sanctuary was nice and green in May! This is very unusual for our area. The new pond looked like a big mud puddle. The dogs enjoyed it very much,
nice cool mud!
There were a lot of Binayuyu fruiting all over the sanctuary. The birds seem to be spreading the Binayuyu trees all over. When we bought our property, there was one big Binayuyu tree outside our old entrance. I thought it was such a pretty tree and that it was a shame that it was outside our property. Now we have many of them!
We were able to see and photograph the Asian Koel that we have been hearing so often. Tonji saw 3 of them in a Banato tree beside the dry creek. He was able to describe the location to me and I saw two of them.
My bad photo of a Koel. They are hard to see!
JUNE
There was even more rain in June. There was water everywhere! There was water in the dry creek and in the old small ponds. There was enough water in the new pond to start planting water plants. I’m hoping the water plants provide enough shade to keep the pond cool and prevent too much water from evaporating. I hope this helps keep the water in the pond year round. We also added guppies, but I’m not so sure if they survived the heat of the water.
Lulu doesn’t like the water as much as the other dogs do
The dogs enjoyed all the water. They inspected every puddle that they saw. They waded in the new pond whenever they had a chance.
I brought Momo, Lulu, and Ollie with me to inspect the gully that goes around the property. That area usually looks like a dry creek bed. The rain transformed it into an exciting hike over mud with water crossings! It was so much fun to watch the dogs find their way through the trail. Especially Momo who had to do a lot of climbing and jumping! It reminded me of a mini version of the canyoneering trail we did in Moalboal many, many years ago with our young children. There portions where we had to jump into the water, swim across, then step on our guide Wolfgang’s shoulders to get out to the other side!
Momo looks like a puppy!Lulu doesn’t like to get wetMomo jumping over a rootMomoa fern!
I also had good views of a Coleto. It’s great to see a bird that is usually associated with forests. I also got to photograph a Common Emerald Dove. We see them a lot in flight. They usually fly low enough to see and ID them, but too fast to photograph.
ColetoCommon Emerald Dove
JULY
July was awesome! In July my pond dreams came true! I was able to walk up to the pond and watch ducks swimming around and walking! I got to watch the ducks hanging out! With our old ponds, it was more like if you walk up to the pond you won’t see anything until you are very close and then the ducks will get surprised and all fly away. It’s great that we have this bigger pond that we can see and appreciate even from afar.
sweetdreamsaremade of these!
Here are some other cooperative bird subjects!
Mangrove Blue FlycatcherIsland Collared DoveIsland Collared DoveLesser Coucal
The Balai Lamok beside the cottage finally has a lot of flowers. This tree received a lot of hype among the Philippine native tree enthusiasts. It was touted as the “Cherry tree of the Philippines. It became one of the most expensive and most desirable native trees, especially when people would post photos of mature trees in full flower. They looked amazing. We also bought into the hype, but our trees have only produced one or two flowers at a time. This tree beside the cottage was given to us by a friend. This is the first time we’ve seen it flower this much!
Balai Lamok
The Philippine Teak beside the cottage also has flowers!
Philippine Teak
More interesting trees:
Look at those hanging rootsIs this Lipote?Ardisia?IpilMabolo
AUGUST
One side of the new pond developed a leak. Thankfully, it was repaired and the pond is still retaining water. Crossing my fingers that the water holds out during summer. Tonji also said that he will be doing some repairs to the big pond in summer. I hope the plants survive all of that! I am also hoping he also has time to build more ponds.
I sewed 500 flags for marking all the new trees being planted this year. We started planting some of the Malabulak seedlings. They are quite tall already and are starting to form thorns on their trunks.
I am enjoying propagating water plants in Alabang and planting them at the farm. The water lilies and other water plants are doing better at the farm than they were back in Alabang. They must like being planted straight into the ground and receiving full sunlight. I also improved my water plant transportation technique. I now put them in ziplock bags. I reuse the bags.
N Daubenyanasagittaria and papyrusthis is a hardy water lily that’s doing much better at the farm than in Alabangwater snowflake and N TinaOllie, careful don’t uproot the water hyacinth!Momo, watch out for the water lilies!
I developed COVID symptoms while we were at the farm. Tonji had to force me to go home so I could test myself properly and rest. I am ok now and looking forward to what the next months bring!
Tonji and Sylvia's Wildlife Refuge 