Solanum torvum
Family: Solanaceae
Common name: Devil’s Fig, Tandang Aso
Origin: native to the Philippines (?), found in all tropical regions (pantropic)
Reference: Stuart Exchange
Family: Solanaceae
Common name: Devil’s Fig, Tandang Aso
Origin: native to the Philippines (?), found in all tropical regions (pantropic)
Reference: Stuart Exchange
A quick post to share some happiness!
Takoy is no longer a lonely horse! He has two new pasture buddies!


We brought them to the farm on March 31. Takoy’s expression when they had settled in just seemed to say, “THANK YOU!”. I could just feel his anxiety evaporating! Or maybe that was my anxiety evaporating!
I will make another post soon with more pictures. I accidentally drowned my phone last week and I’m still very hopeful that the phone technicians are able to fix it enough for me to recover the awesome photos I took of the trio walking around outside their paddock!
There is a bamboo fence at the edge the field in front of the house that is very popular with the birds. Tonji thought it would be a good idea to set up the wildlife camera by the fence. He left it in place for more than a week. By the time he got it back, the camera had taken thousands of photos, mostly of grass swaying in the wind!
Note to self on wildlife cameras: Do not position your wildlife camera towards a field of swaying grass. If you do, you will have 17,000 photos of swaying grass.
Tonji very gallantly offered himself up to do the tedious work of sifting through the thousands of photos for the ones that have birds in them. Then I got the bird photos from him so I could post the interesting ones here!
Another note to self on wildlife cameras: If you are positive and optimistic, you will find some interesting shots among the 17,000 photos of swaying grass! Think positive!
Long Tailed Shrike with a frog! That’s a big catch!

Grass Owl. Why is it so overexposed though?

Not so sure what this is, but it looks interesting! Could it be a Philippine Scops Owl?
And the regulars. Striated Grassbird.
Paddyfield Pipit
Spotted Dove in flight.

Male and female Pied Bushchat.

The Spotted Dove didn’t want to make eye contact with the wildlife camera.

Unlike the Long Tailed Shrike!

What is the allure of that strip of bamboo? I assume that the birds like the elevated vantage point. We probably also just see the birds more easily when they are on the fence because they in plain sight and not covered by leaves. Could there be more to it than that? Why are all those different birds perched on the same spot? This experiment with the wildlife camera has made that bamboo fence look more interesting than ever!
So many things are flowering! It’s a good time to revisit Botany in a Day by Thomas J. Elpel. I could not understand this book when I bought it years ago. I recently brought it out again and find it easier to understand now that I am sketching the plants. Most of the keys use flowers to ID the plant.

The weather is great for walking around in the late afternoon with Momo and Barkley and my sketchbook. It’s a good idea to let them run around at the start of the walk and then do my sketching while they’re resting!

It was great to see Barkley so full of energy. Earlier this year, I noticed that Barkley couldn’t walk as far as he used to walk. We finally figured out that there was a problem with his teeth. So sad, his teeth must have hurt a lot. The vet removed 3 teeth and now he’s full of energy again.