Tonji and Sylvia's Wildlife Refuge

October 2024 – New Bird Species,Yay!

Finally, a new bird for the refuge! We had two female Northern Pintails in the Big Pond! This brings us to 108 bird species in the refuge.

EDIT: I forgot that Tonji photographed a Green Sandpiper in March 2024. This is our 2nd new bird for 2024!

The last time we say a new bird species at the refuge was almost a year before in November 2023. Our visits to the refuge this year have been very few and very short. That’s probably why we haven’t seen new birds this year. So right after a big typhoon hit the Philippines in October, we hurried to the refuge to look for any migrant birds that may have been blown in by the typhoon.

We were excited to visit the Big Pond. The week before, our caretakers had counted 65 Philippine ducks at the Big Pond. This was a record number for our refuge.

The thought of that many ducks at our pond was just mind boggling. We had to see it. Tonji suggested that we wear our camouflage ghillie capes and crawl up one side of the pond so we could get close without spooking the ducks.

yes I am whispering and we have ghillie capes

The crawling and camouflage worked! We were able to watch the ducks swim back and forth right in front of us!

Philippine Ducks in the Big Pond, iPhone video

My camera fogged up. Good thing Tonji had nice pictures!

Later that day, Tonji flew the new drone to the Big Pond. It was much easier to survey the pond via drone. No crawling necessary! After checking the drone video, our final count for the Big Pond is 83 Philippine Ducks plus 2 Northern Pintails.

Music: Purple Planet Music. We are still getting the hang of shooting drone videos and editing them!

The Philippine Ducks and Northern Pintails were the stars of October. We also had 7 Purple Herons flying from the Big Pond to the Water Lily Pond. We used to only see 1 Purple Heron. There was also a White Breasted Waterhen at the Big Pond abd more than 30 Red Turtle Doves in the bamboos near the Big Pond. By the cottage there were more than 20 Pink Necked Green Pigeons flying around from tree to tree and Oriental Pratincoles flying overhead.

Oriental Pratincole in flight — Oriental Pratincole

September 2024 – Leveling Up!

Every visit to the refuge, no matter how brief, is food for the soul. The things we get to see and experience bring us so much satisfaction and make us want to return again and again. It fuels our dreams of even more projects and experiments to do at the refuge.

It is at the refuge where we can go swimming at night under a sky full of stars and the Milky Way! It is magical!

little cottage under the stars – photo by Tonji Ramos

We celebrated Tonji’s birthday at the refuge. As a special birthday treat, a Colasisi posed nicely for him in an Aratiles tree. We have been seeing the Colasisi regularly, but this is a particularly good view with all of its bright colors clearly visible.

The Bangkal trees have fruits! Seeing these fruits brought back memories of one of our birding trips to Sablayan Penal Colony in Mindoro. There were many Bangkal trees and the fruits were scattered on the ground. That trip to Mindoro gave us the idea of planting Bangkal trees. Now we have our own row of Bangkal trees with fruits!

The Bagras or Rainbow Eucalyptus tree near the cottage is getting taller and taller. It’s a good thing it has a few flowering branches near the ground. The trunk is becoming more colorful. Not quite rainbow-like yet though!

Every time we visit the refuge we always wonder — what are the ducks up to now? We think about them even when we’re not at the refuge. It is a short walk from the cottage to the Big Pond. There’s a path through the trees, then a dirt road that goes over some water, then you need to scramble up to top of the pond wall before you can see the pond. There is a lot of anticipation during that short walk. What will we see?

Feels like Candaba! video by Tonji Ramos

The Big Pond has leveled up! We are seeing a whole new level of wildlife activity at the pond. We are now at Level 4 wildlife activity!

Note: These are not actual scientific levels! This is purely based what we’ve experienced as birdwatchers!

TONJI AND SYLVIA’S POND WILDLIFE ACTIVITY LEVELS

LEVEL 1 – See ducks in the farm/refuge
At this level, you are happy that you saw an actual wild duck in your airspace because this means that there is a good chance that the pond you built attracted ducks to your place.

LEVEL 2 -See ducks swimming
You were able to confirm that the ducks are using your pond. You saw them swimming!

LEVEL 3 – See ducks swimming and not flying away when you approach
This level can be hard to achieve if your pond is small or difficult to access. It will be easier to achieve this level by designing your pond so that the ducks feel safe enough to stay in the pond even in disturbed.

LEVEL 4 – See multiple groups of ducks flying overhead, criss-crossing in the air, landing, swimming, and taking off all at the same time!
We are at this level now! This is what we used to experience in a very large scale, back in the day when we used to go to Candaba Wetlands. Sadly, those wetlands are now farmlands. This is a much, much smaller scale than Candaba was, but it is still quite satisfying and has a lot of potential!

LEVEL 5 – THIS LEVEL IS STILL LOCKED! Baby ducks
This level will be unlocked when you see baby ducks swimming in the pond. I have never seen baby Philippine Ducks swimming. I believe I’ve only seen them one time, and they were walking.

LEVEL 6 – THIS LEVEL IS STILL LOCKED! Attracting rare migrants
This is the dream level. This level will be unlocked when all the bird activity and plants have made the pond look so inviting that migrating ducks use the pond as a stopover and refueling station!

Here’s to unlocking more levels!

August 2024

You know how there are “before and after” pictures? August was a great month for AFTER pictures!

In May we had a fire, and then by August the traces of the fire had been erased. The grass grew green and tall again. The burned trunks were still there, but the landscape was nice and lush once more.

Last year we planted water lilies, typha, papyrus, and lotus in the Big Pond. One of the water lilies was a hardy variety called Nymphaea wanvisa from my pond in Alabang. It is a very pretty water lily that wasn’t doing that great in Alabang. It only gave me a few flowers . I cut it up and placed it into smaller pots and planned to plant them in the Big Pond when it was ready. I was hoping it would do better in the Big Pond.

I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw how big it grew in the Big Pond! It had spread and had so many flowers!

The Big Pond is thriving! I saw a White Breasted Waterhen scurrying in the grass beside the Big Pond. The plants are looking more established. Only one section of the Big Pond doesn’t have water.

I was excited to photograph a frog at the Big Pond. I was hoping it was native species. Sadly though, it was a Chinese Edible Frog (Hoplobatrachus rugulosus) an invasive species of bullfrog. It is also known as Palakang Bukid. I wrongly assumed that foam nests were made by the native frogs. It turns out that many other frogs also make foam nests. Maybe the birds will eat the frogs since they are edible.

And here is a beautiful serene morning video of Ollie at the Water Lily Pond.

that’s Lulu yelping at the end of the video

We also finally got a photo of a Colasisi at the refuge. It is another one of those “finally got a photo but it’s a bad one”! It was perched on an Agoho.

In August we also had a notable abundance of mosquitoes! This is the first time I experienced getting swarmed by mosquitoes during my morning walk. They swarmed over the dogs and bit my arms! I hope the bats, dragonflies, and birds keep them in check.

I also noticed that there were some fully grown trees that looked like the dried up and died. Not sure what caused this.

Another interesting observation was the snake that climbed a tree. Tonji saw a snake with a stripe along its body that swiftly climbed up a tree! He was surprised that it didn’t just slither away into the tall grass. We have been assuming that snakes are in the grass. Now we know they could be in the trees too!

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!