Tonji and Sylvia's Wildlife Refuge

May 2024 – Fire and Rain

FIRE

We had a fire on the property in May. We were not in the sanctuary at the time. By the time our caretakers spotted the fire, it had spread to around 1 hectare. It took an hour to put out the fire. Tonji inspected the burnt area the day after the fire. There are paths all over the sanctuary that are supposed to serve as fire breaks. Some of them worked to contain the fire. Unfortunately, some didn’t work.

The worst part of the fire

all the ashes

It was shocking to see the destruction. The ground was covered in black ashes. So many trees were burnt. It was sad to see our favorite paths and walkways wiped out by the fire.

We don’t know what caused the fire. Perhaps a trespasser with cigarette or sparks from a distant fire. We definitely need to upgrade our non-existant fire-fighting equipment and to improve on our fire breaks so that we can better deal with fires in the future.

RAIN

A few days after the fire, the weather made a 180 degree turn and the Philippines had it’s first typhoon of the year! The rain was a relief after the months of intense heat. The timing of it was something else though! We couldn’t help thinking that if the typhoon reached the country a few days earlier, we would have been spared the fire.

A few days after the typhoon, we went to the santuary to see the effect of Typhoon Aghon. Would it be enough to fill up the Big Pond? Tonji told me to wear rubber boots because everything might be wet and muddy.

We inspected the area that was burned in the fire. The ashes from the fire were gone! Even though it didn’t look as bad as it did right after the fire, I was still shocked at how brown and barren the surroundings looked. It didn’t look like our place anymore!

no more ashes

Then we visited the Water Lily Pond. The rain filled up the water lily pond! Whew! So glad to see that the pond survived the summer. It was so painful to see the water plants barely hanging on in a few inches of water. It’s a good thing the plants are able to bounce back after a good rain.

We went to the Big Pond. It wasn’t as muddy as we expected. The boots were overkill! The water level in the Big Pond increased by a lot. But the water still hasn’t reached all the way around the island in the middle of the pond. It also looks like there is some erosion on the banks of the pond.

water hasn’t reached the back of the island

The ducks are swimming at the far end!

We survived the hottest summer on record, a fire, and the first typhoon of 2024! What a relief!

April 2024

In April we were seeing record high temperatures. The incredible heat combined with a surge of work responsibilities made it very hard for us to visit the sanctuary. The plans for a new guest house were shelved. We are letting the idea sit for a bit more. We tackled one one of the many items on our list of maintenance tasks. This is our new, upgraded fence.

The one on the right is our new fence. The one on the left is the neighbor’s property.

We managed a quick visit to check out the ducks in the Big Pond. The pond looks perilously close to drying up.

Summer is when we all just have to endure and survive the weather. Everything looks stressed and dried up. It’s a treat when you see something that’s doing well in the extreme heat. Like the Balai Lamok near the house!

Another treat for us was being able to get photos of the Red Junglefowl Gallus gallus at the refuge! We had seen them in the refuge before and failed to get photos. We were driving through the mango farm area on the way out of the refuge when we spotted a Junglefowl on the path. Tonji stopped the car, I grabbed the camera and starting shooting though the windshield. Not our best photos, but at least we now have photos!

The Red Junglefowl looks like a domestic chicken. It’s called labuyo in Pilipino. You can tell them apart by the two long tail feathers, grey legs (not yellow like a domestic chicken), and the call. The native chickens in the Philippines originally came from wild chickens that were domesticated.

So cool to see a Red Junglefowl in the refuge!

Nearing 50 Ducks!

2024 is shaping up to be an exciting year for our refuge!

JANUARY

Ducks in the Big Pond

First time to see Philippine Ducks in the Big Pond! Tonji saw 15 Philippine Ducks swimming in the Big Pond. We knew it was just a matter of time until the ducks discovered the Big Pond. In the meantime, we were trying to make the Big Pond as attractive to the ducks as we could by planting water plants and minimizing the human activity in the area. It was so satisfying to finally see the Philippine Ducks at the pond!

We were even able to show the ducks to friends and family that visited the refuge.

FEBRUARY

In February we had more visitors to the refuge. We started plans on upgrading our glamping set-up to make it easier to have visitors. We met up with the building crew to discuss the new guest house and they were all agog about seeing so many ducks! How many ducks? They couldn’t really say. Maybe 20, maybe 40. The building crew were in the refuge early in the morning when they saw many ducks fly out of the Big Pond, circle overhead, then land back in the Big Pond. We were very happy and excited to hear that there were many ducks, even if we didn’t know how many. And even better news was that they appeared intent on staying in the Big Pond.

MARCH

In March we started keeping track of the number of Philippine Ducks in the refuge. There is a big group that stays in the Big Pond and 2 ducks that appear to stay in the Water Lily Pond.

We started keeping track on March 3 and had 32 ducks. That’s 12 more than our highest previous count of 20 Philippine ducks in the Water Lily pond in November 2023. Our new highest count is 43 ducks in the Big Pond on March 8 and March 26. If we assume that the pair of ducks in the Water Lily Pond do not go to the Big Pond, then that makes it a possible 45 Philippine Ducks in the refuge! Almost 50 ducks!!

The ducks like to gather in this corner of the Big Pond

I am looking forward to planting more Typha or bullrushes at the Big Pond. They are supposed to spread and even become weedy, but so far the ones we have planted are looking sparse. We have also planted giant papyrus, dwarf papyrus, water lilies, lotus, and sagittaria. I think the plants make the pond much more attractive to the birds.

New plants

Not duck related — these are seedlings that I am growing at home in Alabang. The seriales Flacourtia jangomas or Governor’s Plum were planted from seeds that I bought on Facebook. The Dao seedlings are from seeds we picked up while walking the dogs in Alabang.

New bird!

Tonji photographed a Green Sandpiper! That makes it 108 species for the refuge. Photos and details to follow.

New Bird November!

Our new bird for the refuge is a Northern Shoveler Anas clypeata! It is another migrant bird. It is fantastic to see that our place is attracting migrant birds. In the past, during migration season we used to visit the popular and well-know birding sites around the country where migrant birds come in to rest and refuel. It was always fun to see if any unusual, rare, or new birds turned up with the usual migrant birds. It would be amazing if in the future all we needed to do to see a rare bird was to travel to our own refuge!

Northern Shoveler with two Philippine Ducks

The Northern Shoveler is bird #107 for our refuge and our third duck species! We have seen Philippine Ducks, Wandering Whistling Ducks, and now a Northern Shoveler. It was mixed in with the Philippine Ducks at the water lily pond. In October, we were elated to see 12 Philippine Ducks at the water lily pond. This month I counted 2o Philippine Ducks in one photo, plus the Northern Shoveler makes least 21 ducks in that water lily pond! We have almost doubled the number of ducks in the water lily pond!

20 Philippine Ducks flying out of the water lily pond

It would have been fantastic to see all 21 ducks swimming in the water lily pond. This time however, I was foiled by Ollie who managed to escape from the cottage, find me hiding by the pond, and flush all the ducks. Foiled by the dog! The good thing is that now when the ducks fly out of the pond, they look like they are headed towards one of the other ponds.. In the past, when the ducks got flushed, they would fly overhead in a big circle, calling out the whole time. Now, they fly off in a straight path. We assume they are flying to one of the other ponds.

We now have 8 ponds in all, including the big pond. It is very possible that there are more ducks and other birds in the other ponds that we still haven’t seen and Ollie hasn’t flushed out!

Egret, Philippine Ducks, and Northern Shoveler

The big pond has more water than ever, thanks to all the rain we had in November. Our water plants are doing well! We planted water snowflake and typha, which are native. The other water lilies, papyrus, lotus, and saggitaria are not native, but the ducks seem to like them.

The Big Pond

It was so wet and rainy in November that the path from the big pond back to the cottage became so slippery that we had to take the long route home. All the rain is welcome! Momo enjoyed walking home in the mud and we enjoyed imagining the big pond bringing in lots of new birds!

splish splash!