philippines – Page 3 – Tonji and Sylvia's Wildlife Refuge

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!

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.