White Collared Kingfisher
(I seriously need a teleconverter!!!)

After having been trapped in my little internet world chasing someone I should’ve thrown away, I decided to take a little walk in the my favorite place when we first transferred to the mountains…

Jardin de Busay Valley.

Ah yes, it was a peaceful place and perfect for birding.
Here’s a little information about me.

I am actually and avid bird lover and probably the only teenage ornithologist (feeling ornithologist) in Cebu or probably the Philippines. I can identify different bird species of our locality and sometimes give out their scientific names, and most of the times give out their behavioral patterns, feeding patterns, and the like.

Anyway, the point is, I love birds. Always have and always will. And this trekking was a perfect opportunity for me to do birding once more.

Question:
What do you need to bring when Birding?
1.Binoculars, and I don’t mean the ordinary binoculars. You’re gonna need them good vision ones to clearly see the bird.
2.A guide book, I personally brought my Birds of Cebu and Bohol which was a gift from one of the co-authors, Raul Puentespina, and avid birder and also my uncle.:)
3.Comfortable dark outfit which makes you not too noticable to the birds.
4.A small notebook and a pen to tally all the species you’ve seen.

and I added my number 5 and number 6 for those who are photographers
5.A DSLR with a lens at 300mm minimum (yes minimum, you’ll see why with my pictures)
Much preferable if you have a 2X teleconverter.. (sigh, if I had the money… someday)
6.A tripod, with all that telephoto power, you’re going to experience a lot of shaking.

And so I was off, here’s a tally of the bird species I got within a 500meter radius
1.Zebra doves (Geopilia Striata) -2
2.Red Keeled Flowerpecker (Dicaeum Australe) -1
3.White Collared Kingfisher (Todirhamphus Chlori)-2
4.Philippine Bulbul (Ixus Philippinus) -6 …..I was wondering why its philippinus when latin for Philippines is philipensis in most birds e.g. Loriculus philippensis

note: God have mercy on those wicked minds whose color matches the mountains of Busay

5.Pied Fantail (Rhipidura Javanica) -1
6.Olive Backed Sunbird (Nectarinia Jugularis)-3
7.Eurasian Tree Sparrow (Passer Montanus)-18
8.Long Tailed Shrike (Lanius Schach)-1

And that’s for my list of birds. Rather few don’t you think? Hope to do birding some place else where I can get a better variety of birds. There was one I bird I thought to be a Narcissius Flycatcher but I assumed to be a Philippine Bulbul because the tail wasn’t long enough.

Here are a couple more shots of The Valley