Just when I thought when will I have my Philippines lifer number 555?  Well,  Christmas Frigatebird  was a really nice one for lifer 554  with only 4 records in the country, but, I wondered if I will have a...

Just when I thought when will I have my Philippines lifer number 555?  Well,  Christmas Frigatebird  was a really nice one for lifer 554  with only 4 records in the country, but, I wondered if I will have a birthday lifer this year? After  releasing my rescued Red-necked Stint,  I got busy and not able to bird again until September 7th.  To be honest I was very tired that day.  I happen to, well, not exactly happen to... more like exceeded my habit of... So, I drank 6 cups of extra strong black tea while working and that was just about 3 hours before bed. When I say extra strong... I mean 2 tea bags on each cup! I really prefer it with strong flavour if it isn't the top quality tea. Well, that's equivalent to 12 cups and of course , I become a cute Negros Scops Owl for the night until 5am! No shame in saying that! Yes, love yourself! And yes I am cute like one of the cutest looking endemic owl of my home country! Very tired after just 3 hours sleep I was a bit lazy to drive out but I really miss seeing birds after just... well... haha! Just a few days of no birds!  

I made myself get ready to go out despite physically tired from lack of sleep. Got ready in 20 minutes with some kisses for Kit. Went  over to uncle's house to leave Kit there before I drove out. I really don't want to bring Kit to the mudflat with lots of potential hazzards like used syringe, broken bottles. Besides, it is too hot out there. I have to wear UPF50 shirt and my shoulders and knees still get sunburned from standing under the sun long hours! Uhu, my knees looked like they have semi permanent knee caps compared to the shade of my legs hahaha! Some 15 minutes later, I arrived at the mudflat. Ah.... happiness!  Well, happiness of birds but not happiness of seeing Metro Manila's rubbish wash up there and rubbish from the bottom of the bay dredged along with the mud , and dumped into the mudflat. It is ongoing reclamation site. Imagine that. Government offices in charge of nature  has given approval to private extremely greedy company wanting to own the entire stretch Navotas coastline stretching all the way to Bulacan and already destroyed massive area of old growth mangroves with million years formed mudflat to create a new airport, a housing project, business center. How convient is it to say this is for benefit of the people when this is 100% not! It can never be for the benefit of the people if it is just one company racking in all the benefits while local fishermen are booted out of their livelihood and forced to work for companies at a meager pay. Another point is, you see , blue carbon is essential for all of us. Not just one part of the country. But each country around the world that has tidal mudflats must work together to prevent global warming, climate change. 

I bird as much as I can in Tanza, Navotas mudflats which is also part of the destructive reclamation site of a private company. I do this before it is completely destroyed and turned into concrete. As much as I can now still see the amazing migratory birds that come into Tanza Mudflats to rest, eat, and seek shelter before they continue with their migration. I love this site! Not just because of the birds, but the beauty of open space facing sun and moon and the locals there have become my friends already. Everytime I go there, locals living at the housing blocks greet me as well as I greet them. When these birds murmur in the air it is such a sight to behold you cannot not watch in awe at the massive cloud in the air, synchronised dancing. And during this time I saw how much birds there are in Tanza alone, despite the EIA saying " no significant species and number". Clearly the EIA is 100% inaccurate if it indeed says no significant species affected, well the person who did the survey, the person who signed off the permit, should be fined and blacklisted by all surveying projects for unprofessinalism of not conducting an accurate honest survey of this significance and global importance! 

Time frame from the moment the rare bird appeared and left was about 10 minutes. As I was watching a juvenile ruficollis and taking videos, a big mixed flock of birds came in from the sea and landed. All these are just a matter of 5 minutes from the time I was aiming and focusing, adjusting my phone on the scope recording the Stint, while seeing that flock come in.  Oh by the way, prior to taking video of the stint, I just finished scanning about checking if anything odd.. so ..all normal.. nothing small and white.  After I took video, I looked up oh there's a smallish white bird! I put bins on, ooooooh!!! A gull !!! By this time, it was about 7 minutes into the 10 minutes of the flock landing! Though not the earliest records of gulls. I've had the normal Black-headed gull on month of August in 2018!  But this is way smaller than Black-headed Gull. Immediately aimed my scope and really checked thoroughly... Oooooh !!! What do I have!!! Two suspects came into mind!!! OMG!!! My heart raced and I quickly digiscoped! I could see it started to become a bit alert along with the flock it came in with, then everything including the Shanks, Plovers ,and the Gull flew ! I followed it but it didn't land at all! I stayed for another hour before rain started to pour and I ran as fast as I can back to the car. 

Red- necked Stint I was taking videos of that moment when I saw the gull. This is digiscope video still shot . I just love the way the feathers colours are of a juvenile! ICD2021

When a private survey company says on an EIA no significant species affected and no signficant number of birds then government environmental office chief signs it off... I would recomment people to go see it themselves if that is true or false. . This is what I ask... aren't these birds? In fact that line of dark coloured birds are majority Great Knots and Red Knots totalling to more than 1000 for that day. This flock has other species in it such as two types of Shanks, Gull-billed and Little Terns, some Bar and Black-tailed Godwits as well.  Some Golden and Grey plovers too , among the many other species seen at Tanza Navotas on Sept 13, 2021.  I only need to stand at the dike by the housing blocks and look across there you have it, loads of Knots!   This is not just some insignificant number for two NEAR THREATENED species. More so for Red Knots that has seen big decrese in number internationally this season !

Zoomed in a bit.. yeas can you see the knots???  Who says there are no birds and no signficant species?   Really? I wondered about the person who conducted the survey if really qualified to do so?  Sept 13, 2021 photo of Tanza Navotas birds. And this is just a small portion of the entire mudflat's birds!

These two are just some of the leg flagged birds stopping by Tanza Navotas to rest and eat before they continue their migration. A site with high leg flag turn around count is very critical and significant! Tanza mudflats has high count of flagged birds. I actually don't need to explain this to my birding community readers as they already know. Mentioning this is mainly for readers who are not yet aware of bird watching and leg flag significance.  Both birds with flags are seen on Sept 10, 2021. This is an international network and effort of helping out countries monitoring their migratory birds species.  ICD2021

Portion of the road leading to Tanza, Navotas. Yes, this area always flooded even if not raining!  Nearly 90% of the time especially when high tide. This is really result of incompetent government not doing urban planning and just allowed properties to keep blocking the exit of waterways. On top of that, reclamation of Tanza, Taliptip, some areas of Panghulo and futher down , futher blocked more the already difficult water exits , so this is a pain for locals! The street on to the right of this one is which is houses is always flooded too! Imagine if you live there getting in and out of the house  you always need to wear wellies?  Yes, even in summer when it is high tide this floods!  Once Tanza mudlfats is completely reclaimmed, expect more flooding and directly on the community of housing blocks next to the mudflat will experience even worse than the flooding they already experience.

Gull ID 101. Book 1 backed by book 2 , then search internet images to compare, then , lifeline of experts who could confirm what I looked up on the book! ICD2021

Little Gull !!! I viewed my photos late night the following day and compared size check, features check, then OMG!!!! I was down to two suspects with minimal differences but yes differntiable. Because I didn't see clearly the underwings when it flew. I wanted to be sure, so I messaged people who I think have seen enough gulls and this gull in particular to help with confirming the ID. Im totally useless with big gulls in first to 3rd year plumage but this small gull, I'm so far, still manageable! I messaged 4 people. first two no reply but later did after Nial. Thank you to Nial who confirmed it asap. Dave who I messaged first was offline but confirmed the next day morning!  I wanted to check the following day if it came back? Because I promised Christian if he wana twitch I'll go check and message him if I see it. But Sept 8th was super heavy rain  from Tropical Storm Jolens' power!  I went back the day after the big rain, didn't see it again. I think it left. Because the time it came in until the time it left, it really looked like it just came in for a quick rest and went ahead. ICD2021

You can probably feel the excitement here!  First Country record for my lifer 555! Just as I was thinking when will I have a lifer again! And thinking maybe I will have a birthday lifer? But now I have a pre-birthday lifer ! haha!

Well I didn't know at first this was shared until the day after it was shared, when I saw this.  But yes , records comm confirmed no prior records.

Well,  here's the funny bit. Just as Subho jokingly commented on my IG post that I seem to specialise in finding rarites whose name starts with " Little"  hahahha so funny! Well, there was a  "Little again" in Nov 2020, April to May 2021, and  July 2021. Then, just three days later after Little Gull... here it is, another Little ! 

Little Stint ! Sept 10, 2021. I didn't expect to see this! I was looking for the leg flagged Lesser Sand Plover I lost because I bumped my tripod and didn't manage to get photo of the leg flag code! This is 100% confirm of the ID on site and I was so excited about it that I messaged 2 people asap on site! One of them was Dave Bakewell. Thanks for confirming this again Dave! ( I have videos and I showed Dave a much better photo than this . And, oh, I went back the next day it was gone! )  Even if I was sure , it was really great to hear a confirm from Dave! It was really nice to see all the details so clear for about 30 minutes before I really had to leave! Well, supermarket errand after birding! If Rarity Comm officially accepts this , this should be 6th conutry record. Considering that my sightings in July 2021 should be 5th country record  but are not yet reviewed officially yet. Though I am 100% positive it is a confirm since they were in very obvious plumage it was undeniable when I saw it. The committee just as for the photo to review as of writing this.  But, again, thanks to Dave for aging the bird when he saw my July  post on FB! Fourth country record was April 2021 also sightings by me. I really laughed at Subho's comment! This is crazy! I mean how on earth did I bag 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th country record , for THE SAME species? I still can't believe it myself!  But one thing is sure, this site, Tanza Mudflat IS A CRITICAL MUDFLAT with so many critical species! Little Stint may not be a critical species but the fact it keeps showing up here, out of its usual range, and many more other migratory birds arrive here. Take note it is not because of me spotting rarities, and I'm not some world top notch birder. As I always say, I'm just a happy birder enojoying my field. It is really just being at the right place right time and most importantly, the fact that migratory species go to Tanza!

With a surprise pre birthday lifer Little Gull... now I wonder...what would be lifer 556 and a birthday lifer? Or maybe I can be a bit more greedy of separate Lifer 556 and birthday lifer ? I will always choose to have a birthday lifer than expensive items like designer bags, shoes, clothes, or whatever. A Sony A9II would be nice though! But, those designer stuff I won't even be able to have chances to use in a year or probably only use once every few years! But a good scope or camera I use nearly daily and a lifer is forever a happy special memory! Um, I don't mind having cake and icecream for birthday though.  Haha! Will find out if heavens above will give me a birthday pressie or not? Well, perhaps I could reach PH lifelist 565 by December 31, 2021? 

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