On how my first birdwatching trip to Candaba, Pampanga
Province, Philippines made my enthusiasm for conservation take flight.
Trudging stealthily on a marshland trail, struggling to keep alert despite it
being 5:30 in the morning. With binoculars slung over my neck and a species
list on hand, I tried to make as little noise as possible. Is this an
episode from National Geographic or a feature on the Discovery Channel? No,
but that’s what I felt like on my first bird-watching trip.
It was a cold day in November when I was surprisingly able to coerce two of
my friends to pry ourselves out of bed at 3 in the morning to drive down to
the Haribon Foundation center. All we knew to prepare for the trip was to wear
dark clothing, bring a hat, some food and pay the joining fee. There I met
some 20 or so individuals, scientists, bird-watching enthusiasts from here
and abroad, and regular clueless folks like me.
We got to our destination the Candaba Marsh at dawn, and even before getting
off our van, they told us to spot Egrets flying over and into the distance. How
majestic they looked! Enormous wing span and quite easy to spot due to their
size and number. It was right about there when I was handed a checklist of
the different species of birds we could spot in this particular location. My
eyes widened as I counted 92 listed there! And I was only expecting maybe 2
or 3 species! I couldn’t believe that we had so many different kinds of
birds here in the country! It was also of major interest to me that as one
scientist noted, the Philippines has 80 or so endemic species whereas
countries like the UK had none. All the more curious, I was to find out how
many I’d be able to spot at the end of the day.
My excitement mounted as our scientists Blas Tabaranza and Tim Fisher pointed
out to us the lone Purple Heron sitting high atop a sparsely leafed tree, the
many Black Winged Stilts, easily identified by their long bright red spindly
legs and the daintily colored Blue-Tailed Bee-eater. I was pleasantly
educated that even the Chestnut Munia or “Maya”. the local name for
the common sparrow, was not the Maya I thought to be. Its head was black and
body brown. All in all I was able to jot down 19 kinds of birds that day. I’m
quite sure that wasn’t all there were that day since the I wasn’t able to
quickly spot everything pointed out to us.
Whereas before I saluted Haribon’s conservation efforts only in theory, to be
alongside them was a concrete expression, one that further strengthened my
resolve to support the projects and one that I hope would be followed up with
many more wonderfully mind-broadening adventures!
Christina Alejandro is a product designer for a chain of gift shops and also
a member of the WWF and Haribon Foundation, both environment oriented
organizations. She loves travelling and has visited the US, Europe,
Australia and some Asian countries. Christina’s website is: