Exploring the Pampanga River Delta

The Pampanga River is the second largest river in Luzon (next to the Cagayan River), and the country's fourth longest. It's headwaters are in the Sierra Madre mountains and runs a south and southwesterly course for about 260 kilometers until it drains into the Manila Bay. (source: wikipedia). For our first sortie of the year, we were to bird in the area near the towns of Macabebe, Masantol, Sasmuan (on the Pampanga side) and Calumpit (on the Bulacan side). Our itinerary was to explore the river delta by boat, have lunch in an island and then do roadside birding in the afternoon. 

Our party from Manila consisted of WBPP President Win Paler, Ed Santos, Conrad Olayres, and myself. Our host, Jonet Carpio, of Bulacan, completed the group. We were a two-car convoy with me and Conrad in one vehicle and Wins, Ed and Edgar (Wins' driver) in the other. We met up along NLEX around 6:00am and was soon on the way. We were supposed to join up with Jonet at the wharf by 6:30am, however a wrong turn after the San Simon exit caused us some delay. We finally met up with Jonet around seven thirty in the morning. There were plenty of boats, but as I had feared most of them had no roof and no ''katig"! (outriggers). Being from Coron, I prefer boats with outriggers but I knew that these were not practical in a river with plenty of fishpens. (I do not know how to swim, hence my preference for bancas with katig).

Walang katig!!!

Fortunately, the boat that Jonet hired for us had a roof and comfortable enough seats that face forward (not sideward like our tour boats in Coron). We quickly loaded up and was soon underway. An amusing side note was the reaction of the boat crew when they saw our bags of camera gear and ice chests of food and drinks. With the amount of stuff we had, one would think that we were going to sleep in the island for several days. 

Along the way, we saw several fishermen going about their business which prompted Wins to decide to buy some crabs, shrimps and fish.

 Fluvial market...

Shortly after finishing our transaction, we reached a place called Bangkong Malapad, a DENR protected area.  This is the island that Jonet was referring to. It is actually a patch of mangrove in the middle of the river. A bamboo wharf with a wooden walkway led to a view deck at the other end.  Unfortunately, because it was low tide, our boat ran aground about fifteen meters from the wharf.  So it meant walking in the water with a muddy bottom while carrying our camera gear.  I once had this same experience in Coron and before I reached the shore, I slipped.  Fortunately, my camera did not get wet.  So because of that, I was wary of slipping again so I held on to the shoulder of one of our boat crew for support while walking the fifteen meters or so (later on this same boy was named Machete, but that is another story).  

We all managed to reach the view deck without any mishaps.  It was a good place to observe birds except that there were not much birds.  There were a number of plovers (they looked like Kentish), in the distance, a couple of Egrets, a couple of Terns, and two Common Redshanks.  One of the Terns was later IDéd as a Gull-billed Tern, which was a lifer for my four companions. A lone Black-headed Gull also made a appearance.  This is a lifer for all of us except Jonet.  But the bird was quite far so none of my shots are really worth posting.

A couple of Philippine Pied Fantails flitted about in the mangroves.  But none of us really paid much attention to it.  After about an hour at the view deck, a DENR ranger arrived and upon his suggestion, we all trooped down to the muddy beach area to see if we could get shots from angles that were not visible from the hut.

Ed Santos with his Bazooka, photo courtesy of Jonet.

Me, looking at some Terns, photo by Jonet

Jonet, after he went to the left side of the island and got beautiful shots of a couple of Whimbrels

Conrad, whom we fondly call Heneral, looking every bit a General. 

After our brief foray into the muddy beach, we trooped back to the view deck and had lunch.  Birders and boatmen feasted on Ed's magic adobo, inihaw na banak, crabs, and shrimps (all freshly caught).  Washed down by ice cold soda and water.  

And before we could even digest our hearty lunch, the adobo worked its magic.  Two Little Egrets put on a display in front of us.  Here are some shots of the Egrets fighting.

 Egret Sabong

After the Egrets left, we decided to go back to the boat to look for the hundreds (maybe thousands) of gulls that Jonet saw a few days before. This was the main target of our trip. 

Obligatory we-fie before boarding the banca (we used to call this WBPP group hugs)

Shortly thereafter, we were underway and looking for the large group of Black-headed Gulls that Jonet saw a few days before.  But even after about an hour of leisurely cruising, the Gulls were nowhere to be seen.  There were plenty of Terns though.  

The white birds on the upper portion are mostly Terns but we could not positively ID the smaller brownish birds on the lower portion.    

Whiskered Terns

While chugging along, I snapped a photo of a lone Egret on a sand bar on the left side of the banca (or maybe, I should say, Port side of the banca).  I did not really pay much attention to it but to my chagrin (and regret), while reviewing my photos in the computer, this turned out to be a Chinese Egret, a rare migrant.  While not a lifer, all my photos of this bird are of the docu kind. Aaaargh!!!!

Chinese Egret

A lone Purple Heron also flew overhead...

Purple Heron

After a few more minutes, Jonet excitedly pointed to three birds swimming on the starboard side (right side), Black-headed Gulls!

Hindi tatlong bibe, kundi tatlong bako (gull).

After a several more minutes, Jonet even more excitedly pointed to a flock of birds on our port side (left), and there it was, hundreds of Gulls and Terns... But according to him, this was a much smaller colony of Gulls than he saw.  Nevertheless, it was a breathtaking sight (and we shot to our hearts delight). 

Gulls and Terns as far as the eye could see.

Black-headed Gull, a lifer.  There were two shots that I wanted for this day.  The first is a Black-headed Gull in flight in good lighting.  First target, check!

After getting our fill shooting the colony, we continued to roam the delta in search of other group.  Before long we spotted another colony of gulls on the starboard side of our banca.  It was a much bigger group.  

 The second and much larger colony of Gulls and Terns

After leaving the second colony, we saw more Black-headed Gulls on our portside swimming towards a sandbar where we found a third colony of gulls and terns. 

This is the other shot that I really wanted for this trip - a colony in flight, check!

After thousands of shots, we decided to call it a day and headed back to the shore.  I was more than happy because I was able to capture the two shots that I came for.

A big thank you to our friend Jonet Carpio.  WIthout him, this trip would not have been possible.