Bird #95 12/21/14

Osprey

The next day I decided to head out again but this time I decided to go for SRP (South Reclamation Project). But on my way there, something came up and changed my mind - made a turn and went to Tayud (near Co Jordan Resto), Lilo-an instead. Took pictures of the birds and saw what I thought at first were a different species of terns which turned out to be just Whiskered sp - pretty common here. Then took a few snaps at a flying egret which was headed towards my general direction - not realizing what it really was until I got home.  Then from quite a distance I saw something not quite like an egret and had some black on it. I trained my camera towards it and woah! Osprey!
my second one! (first sighting was in San Remegio, northwestern cebu) I hoped it would turn round and head towards me but to my dismay - it kept flying northeast - oh well...still great to have seen one. I've only been seeing birds like it on tv when I was still a kid. And to see it in person and in the wild is a real treat!

Black-headed gull

After that I headed back south and went to my usual birding spot at SRP. Nothing unusual except for the large flock of Whiskered terns that day.  The usual migrants were there, Little Ringed plovers, Yellow Wagtails, Black-winged stilts, Common greenshanks, Wood sandpipers and - oh yes! I just remembered, a flock of Black-headed gulls came flying by! I managed to snap a few of the lead bird. This was my second sighting. First time was mid January `14, there were a lot of them that time.

Great egret

Ever since I started birding all the yellow billed egrets with black legs turned out to be Intermediate egrets. I've been looking for Great egrets since then and was disappointed every time since they all turned out to be Intermediate.  I had the impression that Great egrets were noticeably larger compared to Intermediates. That wasn't the case. So, this whole time I may have mistaken them for Intermediates since I just didn't bother to take a closer look - since they'll just turn out to be Intermediates anyway. That was my biggest mistake. It's funny now that this bird ended up as bird #95 when it could have been easily one of my first 20 birds in my Cebu life list.


As it turns out, they were more common than I expected. But can only be found in Cansaga and Tayud (for me so far). When I got home and went over the photos in Lightroom, I saw that the bird had a rather bigger wingspan than the usual egrets I take BIFs with. I then took a closer look at the head and I was able to confirm it. Bill was bigger in proportion to head, gape extends past eye, tapered head compared to Intermediate.