Eagle Work—Mt Apo

Our mission was to confirm that a nesting pair of Philippine Eagles actually had an egg or chick, and as you may remember, my job was to get a recording of the eagle vocalizing if possible.

We left Davao about an hour late, in true “Filipino Time” fashion, in the 20+ year old Toyota 4W drive Land Cruiser. There were me, Maita (another biologist), Rene the driver, Dodong (who works at the PEC), and Remy the guide. All have been with the Foundation for at least a few years, and Remy and Dodong have been with it for many years (Dodong since he was a teenager). Maita, Dodong, and Rene are all in their twenties, and Remy must be in his late 30s or early 40s. Maita is the only one who speaks English well. As she said, "I can express myself easily in English and Vasayan," although she does speak Tagalog well. Dodong is apparently a very funny guy, because he was always laughing and getting the others to laugh. Sometimes he would make a joke in English, too. We all agreed that it was too bad that I didn't speak Visayan because they were sure I would have had a grand time, too.

Remember that the truck is over 20 years old? Well, it showed it. To open the passenger side you pull on a string that passes through the space in the door where the lever for opening the door would be and is attached to what's left of the lever. The air con worked, thank goodness, but the fan in the overhead air con that cools the back would more than occasionally make a horrible loud grinding noise (probably the bearings in the fan). The battery or charging system wasn't working right, so twice we had to push-start it.
And when it came to pick us up, it had a flat tire. Ahhh... what would field work be like without a field vehicle?!




Mt. Apo is outside of Davao, to the west, so you get a good view of it from there (when the there are no clouds). We drove south around the Davao Gulf, then inland, up the gradual slope of the mountain. Along the way we came upon Doming Tadena, a former employee of the Center who had recently retired after many years. Now that was surprising! Here we were “out in the middle of nowhere”, or at least really far from the Center, and this man just happens to be next to the road. So we stopped, and it turned out he was buying wood (they were cutting saplings) for a fence for his property. I talked to him for a short while about bananas, which were growing there, and about the Philippine Eagle Foundation.

After we arrived in the barangay in which we would be staying and observing the nest, we made the requisite brief stop to see the barangay captain. In the Philippines the smallest official unit of government is called a barangay (there are smaller areas called sitios and puroks, but they are informal). Each barangay has a council headed by the barangay captain. Stopping to see the captain is important because the Philippine Eagle Foundation has to foster and maintain good relations with the local governments to be able to have access to the field sites and to help ensure the safety of the eagles. As head of the local government the captain can deny or permit access to the area. The PEF already has had good relations with this area for years, so we stopped by his house just to touch bases, introduce us newbies, and pay our respects.

We continued driving, as far as we could up the southern slope of Mt. Apo, about 2 hours from Davao (not including stops). Then we unloaded the land cruiser and loaded ourselves up. Fortunately we hired a horse to carry most of our stuff!






We walked up the road about a half hour to a very small village of maybe 5 or 6 houses. The village is called Mamao (or something like that). (Rene the driver returned to Davao—I presume he found someone to push-start the truck!)








We stayed there in a wooden house with a covered porch, two bedrooms, a "living room", a dining room and a kitchen. As usual, it was up off the ground. I’ll blog on the house separately to help make this blog shorter. I got one of the bedrooms, and Maita, the only woman in our group, got the other one.

No electricity, except for one solar panel array at one house that was charging car batteries. TVs were playing in some houses, so my guess is that they were using the batteries. No running water in the house, either.

The weather was pretty pleasant. Because we were at about 900 m, it was cooler than in Davao. Still humid, but cooler. It was always nice and clear in the morning, but it usually clouded up by around noon. That was nice because it kept the sun off. There was usually a nice breeze, too.

To get to the observation post we hiked about 15 minutes up the road and then another 15 minutes on a trail through agricultural land (mostly corn). Along the way we passed three other dwellings. I didn’t know exactly how far we had to go, but I was really excited to be getting there! Finally we arrived at the post at about 12:15. It is a small clearing, under a few large trees, with a small hut that was in disrepair and a small vegetable garden that looked like it had been left by the hut’s departed tenant. The observation post is on the edge of a slope, overlooking a little valley, maybe half a kilometer across. The nest tree is situated in a very large tree near the bottom of the valley, so we had a very nice view into the nest.

I remember Romy, Dodong, and another man from the village who was with us pointing out the nest tree. I thought how beautiful the tree was. It was quite large and had a wonderfully shaped spreading crown. Being isolated from the rest of the canopy, it really stood out. The large nest was built in the point in the tree where all the major branches of the tree grew out from the trunk. And sitting in the nest was the female!

That's Romy on the left, then Dodong, Maita, and the other man from the village, just minutes after arriving at the observation post. The nest tree is that obvious tree directly over Dodong's head.


Wow! Seeing the nest with an eagle sitting on it was really, really cool. I almost got goose bumps. We looked at her through binoculars, then set up the spotting scopes to watch.



Observing the nest







Me observing the nest with my spotting scope






The nest tree is over my left shoulder. It's beautiful, isn't it? And yes, that is corn growing in front of me.



After a few minutes, we could confirm that indeed, there was a chick in the nest. Hurrah! Romy and Dodong concluded that the eaglet was less than a week old.


So for the rest of that afternoon, the next day, and the morning after that, we returned to the observation post to observe the eagles. We were able to observe both adults, including the female bringing a fresh branch to the nest and the female feeding the chick—how cute! As you already know, I was unable to get a recording of the eagles, even though they did vocalize, because the tape recorder did not work. Actually, it was the cord connecting the mic to the recorder that was broken. I thought I had fixed it the night before, back in the hotel in Davao, but clearly I had not (or it broke again).

I fixed the recorder, and waited for the next two days for the eagles to vocalize, but unfortunately (as often happens in field work), the opportunity had passed and they kept silent. So while it was exciting and fulfilling to see the eagles, I was disappointed by not being able to get any recordings.

This is the nest. The white shape is the chick, facing to the right. (I took this picture of the nest by putting my camera up against the spotting scope. I have an SLR camera, but interestingly this technique works best with the point and shoot type cameras, because their lenses are smaller. Even phone cameras work well!)