Sparrow Street

Day for this, day for that. Social media is jammed with ‘world days’ for just about everything now, but World Sparrow Day on March 20th caught my eye – a bit like the real bird, busy and confident in our urban shadow as if it were a small feathered fox.

Tree sparrow2

This is a tree sparrow, a rarity in England these days but abundant in the Philippines. The unevenness of nature is one of its marvels – some species paint the skies with a million silhouettes while others are known only to the most inquisitive scientists. That is not random; it reflects variation in whatever food and habitat is required, and in how wild things rise and fall on humans rhythms. This little bird, this sweet chirp in the warm grass, is perched firmly on human civilisation. Our crops feed it, our buildings house it, and our boats give it safe passage. In fact, it may have travelled to the Philippines with the Spanish fleet.

But tree sparrows tell us something else. So confident, so confiding, they unwittingly star in one of the bleakest parables of unintended consequences that we as a species have yet managed to write. Mao declared a brutally effective war on sparrows in 1950s China as part of the Four Pests campaign. It was to protect crops, of course, but without considering that sparrows actually eat crop-destroying insects. The destruction of sparrows contributed to a famine which killed up to 55 million people.

It is one lesson that should be told in every school and parliament in the world: think, from all angles, before doing.

Tree sparrow

But sparrows are birds of the present, and squabble and flutter as if yesterday is in the past. They still link us to nature, building a noisy, unruled life alongside commence and cluttered streets. Like foxes, they are the flag-bearers of a much broader collection of mostly shy wildlife that threads its way past us. When not watching sparrows in the Philippines, I was wondering how to find those others. I set up my my trailcam on the off chance it would catch something unusual, and it happens, it did.

The large dark birds in the first part of this video are barred rail, a common but extremely reclusive species of open landscapes and farmland. The toads are probably Philippine toads Ingerophrynus philippinicus, and I’m not even going to hazard a guess at the bat. I might have got more species except that the trailcam was knocked over by a magnitude 6 earthquake three days into its adventure. Here is the water cooler reacting to the 5.9 magnitude aftershock.

Perhaps that is the final lesson from sparrows. They lean on us, and that is not particularly safe; but we in turn stand on an unstable planet, and no dustings of urban glory will ever quite hide our need to remember that.

Tree Metropolis

So, Philippines.

Yes, I was in Mindanao earlier this month, my third visit to this land of numbers: 7,641 islands, about 109 million people, and trees – who can say how many trees? A hot, wet land under a sun on hyperspeed: it rises in a rush, soars scorchingly high into the sky, and collapses into a sunset twelve hours after dawn, when absurdly the air feels even stiffer. This is the kind of wild artistry that grows rainforests, and left to its own devices, the Philippines would be smothered by them, feathered out by mangrove swamps on the coast and tropical pinewoods in the mountains.

The reality, of course, is that most of the lowland rainforest has been cleared; the tall, straight trunks make for good timber, and the endangered lapnisan or agarwood has the unwelcome honour of being the world’s most expensive tree due to its wood being poached to produce oud perfume. But even where the primary forest has gone, the secondary growth is thick, and supports a fair variety of trilling, busy wild things.

Red-keeled flowerpecker

Red keeled flowerpecker

Philippine brown shrike

Shrike

No tree is a solitary life. Even in the rawest habitats – salt deserts, say, or the arable deserts of modern agriculture – a tree is a lifebuoy seized by lichens, birds and invertebrates. In the tropics, they are grabbed by other plants too; orchids and ferns perch on their limbs and frame, in a manner of living known as epiphytic. Sometimes it is difficult to know where the tree ends and its army of piggy-backing guests begins.

Big tree

Trees produce food as well as support, but not freely. These young glossy starlings will deposit the seeds in their droppings, spreading the tree’s offspring far further than it could achieve through mere gravity.

glossy starling chicks

Humans also gather from trees. In the Philippines, plums and apples are imported exotics in the malls, but mangoes, bananas and passion fruits can be picked by hand. Cacao trees, the birthplace of chocolate, sport their pods.

IMG_0217_DxO_DxO

And this is rambutan, brightening up its parent tree.

For all of the trees, the sun feeds them, and the moon sets behind them.

And the next day brings the pattern again.

Moonset

Stories under the Durian Tree

Philippines, March 2023

If heat has an anthem, perhaps it is something like this:

Coppersmith barbet, singing stories of feathered things in the land we call the Philippines. Birds know it better than we ever will, swooping and squabbling over trees that seem to be standing on tiptoes to outdo each other.

Past durian stalls and stray dogs, over telephone wires and construction sites.

Living their lives, learning their land, even as the millions of people in Mindanao do the same. In the heat and the hubbub, amidst the jeepneys and basketball courts, and the birds remain wild, but perched on the apparatus of humanity – or on the plants that we are pleased to provide.

Asian glossy starling

Glossy starling

Collared kingfisher

Collared kingfisher

Olive-backed sunbird

Sunbird1

Chestnut munia

Munias in grass

And the durian tree watches on, its fruits ready to fall.

Durian fruits_DxO

A Tale of Two Eagles

Haring ibón.

King of birds.

Philippine eagle1 6 June 2018

I rarely photograph captive animals, but made an exception at this moment.

This majestic Philippine eagle is part of the conservation programme run by the Philippine Eagle Foundation in Davao City, southern Philippines. According to the order of wild things, the Philippine eagle is the undisputed apex predator of the sweltering tropical forests of this complex archipelago. Unfortunately, like top predators everywhere, they have not fared well in human company and their status in the wild is now extremely precarious.

The foundation where this eagle lives is the species’ lifeline. Hopefully, one day it will be easier to see them in the wild again.

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‘Wild’ still exists elsewhere, of course. My recent travels slipped briefly into northern Australia, a land of fire and termites which I will relate in later posts.

And over those flickering forests soars another of the world’s great raptors – the wedge-tailed eagle. I spotted this one perched on the carcass of a roadkilled-wallaby, and it flew calmly into the tree.

Raptor NT Jun 2018

It is related to the golden eagle of the northern hemisphere, and has been heavily persecuted by Australian farmers in the past, although the Northern Territory protects them.

Two eagles but one sky. It would take a lifetime – many lifetimes – to learn all the living things in the forests of south-east Asia and Australasia. This journey only caught a snapshot, but I will relate its highlights over the next few days.

Natural Mindanao

March 2017

I’ve never seen a Philippine eagle – outside of a book, anyway. I do know that they are glorious, improbable, grey-beaked giants of the eagle clan, very nearly the largest of all. It might be a surprise that until 1995, the national bird of the Philippines was something far humbler.

The chestnut munia or red maya is a finch-like bird unafraid of urban life. It is found throughout south-east Asia, from Burma to Vietnam.

Chestnut munia Philippines

Tree sparrows are also strongly associated with people, and have an even wider range. They are clinging to survival in Britain, where they are far outnumbered by the also declining house sparrow. Tree sparrows have a huge international range however and not likely to disappear altogether.

Tree sparrow Philippines

The Philippines has significant environmental challenges, but there are whale sharks and dugongs (large marine mammals similar to manatees) off the coast, and critically endangered warty pigs roam remote areas.

And, naturally, some of these: golden orb-weavers, quite large but harmless. The tropics would not be the tropics without spiders.

Golden orb weaver Samal Mar 2017

Or without palm trees and sand, I suppose.

Samal Island

Samal Island watches us pass.

Banana seller Samal

Fruit seller Mar 2017

Across the Wallace Line

March 2017

Back to the map of southeast Asia. Draw a line across it, written in tigers, foxes and deer. On side walks the great megafauna of Asia. On the other, the strange creatures of Australasia hop, bounce and glide.

Wallace line map

The so-called Wallace Line was discovered in 1859 by Victorian naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace. Later, other scientists realised that it cut a bit further north, and I’ve taken the liberty of drawing that in red on in this 1863 map.

Few wild mammals ever cross the Wallace Line, but on this trip I’m flying above it, repeatedly, catching glimpses of the exotic Sulu Sea.

Sulu Sea

Sulu Sea2

It is not safe down there; once the Sulu Sea was famous for its pirates, and today for its terrorists. But from 30,000 feet, you can get some idea of the tropical beauty of the waters.

I cross the Wallace Line just east of Borneo. A little further, and the Philippines come into view. This island nation sits astride the line – Palawan, on the Asian side, once hosted tigers, and leopard cats probably still survive. I’m headed to Mindanao, which lies on the Australian side and has no native felids.

Cats may be famous for their sleeping, but here a volcano dozes instead.

Mt Apo

Mount Apo towers 2,954 metres (9,692 ft) above southern Mindanao. It is sleeping, a comatose monument to the blazing power of the Pacific Rim of Fire.

The rest of Mindanao rolls up to Apo’s feet in ridges.

Mindanao

At ground level, green, white and blue dominate.

Jack's Ridge

It’s hard to visit Davao City without noticing exotic fruit. Durian is famous, possibly infamous. This sign on the Metro back in Singapore caught my eye:

No Durian

Maybe Davao’s jeepneys don’t object to durian?

Jeep

The reason for the anxiety is durian’s fantastically horrific smell. It is, however, known as the king of fruits because the taste is valued so highly. I sampled some in a milkshake; it’s complex, and your taste buds process it in stages. Very ripe melon is probably the closest description.

Meanwhile, Davao’s streets brim with coconuts…

Coconuts