Philippine coucals in the neighborhood

A common sight to us are these rather large dark brown and black birds flying across the road from one lot to another. Most lots that are without houses in our village have trees, bushes, shrubs and grasses that are the homes and habitat of wildlife. The latter includes a variety of mammals, reptiles, amphibians and birds. There is a small river near us where kingfishers thrive and migratory birds gather. But in the inner parts of the village, there are many birds of different sizes and colors that we spot. We're not birdwatchers per se so we just take photos or videos of those we chance upon and share it on social media for our friends to identify for us. Among the welcome sight during our morning walks are the Philippine coucals that we have observed on many occasions. Most recently, I found that they frequent the trees and bamboos around our home and was able to take a few photos while I was in a Zoom call one morning.

Coucal perched on a bamboo near my WFH station at home (our guest room)

I was a bit surprised and elated to see there were actually two of them with one with the longer tail. They hopped from one bamboo stalk to another until they finally flew away.

The Philippine coucal is not an endangered species but to find it inhabiting our village is to me a wonderful thing. It means that these birds are thriving where humans are also habitating. There are also kingfishers, magpie robins, orioles, crows (uwak), bulbuls, pipits, sparrows (maya), doves and owls that we often see or hear. Unfortunately though, there has been a lot of construction ongoing around our village as people discovered our area as a nice place to live in with its good environment. These new homes are sure to disturb or even destroy part of their habitat. The good thing though is most homes (and residents) are old in the sense that trees and other plants in most houses provide the habitat needed by these birds and other wildlife to survive. Our trees, for example, are homes to magpie robins, kingfishers, bulbuls and maya. I try my best to spot them and instruct our staff not to bother their nests. Our daughter is also happy to have them and observed one nest that's quite popular with the birds.

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