The Ennui Within

It's been a month since I last went birding. That was in Kota Kinabalu. Since then it had been a series of unfortunate setbacks that more or less confined me within the walls of our home. It's not that my wife and I haven't been going out. It was just that those outings were mainly to church on Sundays and to run various errands (grocery shopping, laundry, taking our car to the shop, etc. etc). Then there were days of constant rain parenthesized by hot, humid weather. As if these were not enough, the current economic problems in America caused the value of the dollar to dip making my already meager pension to shrink even more. Please note that generally speaking, birding isn't cheap here in the Philippines. Most birding places are at some distance from our home which means 1) consuming lots of gasoline (the price of which had gone up lately) 2) paying toll fees and 3) eating out.  With that scenario, our financial situation even got further dented by the costly repair on our vehicle - something we later realized could have been resolved in a much cheaper way. *Sigh* Lessons learned though. Going forward we will never have our car checked at the "casa" (the dealer) again.


Pardon the rant. I just needed to get those out of my chest.


Due to the above stated reasons, my birding activities had been put on hold or rather restricted to my hard drive. With no light at the end of the tunnel yet, it seems. Weather is still fickle and the dollar apparently continuing to plunge. Between my morning and evening prayers here I am trying to battle the onset of ennui thru the aid of my computer (thank God for the internet!). Passing the time watching some quotidian k-pop music videos in between my visits to Facebook and Google+. Or occasionally watching those English-subtitled Korean drama series. (Oh Lord, what has become of me?)


Things better start changing soon. 


Or I might change my name to Hu Em Hai.

Got mittens?

On a whim, Cynthia and I went to Subic Bay in Zambales. To go birding. It was during this one-and-a-half day trip that we experienced God's goodness upon us. Several times!

Days before we left I was already checking online the various hotels in Subic. A friend recommended Bayfront and when I looked at their website I discovered that the cheapest room rate was $68.75. Yes, they quoted in dollars! Finding that just a bit too steep for our budget, I didn't go any further and told Cynthia about my findings. Wednesday night when we found out that Cynthia's daughter, Jenn, and her family are going to a resort in Olongapo (which is just next door to Subic), we decided to go through with our planned trip as well. Cynthia called the Bayfront Hotel and asked if there were any rooms available for Thursday. The lady at the other end of the line confirmed that there was and that she would reserve one for us. She even waived the usual 10% deposit requirement. Just call when you're on your way here she said sweetly.

We arrived at Subic at around 8 am - too early for our scheduled check-in - so we birded around the area first, occasionally interrupted by pouring rain. Although check-in time at Bayfront is 2 pm, the ladies at the front desk admitted us at 1 pm and we only paid the equivalent of about $58. Free buffet breakfast for two was  even included, we were informed. That was certainly unexpected!

In going around the birding sites, I ran over a small metal coil that stuck into my left rear tire. I did not want to pull it out for fear that it might have punctured the tire and therefore result in a flat. We were in the middle of a forest road then. Later on as we were back in town, I drove into a Goodyear shop and had my tire checked. The coil was pulled out and thank God there was no puncture! And what's even better was that we didn't have to pay a single centavo!

As we were returning to the hotel, I changed lanes when I discovered that the lane I was in was required to turn left - which would take us in the wrong direction. As I crossed the intersection I was waved down by the local police. We've been warned by friends that they are very strict in enforcing traffic laws here - so much unlike the chaos in Metro Manila's streets. We explained to the officer that we were just visiting from Manila and that we are on our way to our hotel, interjected, of course with profuse apologies. The kind officer let us go with only a stern warning and a reminder to put our seatbelts on.  Once again, we thanked God for intervening!

The following day, we were out birding early in the morning. We were still trying to find the Nabasan trail where, along with some birder friends, we birded last November. After several tries, we still couldn't locate it. I parked the car on the side of the road figuring out what to do next when an SUV zoomed by, made a sudden stop and reversed to where we were. The gentleman who was driving the car asked if we have any problems. We explained that we are birdwatchers and we were trying to photograph birds in that area. He said that there is a better place where birds are even more plentiful. We asked him to show the place to us and we will follow his car. Not more than 500 meters down the road he stopped and pointed to a deserted trail on our left. We waved thanks and goodbye to our benefactor. As soon as we entered the road we realized we are at Nabasan trail! Then Cynthia told me something that made me praise God even more. She said that while we were parked on the side of the road figuring out our next move, she prayed that God send us an "angel" to show us the place we wanted to go to. And sure enough, He did!

Since it rained off and on the whole morning, we did not see a lot of birds, although we heard a good number of them. On our way out of the trail, we flushed a male Tarictic Hornbill from a tree by the road. But it flew off to some place far and inaccessible. That frustrated us a little bit because Cynthia also saw one yesterday but wasn't able to take a photo of it. Now as we entered the small village of Cubi Point, I saw a huge bird perched on a limb overlooking the street. "Crow" was my wife's response when I pointed it to her. Quite certain that it was not a crow, I stopped the car, took out my binoculars and looked at the bird. It was, just as I suspected, a female Tarictic Hornbill. For about an hour, we observed, took pictures (even a video) of this God-sent creature as it calmly preened itself and waited for the sun to emerge from the now diminishing gray clouds.

The serenity of the image before us brought to my mind all the good things that the Lord has done for us, not just on this trip, but in every aspect of our life together. I hugged Cynthia and whispered, "Gott mit uns!"

"Got mittens?" she replied curiously.

"It's German for 'God's with us'", I told her smilingly.

She smiled back knowing how true that statement was.


For photos and the video of the tarictic, please see our other blog at http://ornithographer.blogspot.com/