From a distance, the shrike’s mantle appeared rather pale (”frosty,” Lisa said). Its mask seemed narrow, and the bill seemed long. All these features suggested Northern Shrike, but the distance was a little too much to be certain. Northern Shrikes are rare in this part of the state, and we didn’t want to make a sloppy call.

Happily, we didn’t have to wonder forever. As we sat quietly beside the road, the shrike worked toward us, eventually offering fantastic scoped views. Fine dark edges on the bird’s pale breast feathers produce a scalloped or vermiculated look at close range. Note too that only the lower half of the bird’s eye is within its blackish mask. And, the area immediately over the bill is whitish, not dark. Photo digiscoped by Charley Burwick.

Here you can see the bird’s huge, very strongly hooked bill, which is pale at the base. You can also see a pale whitish mark in the bird’s dark lores. The bird shows a square head and a distinct neck. (See more on Loggerhead and Northern Shrike ID.) This photo is also by Charley Burwick.

After poring over various old records I have, I came up with a list of 65 Texas counties in which I’ve recorded at least one bird species. I’ve recorded over 100 only in five (Dallas, Galveston, Harrison, Smith, Tarrant) but am close in three others. One frustration is that I didn’t keep better records between 2000 (my first visit to Texas) and 2007, so dozens of counties have only a few species recorded because I kept track only of highlights. You can check out my lists on Birdstack; counties with over 100 species have a “TCC” prefix while others have a “Texas” prefix.

Elegant Tits twitter high in the pines. Tawny Grassbirds skulk in the open, ferny understory, offering quick looks at their rusty caps and streaked backs to the patient. The Luzon tropical pine forests cover (or covered) much of the Cordillera Central and provide habitat for some surprising birds, like an endemic subspecies of the widespread Red Crossbill.

Tree ferns and pines? It seemed an odd combination to me, but they seem to coexist quite happily in the mountains of Luzon. This forest provides a home for the smoky blue and rufous Blue-headed Fantail and brilliant yellow Citrine Canary-Flycatcher. A mix of Palearctic and Indo-Malayan avifauna have carved out niches here.

Here’s a less-than-stellar shot of a nice Philippine endemic, the Elegant Tit (Periparus elegans). To North Americans, it would seem most similar to a chickadee; to Europeans, a Coal Tit. They are dapper in yellow, black, and white as they move in flocks through the forest, extracting seeds from pine cones or plucking small insects from the large fronds of tree ferns.

Large-billed Crows range widely across Asia and do reach the Philippines. I liked the shot of this bird silhouetted through the pines. The steep forehead, long bill with an arched culmen, and long tail are all field marks for this species. Sometimes they skulk in the forest, but they are also capable and spectacular aerialists, soaring on winds that sweep up from the valleys.

As winter approaches, many species have retreated from northern Asia to warmer tropical lands like the Philippines, Indonesia, and New Guinea. One of these is the Grey-streaked Flycatcher (Muscicapa griseisticta), which perches on limbs and stubs below the canopy, flying out to snag small insects.

The Brown Shrike is another migrant, and it seems widespread and common on the island. It’s also rather noisy.

A resident shrike species, the Long-tailed Shrike (Lanius schach), is quite variable across its wide range. Birds in the Philippines have solid black caps and grayish backs. They are fairly common in the forest understory and in more open areas.

Red Crossbills range widely through North and Central America and all across the Old World. There is an endemic subspecies in the mountains of Luzon, and I really wanted to see these birds. Finally, my last morning, I watched a bird sitting high in a dead pine, singing and singing and singing in the morning sun. I sat and watched him until he flew away.

Hundreds of species still await me in the forests of the Philippines: bleeding-hearts, racket-tails, malkohas, the Celestial Monarch, and the Philippine Eagle. I can only hope for a chance to return on a real birding trip someday — and that at least small fragments of the islands’ extraordinary ecosystems will survive in the years ahead.

The Sulphur-billed Nuthatch (Sitta oenochlamys), with which I first became acquainted this morning, is endemic to the Philippines. I think its bright yellow eye-wattle makes it look rather comical.

This angle shows the bird’s black forehead patch and eyelines. The forehead patch and bare skin around the eyes are shared with S. frontalis and S. solangiae, which occur in other parts of Asia. In the past, they have all been lumped as S. frontalis, Velvet-fronted Nuthatch. Relationships among these taxa are not yet clear.

I noticed that the birds have pale grayish patches on their backs.

Robins, which are scarce here during the summer, are moving through again. I noticed pale fringes on their ruddy breast feathers, which I think means that the feathers are fresh.

I’ve discussed with some birding friends whether a small falcon perched on a wire can be assumed to be kestrel. This photo provides proof: no. Merlins will perch on wires too, and I noticed that when this bird landed, it did bob its tail a bit, though not as long or as emphatically as a kestrel does. Perhaps it’s some sort of balancing routine?

Around here, the fox squirrels are always dressed in autumnal colors. They’re busy now carrying acorns here and there.

I was impressed by this Phidippus jumping spider’s metallic green chelicerae.

Some colleagues who work in Mexico were here and wanted to go birding, so we went over to east Texas. At Caddo Lake, the cypress trees had started to turn, and winter birds like kinglets, Blue-headed Vireos, sapsuckers, and Winter Wrens had returned. At Martin Creek Lake in Rusk County, we saw an alligator snapping turtle (a lifer for me), which compared to a nearby Snowy Egret looked absolutely huge!