A daytour at a sanctuary of migratory birds | Cebu, Philippines

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It's been a while since I posted something in the Pinmapple community. Work and other responsibilities outside of work and yup, my spine yet again, have been distracting me in creating longer content in Hive. Now I'm back with fresh adventures, well at least in my mind because I won't forget how I almost got into trouble. Okay, okay, before I spoil you with what happened during this trip allow me to introduce Olango Island first.

Olango Group of Islands

_Source

Being an archipelago, the Philippines has more than 7,640+ islands of which only 2,000+ are inhabited. ^[1] Right at the heart of Central Visayas, one inhabited group of island, a tiny one I must say, has been attracting attention from both local and international tourists. It is called Olango Group of Island composed of Olango Island (the biggest and most famous in the group), and other islets, namely: Camungi, Caohagan, Gilutongan, Nalusuan, Pangan-an, and Sulpa.^[2]

Of these islands and islets, I have only visited the main island, Olango Island. And that's what we will explore together today! Exciting, right?

Traveling to the island

It was a fine Sunday morning in January. At the onset of our relationship, my boyfriend and I weren't allowed to go somewhere far and stay there overnight on our own. My mother is strict and very protective of me! 😊 With this in mind, we tried finding a destination near our homes. That's when we thought of Olango Island. We attended morning mass and proceeded to visit the island.

One needs to ride a medium-sized motorized boat that can accommodate 30-150 persons per trip (based on my estimates only, 30 for the smaller ones) for about 30 minutes. When the sea conditions are unfavorable, this may extend.

As I mentioned in my previous post, Olango Island is a biker's haven. Even before visiting the island, I've seen some friends posting on Facebook about their cycling experience on the island. But it was only when I came there that I realized a lot of bikers conquer the streets of Olango on weekends. A lot is an understatement.

The sea condition was rough for although it was a fine day, it couln't be denied that the Amihan or northeast monsoon was on the rise. Our boat as well as smaller ones had dificulty docking that morning. But the boatmen's ability was exemplary; we managed to dock in the port that was under repair/construction that time.

We decided to tour the island in our rented bikes. I've written a separate short post about the biking experience a few days ago so we can focus more on the island's most visited attraction, the Olango Island Wildlife Sanctuary.

We passed by roads lined up with small trees where people usually stop by to take photos. We did, too! It can't be helped since this particular road was covered by luscious landscape as you can see in our photos below.

A sanctuary of migratory birds

Then after what felt like forever riding in our cute bikes, we finally reached Olango Island's Wildlife Sanctuary. It was almost lunchtime so we decided to eat our lunch first before exploring the sanctuary. A friendly tip, eat a lot, you'll go hungry moving around. 🤣

From where we had our lunch (near the entrance), we could see this vast sandy area covered with what looked like newly-planted mangroves. They might have grown big by now.

Right after lunch, we jumpstarted the exploration by registering and paying the required fees. We were shocked when upon registration, the management told us that we only have an hour to explore the entire place. 🤷‍♀️ There's no way one (1) hour will be enough! We nodded in agreement nonetheless but at the back of our minds, "This isn't right!" was what we kept thinking.

Now to give you an idea how huge the entire sanctuary is, imagine walking around hectare after hectare of sand flats and mangrove area in the southern most part of Olango Island. Couldn't picture it? I'll just show you some photos during our trip.

Now do you think one hour is enough? To think this is only one part of the sanctuary.

After roaming around the sandflats where a lot of mangroves of different species abound, (species I don't know personally; I just know they're all mangroves.) We moved to the most exciting part of this daytour, bird watching!

We had to go back near the admin's station to reach the observatory deck where most of the action take place.

If you're like me who love the places away from the hustle and bustle of daily city life, who adore the peace one gets when the wind touches the skin, who couldn't get enough of nature's beauty, this place has it all. I soon found myself settling in and one with everything that exists in the present.

Soon, I noticced that it started to become too windy that anything that might fly with the wind should be within the hand's reach. But this didn't bother us, we just continued our stroll towards the viewing deck while taking photos on the side.

Then we finally reached the viewing/observatory deck where a telescope was stationed for tourists to see up close the birds. There's a caretaker/guide who also offered binoculars to the tourists. He had this huge books of birds that he uses to give more details about the birds that tourists see in the telescope/binoculars.

According to the sanctuary's website (I'm not sure if this is an official one tho), this "sanctuary supports the largest concentration of migratory birds" found in the Philippines. Moreover, the website mentioned that there are "97 species of birds in Olango, 48 of which are migratory species, while the rest are resident birds of the island".

If you want to catch flocks of birds, timing is the key! Best time to visit is from the months of October to November for the southward East Asian-Australasian migration and February to March for the northward leg of the migration.^[Source]

Unfortunately, we didn't research prior to the trip. As mentioned earlier it was January which doesn't fit in any of the months accounted above. There were still a few birds but it's nothing compared during the peak season of migration. Maybe another time!

Nonetheless, with the help of the telescope, we were able to spot a few birds. Here are few photos my boyfriend was able to take.

_{All 3 bird photographs are glecerioberto's property. Used with permission}

Before leaving the viewing deck, we took few more photos right at the middle of the pathway. Its green color's perfect for the surrounding sandflats! 😍

We had so much fun that day, not to mention the difficulty of getting a ride back home for what looked like a fine day turned into an almost stormy one with all the strong winds and gigantic waves only God can control. We caught the last of the last trip; it was already dark when we reached Mactan. But all's safe and sound, that is what's most important.

That's it for this episode of Lulinghayaw sa Cebu featuring one of Olango Island's gems, Olango Island Wildlife Sanctuary. Hope to post soon again, for now, I have a meeting in 30 minutes! Gotta go, keep safe everyone. 😁

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