The old ways and the good old rides

The City of Makati, one of my favorite cities. Busy as it may be there is some silence in it as well.

Alarm will go off at 5am. Had to get up, take a shower, brush my teeth and go for a quick breakfast of bread and anything cold to wake me up. Should be off to work at around 6 am otherwise I will be very late.

Crowded as this small transport might be but something that had been very useful to me and to many people.

Will ride a tricycle to the jeepney terminal where i will take and thirty minutes to an hour long journey to the city of Alabang. Thirty minutes, nothing much to see outside the vehicle for most of the sceneries had been engraved to my eyes and even with my eyes closed, with just the movement of the jeep, i can tell where I am so i close my eyes and go for a nap. My destination is where most passengers will do as well get off the jeep and so I will have my cue to wake up.

The infamous Philippine Jeepney, serving hundred of thousands of commuters everyday.

Will get off from the jeep, sometimes ahead of the end terminal especially during mondays where most buses that I needed to take will be full. I will get off on a stop cross the street, walk a bit further into a gas station and wait for my ride. Sometimes there will be loads of people in the bus trying to get to work as fast as they can and so it is full like a can of sardines and sometimes it is empty. Up to this point I got two options and sometimes both things happen. If I would be able to have a seat I can take another round of nap time or if I am standing I'll just pick my mp3 player and put my earphones on and listen to songs.

It is yet another hour til I get to the MRT (Metro Rail Train) station which is like three floors up in the junction above the highway, where I will be taking the train sort of. It is much faster than the bus which also passes by my work place. At this point I should be able to have a train card with enough credits on it so I can just skip the line of people getting them and head for the train.

A view from the MRT Shaw Boulevard Station, with SM Megamall on the background.

Five minutes waiting, sometimes ten when I miss the first train. With my headphones on i can drown out the noise from the busy street below. Perhaps it is the reason why I usually have them on even now.

Waiting sometimes takes longer when the first station further down the highway has so many passengers getting on the train and hopefully it won't be full as the bus I had just taken. I'll then be on the train enjoying the scenery of the city of Makati and Pasig. From the Magallanes terminal the train will stop at Ayala, then Buendia and next one will be Guadalupe just before the Pasig river and then Bonifacio Avenue and the next stop will be mine; Shaw Boulevard station. Almost all MRT stations are up above the highway apart from the Ayala which is underground and Buendia and Bonifacio Avenue which is level to the ground.

Upon getting off the train, it will be a long walk and long climb down the stairs, which is by the way faster than the elevator and less crowded, I hate crowded places. On my fast walking I will take a look of the awesome SM Megamall, one of my favorite shopping mall which is situated from a distance and where I spend most of my Friday evenings trying not to get stucked in the traffic.

I'll get off the station and headed to another mall called Starmall where I will take my last ride to reach work. Destination at this point is Summit One Building. Where several companies also have their offices stationed.

Will have to fall in line for the elevator and race for it to the 24th floor where our office is.

This has been my life and every evening I took the same way back home, it's almost a two and half hour travel and for several months this has been my routine. God knows how much I miss the cities and the accessibilty to everything without relying much to anyone. Where you can just jump into any bus and just head off to nowhere in particular.

Life is like a journey, we just get on the ride and enjoy the ride wherever it will take us. Other people like us will get on the same ride and we will be able to know them as we cruise together but at some point they will have to get off and headed on their own destinations, places to make them happy and places where they can smile and cry and just be who they are. This is indeed a mysterious ride you will never know what will be the next stop. For in this life, it is the ride of our lives. . .
Thanks for reading!

Line for the day:
Me carrying a two and half feet cut trunk of a scotch pine on my back walking the Fox road with Manu who is carrying our saw.
"We are like in a zombie movie! Look, no cars and no one! With just our weapons; Saws!"

Tigers on my hand and remembering the owls

Driving through the memory lane of summer, I can't help but be glad that i was here at ACNW for that very summer. loads of fun; making the corvid enclosures, "firing" the water up in the sky after saying yes to a question "Do you want to do something cooler?", piling rocks on the wheelbarrow and tipping it over the Japanese style, weeding and digging, putting boards together and laughing after stripping a dozen or so screws or putting a finger on the nose who's going to do wood cutting (I always lost), going for a walk down the lane to the gates fuming, driving to town and Finlayson for tiny minnows and ropes for perches. Those are the memories, and several others, that will be stuck in my head.

Found a painted turtle crossing the road on one of our trips for minnows. With Renee.

I will always miss those days and always remember The Owl.

It's January, winter is at it's height? Come on it's on its height already right? PMA (Positive Mental Attitude) Think Positive : Spring is on our doorsteps. I got another bird to care for today, a great horned owl named Cleo. Once thought to be a girl with his enormous size and grumpy attitude apparently this folk is a dude with his deep voice and he is just a "big" boy, you see. They are very much known for their size and ear tufts and like all the other owls by their incredible sense of hearing and sight. He is a grey faced GHOW and eyes with yellow irises and clicks his beak a lot. Owls have feathered talons that aids in stealth hunting and silent flight so as not to break their own focus while on a hunt. His left wing was broken and he can't fly that well, I could not be sure of that for i havent seen him free loafted. He was tethered when I came in last January.

He is a bit grumpy as I've said yet he is very wise, don't get me wrong with this. They aren't any close to our brain capabilities, but seeing him figuring out how long his tether will allow him is just fascinating. I have been sitting on the cold floor of our raptor hallway just to watch him eat. He is easily distracted because of his immensely good hearing and so every sound or shuffling he hears he will turn his head in that direction. Myth Busting: Owls cannot turn their heads around in full circle. They still do have bones there, 14 bones to be exact, twice as much as our necks do. This is due to the fact that owls can't roll their eyes in their sockets like us, how do you think they would show their disagreement or disgust?

Cleo in his "most" calm pose, well actually he is close to clicking his beaks.

A good picture of a GHOW from the internet. Note the big eyes and "ear" tufts, like us their eyes are behind their eyes. The tufts are just feathers for camouflage and facial expressions.

Answer: Hissing and Clacking and Hooting ho-ho-hoo hoo hoo! This is a great horned one's call.

I am very much looking forward in observing more of his behaviours although I would never deny that those talons of his could do a great deal of injury if I am not careful. Nevertheless, no pain, no gain. I had been bitten multiple times by my other bird Dakota, a red tailed hawk. She is a real beauty and got her own personality of being of royalty. She wouldn't just let you touch her feet. She hates being touched. Red tails are the bigger of the hawk family, belonging to the buteos, accipiters are the other group. The are soarers of the sky with broad wings and bigger body they needed the thermals to keep them up high. Hunting is an awesome experience too, they would go for different types of animals like snakes, rodents, bats and many others. Eyes are covered by a visor like bones called supraorbital bones that keep the sun's glare off their eyes. Red tails take about 5 years to get their red tails and molt into their adult plumage.

Me with Dakota on my glove, giving a small talk on red tails with the Brazilians.

Unlike Cleo and the owls, hawks are diurnal birds. They are very much active during the day and hunt in broad daylight or twilight for some sor bats. They also have tubular eyes that can adjust they pupils at will to zoom in or zoom out a view. And unlike owls their sight is of greater height than their hearing. Talons are their greatest weapon and you don't want your hand anywhere near them when you have food, they will ask for it.

So now, I am very glad to have the "tigers of the sky" in my wild-life. This will be an experience of a lifetime and hopefully the last five months of my stay here at our center will be very productive for them and me.

If you are so much as interested in meeting these birds as well as our 7 other birds visit www.audubon-center.org We would be very glad to have your support in any way! Let us help our wildlife.

Line for the day:
(Thinking) Shoot, what would i do? I am stuck here inside with the door close behind me two or so feet from a hungry owl with food in his talon. . .
(Cleo staring at me) I'm trying to eat here, you know.
He allowed me to watch him eat, and perhaps I could take advantage of that next time and watch him from inside his mew and no longer with the door between us.

Thanks to Jeff for entrusting me with Cleo and Dakota and to the owl lady Renee whom Cleo sends his respect and longing. I shall take good care of him so don't worry. We miss you much.

Over and Out.

The girl and her cow

(sketch by me with charcoal pencil)

To the girl and her cow,

" Thank you for your Christmas letter that you've given to me. It made me feel at home back in the Philippines. It was warm and fun although literally there is like a foot of snow outside. Also I admire your unending kindness to the children your age by helping them finish their schooling even though they are so far away. You are a heaven's gift to everyone. "

Truly the purest of souls can be found among children, they have not yet forgotten how to listen and think not only for themselves but for others as well. They learn and enjoy things on their own way and discover, or perhaps, unravel the mysteries of life in such a young age.

When we were young we wanted to grow older, and when we are already old and adults we miss being a young kid again who can enjoy life without the complexities of the human society. Life is indeed full of contraction but then which doesn't have something that contradicts it?

Line for the day:
" Brrrrrrr... so cold (run back to the barn)... Ow, I didn't know that there is a tap to get him down, dang it."