Finally, to the top of Forbidden Island!

More on that in a second. First, some general around the island stuff: the flame trees, as mentioned before, are in full bloom, and are also dropping petals heavily. They remind me of the cherry trees we have back home in spring, except that instead of pretty white-pink petals that look like snow, the trees themselves and the ground below them are all deep red. The highest concentration of flame trees on the island is on the southern end, around the soccer fields and airport, making for a beautiful welcome upon a visitor's first arrival to the island - for the month of June, anyway. If anyone reading this has ever thought of visiting the island, come in June. It's dry (relatively), the breeze is cool, and the trees are beautiful.

I also have a couple photos of the Yellow Bittern we (sadly unsuccessfully) tried to help out last weekend. He was very cute.

Banding was slow again this week - up until the very last day, when at Laderan Tangke, we caught 20 birds! Or, I should say, I caught 20 birds. Dan caught none. He has terrible luck, evidently. Anyway, they were all Rufous Fantails and Bridled White-Eyes, so nothing terribly exciting, but it was a nice change to catch a reasonable number of birds. The reason was the storm that had come in the night before and sat on top of the island all day, keeping things cool and overcast and windy. The wind was a bit of a pain since bits of twigs and leaves and vines kept blowing into the nets, meaning every net run was almost entirely used to pick debris out of the nets as well as birds, but at least it wasn't a boring day.

So, as you probably recall, last weekend we attempted to get to Forbidden Island, but couldn't due to the water. Well, this Saturday (yesterday, for us) was a minus tide, with the afternoon low being six inches below sea level. Perfect for another try. We both stuck our flip-flops in our backpacks so as to make wading possible if we needed to, rather than getting our boots submerged in salt water and then having to hike up the island and then all the way back up in soggy, salty boots. A good decision, as it turns out, because even at low tide, there was still a couple inches of water over a few sections of the land bridge. We got our boots back on once we'd made it to the beach, because at that point, the hike was only half over - we now had to go back up to the same altitude we'd started at, but at a much steeper angle, on a very narrow trail that wound its way over sharp limestone at the bottom, and turned completely vertical by the end, accessible only because a knotted rope hung over the edge with which to pull yourself up. The hike, in pictorial format:

1. The hike starts at the top of the cliff, seen in the far upper right of this photo, and comes down a steep hillside, then an even steeper hillside, a couple sections of which are rocky walls that can either be detoured around or climbed straight down with the help of some ropes, which is actually pretty fun.

2. The land bridge (here as well as above) itself is slippery and rocky, but enjoyable as well - even in shallow water, there are interesting corals and bright blue fish, and wading feels nice, of course, when the water is always bathtub-warm.

3. Once across, some tricky boulder-hopping is required to get off of the beach, and all of those rocks are covered in razor-sharp ridges and folds, just like the coral they used to be. From there, it's straight up the side of the island on a steep, narrow path, until you pull yourself up onto the top with a rope for the last several feet.

4. Success! The view from the top, as seen in a few of the previous photos as well as this one, is pretty spectacular. And there are Brown Noddy chicks here! Unlike the Black Noddies which nest in trees, Brown Noddies don't build nests at all. Instead, they lay an egg on a bare spot on a cliff, like most other seabirds.

And now, your local food tidbit: earlier in the week, we harvested a huge bunch of saba bananas, which, like plantains, must be cooked to be eaten. Filipinos seem to regard these as the best of bananas, but for someone like myself who is far more used to the sweet Cavendish bananas, they take some getting used to. The most common preparation method is to boil or steam them in the skin, and then dip them in savory or sweet toppings, depending on what you feel like. I can eat them like that, but they still taste a little strange. Banana turon is also popular - essentially, sabas with brown sugar and sometimes other flavorings, wrapped in a lumpia wrapper (egg roll wrapper) and fried.

My current preferred method for eating sabas is either in a dessert soup like ginataang halo-halo (coconut milk, tapioca, saba, purple sweet potato, balls of sticky rice dough, and sugar) or for breakfast after slicing up very ripe sabas and boiling them in a sauce of milk, brown sugar, vanilla and cinnamon, and putting them on toast. I think I'll try baking some of them soon, though - I have an awful lot sitting on the counter right now.

We have two more days off, and then it will be back to work. Hopefully we get some good birds again soon!