The Pampanga River Cruise is the second of two birding activities which Haribon Foundation organized on a day trip to Pampanga on October 11, the first being morning birding at the Candaba Swamp.

After what seemed like an interminable drive from the Candaba Swamp through Bulacan porvince and re-entering Pampanga, our convoy of five vans arrived at the Rio Grande Riverboat Terminal in Barangay Sulipan, Municipality of Apalit. We had an early lunch of fried Tilapia, steamed okra fruit and sweet potato leaves, a rice cake called pichi-pichi, rice, fermented shrimp paste (bagoong) and fermented rice (buro), which buro connoisseurs found very good.

Then, it was time to get on the boats for the river cruise. There were two houseboats with two decks each and two smaller boats. The organizers assigned me to one of the houseboats, and I found myself a nice lounging chair on the second deck. It was a leisurely and pleasant cruise, with pleasant weather to boot. Starting from the Apalit municipality, the cruise passed by several river towns, ending with the mouth of the river at Manila Bay. The brochure said the mouth of the river is near the village where Tarik Soliman, the first Luzon warrior to resist the Spaniards in 1571, was born. Mike Lu says he suggested this eco-tour when he learned of the river cruise from the Heritage Society, of which he is also a member.

The other houseboat and one of the smaller boats developed engine trouble and we had to wait for them at the mouth of the river. Our own houseboat's engine also stopped for a while. We were not sure what to expect. Initially, our cruise guide pointed out the squatter community under the Apalit bridge, which some of the participants found amusing that that was of interest. But as we went down river, we began to see birds: first, terns, then shrikes and pied fantails, then a few egrets. A little further down, we also saw white-collared kingfishers, bee-eaters and little herons, and finally as we approached the mouth of the river, easily hundreds of intermediate egrets, great egrets, purple herons and terns and more. Arne has carefully documented the bird life in the list below.