Thoughts on Visayan Birds Illustrated in 1668

by Justine Albao

I have always been fascinated by any detail on pre-colonial language I could discover, especially if it is something we Filipinos can still hear or speak nowadays. This concept of dialects that resisted colonialism through the years is something I highly value for I consider them as a legacy of our ancestor’s. Coincidentally, I’m also a bird watcher and my curiosity for native names extends to local names for birds where I try to learn them once I got details and explain or show them to locals.

During my usual research, I came across an ebon article by Christian Perez from 2018 (https://ebonph.wordpress.com/2018/02/28/visayan-birds-illustrated-in-1668/) where he was able to find one of the oldest books describing our native birds, titled Historia Natural de las Islas Bisayas by Father Francisco Alzina, and tried to map the list with today’s familiar names for them. It was a well-researched article, and I wouldn’t have known about it or even dared to look at old Spanish manuscripts if it weren’t for Christian’s hard work.

After reading that article, I found some details that made sense to me as a “Bisaya” coming from Masbate.
Based on the mentioned ebon article, it states that Father Alzina spent quite a long time being assigned to different locations in Samar, Leyte, and Cebu until he wrote the original manuscript on 1668. Masbate isn’t far off from these 3 islands, in fact we have quite the shared language and culture. And with my hobby as a birder, I was working on collecting local terms for our birds when I can and noticed our local bird names are quite close if not the same as most of that from the Visayas region.

So for this article, I’ll be sharing my thoughts and findings on the seemingly unrecognized birds extracted by Christian from Historia Natural de las Islas Bisayas. While the drawings are generally unreliable compared to modern and more accurate illustrations, the accompanying descriptions/translations by both Christian and Father Alzina definitely helped in identifying them.

• Doco, grullita pequeña (Doco, small crane): It is hard to tell what that bird might be. Definitely not a crane, and it seems too small for a little egret. Possibly some kind of crake or wader.
  • <Justine> This “small crane” is probably a Striated Heron which I think is the most common of the smaller long-necked birds, or at least in Masbate. To slightly support this claim, the striated heron in Masbate is called “kudo“.
  • To add just a bit of context for the name, our bird’s native names are either based on their call or what they notably do. The word “doco” in Bisaya refers to bowing, ducking, stooping, or any similar term for moving one’s head low. It somewhat makes sense for it to be used to refer to a long-necked bird emphasizing this motion when feeding, and I suspect that to be the name’s origin. The bird name “kudo” is pronounced in the same manner.

• Tamantaman, casta de patos que pesca (Tamantaman, kind of duck that fishes): It is hard to tell from the drawing what kind of duck that might be.
  • <Justine> This one, I believe to be either of the 2 dominant duck species native to us. Perhaps the Spanish author got the name from Samar-Leyte because the Philippine Duck is called “tamaw-tamaw” there, and “gamaw” in some parts of Masbate. In the wider Visayas region, the Philippine Duck is called “gakit” (I did a “survey” in the birdwatch group about the local duck name). But then again, all these terms are interchangeably used for both the Philippine Duck and the Wandering Whistling Duck.
  • Side note that nowadays in Masbate, we use either “gakit” or “naga” with the latter more widely used in the island up to Ticao.

• Tarintin, lechuzas de aca (tarintin, barn owls from here): Lechuza is a Barn Owl in Spanish, but the bird does not look like one, and the text in the book describes a very active bird that is almost always in flight, or walks fast on the beach, and when standing, looks around all the time. It is hard to tell what it is. Perhaps a tern?
  • <Justine> This is the one I find the funniest in the article. Father Alzina’s description and Christian’s thoughts that it is perhaps a tern was funny to me (no offense to him), and I share his confusion. My father always told me that he always sees “taringting” on farmlands but I haven’t seen them yet when he told me that. “Taringting” is so rarely used nowadays but it is the current general term for the waders and shorebirds (plovers, grey-tailed tattlers, sandpipers). I’ve met locals use it for these types of birds variably. My father, for example, uses it to refer to the Wood Sandpiper and Little Ringed Plover when we saw them, while the park rangers of the Bongsanglay Natural Park in Ticao (an island of Masbate) used it to refer to Grey-tailed Tattlers.
  • The “lechuzas” threw it off a bit, but just a side note that in McGregor’s book from 1909, he stated there that the general term for the sand plovers was “matang baka.” He even mentioned for the Pacific Golden Plover specifically that it’s also called “matang baka” in Manila. It could be that the Father Alzina referenced the eyes as owl-like in the same way natives reference cow-eyes for the waders, or he simply meant that the next birds in his list are owls. Either way, his description of jumpy birds that walks fast on the beach fit the waders well as I’ve observed them.

• Bocau, hay dos diferentes especies (Bocau, of which there are two different species): Bukaw is an owl in Waray language. The two species are probably Everett’s Scops Owl and Luzon Hawk-Owl.
  • <Justine> I agree with the findings and the native name is still commonly used by Visayans of today. Just an additional note that even though “bukaw” is the general Visayan term for owls, it’s primarily taken from the call of Ninox philippensis. Its entry in McGregor’s book supports this, as well as the featured call in ebird if you listen to it.
  • Here is the link to ebird with featured call: https://ebird.org/species/phihao1

• Tabilalang the text in the book describes a waterbird smaller than a chicken, whitish, always seen in pairs, that sleeps little and is always on the lookout. I can’t tell what it is from this description.
  • <Justine> The physical description somewhat fits that of the White-breasted Waterhen although I don’t know about the “seen in pairs” part. “Tikling” is the general term for the rails but in some areas in Masbate, this species is called “tariwakwak” because of its call. This term is the closest I could find for “tabilalang” but it’s also possible that this is referring to a different bird entirely.

• Talabong, garzas que son blancas y pardas, con martinete (Talabong, herons that are white and brown, with a hammer): it could be an egret, a Grey Heron or a Purple Heron. Martinete seems to refer to the large bill.
  • <Justine> It seems the Spanish author completely describes the Cattle Egret in breeding plumage. Not sure about the hammer part but as a speculation, it’s perhaps a very specific description of the Cattle Egret’s rounder, thicker-looking head. Just to note that “talabong” is used for all white egrets in Masbate as well, and even including the dark morph of the Pacific Reef Egret as mentioned by McGregor under “demigretta sacra”. I somehow doubt natives then, same as our locals in Masbate now, have other specific terms for the other white egrets just because another one is taller. And in my experience, they can sometimes all be found in the same area.

• Doung, grulla grande (Doung, big crane): obvously not a crane as there were no cranes in the Visayas. Most probably a Great Egret.
  • <Justine> I’ve put it last because I want to get the talabong details out of the way first. I have no proof about its name sounding similar to anything I recall, but I have the below considerations to guess what it is:
    • There’s a general term for the white egrets already which is “talabong”
    • The Purple Heron is called already called “lapay” in Visayan, down to at least Surigao
    • We’re removing the smaller herons from the possible birds
    • Most names of native animals in the list are still used today, though some are altered a bit. I assume the “doung” term is lost because the bird could be migratory and not so regular in the same spot yearly.
  • A side note is that a Bisaya word close to it is “duong” which from online Bisaya thesaurus means to wander or roam aimlessly but I personally have never heard it used in Masbate nor can I find its connection to heron.
  • With all this considered, I suspect this is referring to the Grey Heron given its size and that it’s the only heron without a definite Visayan name from everything listed.

Hopefully this sheds some light on the other mystery birds of the book, and that readers can appreciate the perseverance of our language throughout the years even just by local bird names.