Animals

 Blog 06-11-23 Sunday, Princesa City


Animals


Sand flies (fleas?):  these little beings were the fiercest living things I have encountered so far in the Philippines. They assaulted me last Wednesday when I trod sockless and in shorts along a path toward an vegetarian restaurant that turned out to be out of business. They had me. And I had dozens of red welts along my feet, toes, and calves, such that I my nether regions looked like two cranberry tarts. 


Birds: our yard is full of song birds including the circumambient chickadees that one finds on every continent. The signal avian of the Philippines is, of course, the chicken. Our neighborhood is full of them. The local roosters begin trumpeting at four a.m. Fortunately I have the ability to sleep through such noises, a skill I developed on the aircraft carrier, John F. Kennedy where jet planes launched off the deck a few yards above my bunk. Chicken is the food of choice everywhere here. The leading fast food dive is Jollibees, a fried chicken place that uses banana the way KFC uses tomatoes. {Finding non-meat meals is a challenge here, more than I expected.}



Reptiles: The most exotic animal on Palawan is probably the Monitor Lizard, which I’ve almost literally run into a few times. When I visited the big tourist attraction hereabouts, the ‘underground’ river, I came within a few yards of a big one. On that same junket I saw two intimidating snakes wrapped around tree branches.  That was part of a disappointing journey through a mangrove forest. The problem was that the guide spoke almost exclusively in Tagalog (“I will be your guide today.” and “There’s a snake!” were her two contributions in English). 


I almost forgot my cohanbitors, the geckos. There are a boatload of them in my lodging. One spends most of his/her time huddled along the wall behind the kitchen toaster oven, others traipse around the joint sometimes underfoot but mostly in dark corners. 

Cats & dogs: they are everywhere as you might expect. Just about all the dogs seem to be descended from one pair eons ago. They are all about 24 inches tall, mongrel-looking, brown, and concupiscent. The hazards of navigating Philippine roads include not just torn up pavement but also lounging dogs who treat vehicles with disdain. My second day here I noticed a small brown kitten wandering through the yard. My host says she belongs to one of the neighbors but she spends most the day around my abode. I think she was prematurely withdrawn from her mother since she seems to want to treat me as her parent. She constantly darts around my feet threatening to send me toppling down the stairs as I move between my bedroom and living room. 


Goats,ducks, cows, horses are all present but not in great numbers. 


I saw a few monkeys on my underground river trip. We were admonished not to smile around them as they would interpret such as an invitation to fight.



Of course fish is ubiquitous in the markets. Their silvery glow is tantalizing as I walk past the many vendors. 



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