Image courtesy MyCam-Asia.tv

Someone obviously believes that the deep and dark waters of Taal Lake are somehow similar to those of the famed Loch Ness and has taken the trouble to view endless hours of images from the IP camera (webcam) that is attached to the second coconut tree to the left of the Taal Lake Yacht Club lake-shore bar. They have captured a sequence of images that clearly show something that suddenly appears about 100 feet from the camera and then slowly proceeds across the screen, ducking and diving, before disappearing from view some minutes later. The video is now on YouTube (see bottom of this article for the link).

Certainly Taal Lake holds many of Nature's hidden treasures and some yet to be described creatures, trapped there after the six-month long volcanic eruption of 1754, but a monster like Nessie? It seems too incredible. However, as we have seen in other parts of the World, since the widespread use of cameras that do nothing but sit there and take images all day, where people are not so frequent, sometimes the incredible can be wi

Image courtesy The Bat Camp

Monfort Bat Cave's, Bat Camp 2011. This Bat Camp event will educate and inform people of the unique role that bats play in our everyday lives and why it is important to protect & preserve bat habitats around the country. The Monfort Bat Cave was chosen as the venue for the start of Philippine Year Of The Bat activities because it is recognized as the location of the largest colony of fruit bats in the World (see “Samal Island Fruit Bats Into Guinness World Records”).

The Monfort Bat Cave Conservation Foundation (MBCCFI) in conjunction with Philippine Bat Conservation (PBCI) will organize a series of activities including research, exhibits, lectures, interactive learning experiences for kids plus special bat-emergence viewing and a dono

Image courtesy John Smart

The Philippine Kayaking Series continues with the first ever 32km Kayak crossing from Talisay to Pansipit River. This 32km kayak marathon event is part of a kayaking event for the protection of Taal watersheds, with Pusod, an NGO, committed to implement the Taal Volcano Protected Landscape.

For decades Taal Lake has been used and abused by local (and not so local) communities, to its detriment. Most of the abuse has been in the form of overfishing and exploitation, with the burgeoning deployment of fish cages for aquaculture-profit. With the ever increasing scarring of the mountainsides and valleys for housing projects (95% of which are for second homes), the removal of the forests and the pollution of the rivers and streams that feed the Taal Lake, are now Taal Lake's greatest

Image/Video courtesy Martyn Willes

Every day at sundown, when all God fearing citizens of the World are contemplating retirement to the safety of varietous shelters, the 1.8 million inhabitants of the Monfort Bat Cave are just waking to the opportunity of emergence into a night-long feast on their favourite prey: nectar and fruit . . . lots of nectar and fruit. The Monfort Bat Cave on Samal Island is home to the largest colony of fruit bats in the world (see previous World record article).

On one not-so-moonlit evening in June the GetWet camera crew braved torrential rain to bring you this 2-minute video-segment of the “bat emergence” – an event that actually spans approximately three hours, starting with one or two fruit bats gingerly inspecting the fresh air outside the cave entrance and then calling back to their friends and colleagues with a semi-audible “all

Image courtesy Asian Bird Fair

The 1st Asian Bird Fair will be held in Davao City later this year in conjunction with birdwatching clubs from: Thailand, Malaysia, Taiwan, China and Singapore. The plan is to promote birdwatching as a eco-adventure, recreational sport and to: encourage international friendship, collaboration and the exchange of experience & best practices among the birdwatching clubs of Asia; foster bird-watching as an eco-tourism activity; highlight bird festivals, bird fairs and bird races in the Asia region; and, promote the host cities/countries – their natural beauty, eco-adventure activities, wild bird conservation and cultural heritage.

In conjunction with the 1st Asian Bird Fair, a birdwatching adventure tour will take place in the forests and wetlands of the provinces of Bukidnon and Surigao del Sur, to the North & West of Dav

Image courtesy Martyn Willes

The Paniki Festival (Bat Festival) celebrates the World's largest colony of fruit bats that inhabit the Monfort Bat Cave on Samal Island, Davao del Norte. Guinness World Records have this year recognised the uniqueness of Samal Island's Monfort Bat Cave and have accorded it due certification (see previous Samal Island Fruit Bats Into Guinness World Records story)

As many as 1.8 million Geoffroy’s Rousette fruit bats (Rousettus amplexicaudatus) occupy the Monfort Bat Cave (to a density of 645 bats per square meter!) and leave their bat cave on Samal Island every evening in a veritable cacophony of skin flapping, to forage for wild fruits across the expanse of the provinces adjoining the Dava

Photo courtesy batsanctuary.org

13th January 2010; Samal Island - Philippine fruit bats that roost on Samal Island were officially accorded the Guinness World Record of largest colony of any fruit bat species. On any given day approximately 1.8 million Geoffroy's rousette fruit bats (rousettus amplexicaudatus) inhabit the Monfort Bat Cave on Samal Island.

The Monfort Bat Cave & Conservation Foundation aims to protect the Samal Island fruit bats through research programs that lead to better education and conservation of habitat. Education programs will foster a greater understanding of the role of fruit bats and dispel the myth that fruit bats compete with humans for food when the reverse is actually true. Samal Island and the nearby provinces of Davao would not enjoy such an abundance of durian and other tropical fruits if it were not for centuries of natural seed and fertilizer dispersal undertaken free of charge by the fru

Photo courtesy Bernadette Villaluz

UPDATED 11/06/2009

The rare exotic tropical plant has been identified: Amorphophallus paeoniifolius (Araceae). Sometimes known as the "elephant foot yam" or "corpse plant" (because of its short lived but foul smell upon flowering). Apparently the Amorphophallus paeoniifolius flower as photographed was the first stage of a process wherein the squashed "flower" and surrounding leaf eventually fall off and the stem continues to grow to allow developing seeds the greatest chance of dispersal once ripe.

Although not exceptionally rare