Sultan Kudarat: Birds on the Frontier

One of the absolute best parts about my job is the fact that it brings me to parts of Mindanao that I otherwise would never have the opportunity (or reason) to visit. The best is when those places are particularly remote, difficult to reach even for Filipinos. Of course, most of those places aren't spots where it's advisable for foreigners to be walking around in. One disadvantage of my life in the Philippines is that, no matter how well I learn the language or cook adobo or eat with only a spoon and fork (it makes more sense than you think!), I'll always be a foreigner at first glance.

Thankfully, in March I had the chance to visit Senator Ninoy Aquino, Sultan Kudarat, a spot that ticks the boxes of being both incredibly remote and completely safe. Senator Ninoy Aquino (or SNA as most people refer to it) is reachable only by a 3-hour van ride from the provincial capital of Isulan up steep, winding, sometimes unpaved roads in the remote mountains of south-central Mindanao. Populated almost solely by indigenous tribes until recent decades, it's recently seen an influx of immigration from other parts of Mindanao and the Philippines, and today feels very much like the frontier of Mindanao. There's little to no cell service even on the dusty streets of the main town of Senator Ninoy Aquino, and internet only arrived in 2018. Motorable roads have only recently been cut into the limestone mountains further west, and many communities are still only reachable via treacherous motorbike rides.

One of the better sections of road in SNA

Sometimes it felt like half of my work consisted of those treacherous motorbike rides, in fact. Many, many hours were spent on the back of a motorcycle on thin mountain paths clearly meant for walking, or on a brand new section of road watching nervously as a front-loader on the slope above me sent large rocks hurtling by at head-height (wear your helmets, kids!). On the other hand, that meant traipsing through remote indigenous communities few outsiders ever visit, talking with farmers about their crops and their households. I do have the best job, sometimes.

Not pictured: the front-loader up and to the right of the picture, hurling rocks at our heads.

Life in the Philippines: literally nowhere doesn't have a basketball court.

Of course, I didn't write this blog post just to talk about scary motorbike rides or brag about my job. The main reason I look forward to going pretty much anywhere is to see what kind of birds it's hiding, and boy did SNA deliver. Some birds I managed to see just casually while working- sometimes it felt like every time my motorbike stopped I would see another raptor flying overhead- highlights were Philippine Honey-buzzard, Rufous-bellied Eagle, and Philippine Serpent Eagle. While carrying out an interview in a remote mountain village, I managed to hear one of my primary targets for the trip singing- a White-eared Tailorbird, found only in northwestern Mindanao. Even the deck of our hotel had good views of birds, like Rufous-crowned Bee-eater, Coleto, and Red-keeled Flowerpecker (all common, but all endemic to the Philippines!).

Large-billed Crow mobbing what's probably an immature Rufous-bellied Eagle

Philippine Honey-buzzard

Rufous-crowned Bee-eater

Coleto- my favorite description of this bird is "a starling that looks like it's wearing a slice of ham as a facemask".

Red-keeled Flowerpecker

The main reason I was excited to visit SNA, however, was my previous conversations with my birder friends from Sultan Kudarat, who described in gushing terms their experiences birding in the area.. As soon as I mentioned to the Tacurong birding crowd that I'd be in the area, they decided to arrange a birding trip for the lot of us that weekend. On Friday I was joined by fellow birders Yepyep, Liza, and Kuya Tong, who were extremely helpful in coordinating the transportation and permission from the local government actors- always important for birding in the Philippines! We had initially hoped to gain access to a 4x4 for the birding site, as like most parts of SNA it's not accessible by normal cars. However, none of the potential vehicles were available, so we settled for the normal mode of transportation- habal-habal (motorcycles) with very skilled drivers.

We departed the main town nice and early at 4AM in order to arrive at first light. Paved road turned into dirt road, then very, very rocky dirt road- lots of fun to negotiate in the dark! Our destination was a stretch of mid-elevation forest in Barangay Kuden, a rural community known primarily for its world-class caving. We stopped first at the barangay captain's house, as it turns out that Cap and his wife also enjoy birding, and were happy to host us in the area.

It was another half hour on scarily bumpy roads further into the hinterlands before we stopped for sunrise in a patch of forest just beside a group of houses. Almost immediately, the good birds began! A group of Southern Rufous Hornbills was honking loudly from inside the woods, and eventually we got great (although backlit) views of a pair preening and feeding each other. Philippine Orioles  and Green Imperial Pigeons called from inside the forest, and even better were a few Spotted Imperial Pigeons, an extremely uncommon endemic pigeon, feeding in the tree tops. A Crested Goshawk flew over us, followed by a White-bellied Woodpecker that spent a few minutes foraging in a dead tree in the sunrise light.

Southern Rufous Hornbills

Spotted Imperial Pigeon

White-bellied Woodpecker

After getting our fill of sunrise birds, we continued a little further down to another patch of good forest. The trees here were closer to the road, and there more small birds to be seen and heard- Mindanao Pygmy Babbler, White-eared Tailorbird, Striated Wren-babbler, and Rufous-tailed Jungle Flycatcher, all highly sought-after Mindanao-endemic birds. Then came the biggest shock of the day- a loud whistling noise, then a pair of medium-sized blue and red birds chased each other past us. Mindanao Wattled Broadills! Most of what I said after that was foul (fowl?) language as I tried to get as many pictures as I could to prove what we'd seen.

Wattled Broadbill!!!!

Wattled Broadbills are in the top-10 targets of nearly every birder who visits the Philippines, both because they look weird and spectacular, and because they're extremely rare. They require undisturbed lowland rainforest, the rarest of environments in Mindanao, where logging and mining are rampant and unregulated. Currently they're only known from the Pasonanca watershed in Zamboanga, far away and not entirely safe for foreign birders, and the PICOP forest in eastern Mindanao, which is disappearing before our eyes as illegal settlers cut down the remaining forest as fast as they can. This makes Kuden only the third site known to host them- a true mega find for this area.

Flush with success, we continued further down the road until reaching a small village with a school and some stores. Amazingly, I heard Azure-breasted Pitta, another top-tier Philippine endemic, right next to a stable in construction. I'm unsure if having such sensitive birds as the pitta and the broadbill so close to human habitation is a good sign or a bad sign- does it mean that there's minimal hunting and disturbance of the birds so that they're unafraid of people, or does it mean that the human habitation is encroaching on their only remaining habitat? Either way, the area is in need of immediate protection to protect its fantastic ecosystem.

We stopped for a while in the village for some snacks. Another sad sight was seeing captive parrots outside someone's house- Colasisi and Blue-crowned Racket-tail. Seeing a racket-tail is another good sign of high-quality forest, but seeing it trapped is a reminder that deforestation isn't the only threat facing wildlife in the area.

Captive Colasisi

Captive Blue-crowned Racket-tail- a very sad sight.

The road through Kuden

Scarlet Mormon

After our snack break, we proceeded down the road to a truly fantastic area of forest- huge trees towering over the road on both sides, a rare sight in Mindanao nowadays (or really anywhere in the Philippines). Unfortunately by then it was getting a bit hot for bird activity, but there were still good sightings- a flock of Oriental Dollarbirds, more Philippine Orioles, a calling Violet Cuckoo,  and a close flyby from a spectacular male Southern Rufous Hornbill. Rufous Hornbills are the largest hornbills in the Philippines, and the sign of a healthy ecosystem. It was also encouraging to see them flying around so close to human habitation, as it means that hunting isn't yet prevalent in the area- hornbills are often some of the first birds to go as they're large, attractive, edible, and easy to shoot.

This was almost a good picture of a Rufous Hornbill before the branch got in the way!

Oriental Dollarbird

As we proceeded up the road and the bird activity dropped off in the heat of the midday, I entertained myself with the butterflies flitting back and forth on the road. One of those actually turned out to be a mega butterfly rarity- a Courtesan (Euripus nictelius nysia), and what appears to be the first-ever picture of a wild specimen of the Mindanao-endemic subspecies. Who says that only birds are worth watching?

Medus Brown (Orsotriaena medus medus)

Lacewing (Cethosia luzonica magindanaica)

Blue Beak (Libythea geoffroy philippina)

Courtesan!

Around noon, we arrived at Cap's farmhouse, a little wooden hut by a corn plantation on a mountainside, where we tucked into a satisfying meal of rice and chicken. As we were eating, the others noticed a large bird in a tree next to us, which turned out to be a female Philippine Trogon! Yet another example of how surprisingly tame the birds in the area are, it sat calmly right in front of us for nearly an hour as we took pictures and ate our food, seemingly undisturbed by our presence. Yepyep and Liza were especially thrilled, as they'd finally found the "Ibong Adarna" they'd been searching after for months.

Female Philippine Trogon

After a well-deserved afternoon nap, we continued on birding, hiking through the forest near one of the local tribe's ancestral burial caves. The forest was hot and fairly quiet, but we still managed great views of Philippine Serpent-eagle and Philippine Cuckoo-dove, as well as an Oriental Cuckoo.

Philippine Serpent-eagle

Philippine Cuckoo-dove

Forest outside the cave- the cleared area I think is from a relatively recent landslide.

B'laan burial cave

A very impressive wasp

Strongylodon pulcher (locally known as tayabak), a jade vine endemic to Mindanao

Oriental Cuckoo

Further along the road the forest decreased in quality a bit, though we did see one of the few raptors of the day, an adult Rufous-bellied Eagle. We returned to Cap's house to prepare for the late-afternoon hours, when Rufous Hornbills supposedly fly by in the dozens. Unfortunately the expected wave of hornbills failed to appear, though I added heard-only Yellow-breasted Fruit Dove, Pink-bellied Imperial Pigeon, and Philippine Pygmy Woodpecker to the site list. We began heading back with views of the setting and sun and rising moon.

Rufous-bellied Eagle

Dangerous-looking spider

Local girls fetching water

A surprise full moon!

We stopped at Cap's house for some snacks and signing the barangay logbook, as well as the requisite meeting of the locals, then continued on back towards civilization, satisfied with a very successful day of birding. I'll admit having been a bit skeptical at first of Yepyep's enthusiastic descriptions of Kuden birds, but the day more than proved me wrong- this may in fact be one of the best sites for birdwatching in Mindanao. I'm very much looking forward to going back to explore further- I have no doubt there are many more very rare birds hiding in the forest there, waiting to be discovered. I just hope some of the environment can be preserved for future generations to enjoy.