Pajareo sin fronteras

One of the perks of living in a place where you're one of very, very few birders around is that it's easier to build up a reputation as the "bird person" to go to. In the case of fellow Davao-based birder  Pete , the reputation is well-deserved, but in my case it probably led to being viewed as a far better birder than I really am. Whatever the truth of the matter, it does occasionally lead to some cool opportunities, even beyond our fun  Philippine Eagle Center  outings. One of these was at the end of last June, when we were invited to check out the birds at the  Hijo Resort , a coastal getaway in Davao del Norte, just north of Davao City.  Located in the middle of the sprawling Cavendish banana plantations that provide the backbone of much of that region's economy (and funding for many of its politicians), the Hijo Resort consists of a beach area, some fishponds, and, surprisingly, a small area of forest that the property owners managed to protect from clea

When I wasn't  leading birding trips  or  gallivanting across Mindanao , one of my most frequent birding activities in Davao was helping with the monthly public birdwatching events at the  Philippine Eagle Center . They were events I looked forward to every month, partly since the PEC is one of my favorite places in Davao- it holds a beautiful forest area, and it's the closest most Filipinos are likely to get to a Philippine Eagle (unless they get  very lucky ). The other reason is that I love introducing more people to birding, especially young people, and helping people enjoy wild birds in ways that don't involve slingshotting them or turning them into adobo. The events were organized by the indefatigable volunteers at the PEC, with help from representatives from the Wild Bird Club of the Philippines (usually Pete or myself).  My last two First Saturdays before leaving the Philippines and returning to the US were the first Saturdays of May and June of this year. I al

The last segment of my Australia trip was a long road trip from Brisbane down south to Sydney, where I would fly back to the Philippines and Nikki would take a bus back to Canberra. The original plan was for it to be a full two-day trip with lots of stops along the way, but we ended up enjoying Brisbane so much that we spent an extra half day there. As we'd already seen a bit more of Queensland on our  whalewatching trip  in the Gold Coast, we actually didn't end up missing out on a huge amount, but got to spend a bit more time in Brisbane.  After our morning at the  Tinchi Tamba wetlands , we stopped in downtown Brisbane for a visit to the excellent Queensland Gallery of Modern Art- an art museum so good even a complete philistine like me was able to appreciate the exhibits. After a lunch of fish and chips, it was time to start heading south for real. We were spending the night in the city of Coffs Harbour, about halfway between Brisbane and Sydney, but we did have time f