Pajareo sin fronteras

August 15 was my very last day in the Philippines, after my epic trip to SNA had gone just about as well as I could have hoped . I flew out in the early evening, meaning I had one morning in Manila to spend as I wished. Naturally, I wished to spend it looking at birds, so my frequent birding companion  Irene  and I headed to La Mesa Ecopark, a public park on the outskirts of Manila with surprisingly good birds. Birding is difficult in most public areas of the Philippines thanks to feral cats and bored children with slingshots, but for whatever reason there are a number of birds in La Mesa that are still around, despite seeming like easy cat-bait.  It only took about 10 minutes of looking around in the forest before we spotted a Hooded Pitta hopping around on the ground nearby us. We sat on the ground to observe it, and noticed it was gathering earthworms, presumably to feed to its chicks.  Hooded Pitta It soon gathered a beakful of worms, but for whateve...

My last day in Senator Ninoy Aquino started out terribly. I woke up at 7AM, having somehow slept through my phone alarm. It was long past sunrise, and I had no chance of being in my birding spot during peak hours. Dante the motorbike driver was long gone as well, as I had not been awake at the scheduled pick-up time. I sent him a text nonetheless to see if he was still available, but began contemplating just leaving SNA early without another day of birding.  Thankfully all was not lost, however, as Dante roared up to my hotel half an hour later, having received my text and having nothing better to do that day except ferry a strange foreigner around to unknown places. On the motorbike ride into Barangay Kuden, I was never more thankful that he drives twice the speed that any sane person should go on the twisty dirt back roads. We picked up my Barangay-appointed guide, a Manobo man who was the sitio leader in the area, and continued on to the forest.  The forest road ...

The first day  of my final visit to Senator Ninoy Aquino, Sultan Kudarat was a (very successful) walk through my usual favorite spots, so my second day I was planning to do some more exploring and get to areas I'd seen in earlier visits but hadn't had the chance to explore properly. I had originally hoped to leave for the birding site at 4AM in order to arrive in time for some predawn owling. Unfortunately, I woke up to see that the motorbike driver was nowhere to be found. Forest at 4AM is... not exactly the pinnacle of rational thought, so my reaction was just to curse and fall back asleep, expecting to miss the day of birding. Instead, I got a panicked phone call at 5AM from my driver, who had forgotten what he would be doing that morning. Leaving at 5AM had me expecting to arrive after sunrise and miss the best birding hour. Thankfully, however, my new driver Dante drove like a bat out of hell and had me in good forest in half the usual time, albeit slightly terrified....