Panay Explorations

Yellow-faced Flameback, one of the best-looking woodpeckers in the world

EDIT: A trip report with more details and logistics about this site is now posted on my Trip Reports page.

After a fairly low-key May spent mostly in Sorsogon, June has been much more of a traveling month. The first week of June, I had a work trip to the province of Iloilo, in the southern part of the island of Panay. Panay is the sixth-largest island in the Philippines, and one of the only major islands I hadn't been to before, so finally being able to visit was an exciting prospect. 

I flew from Sorsogon to Manila on June 5, then from Manila to Iloilo City on June 6, where I was based for the remainder of the week. Iloilo City itself has to be one of my favorite cities in the Philippines: big enough to be cosmopolitan but small enough to have a strong local culture and character, unusually walkable and bike-able for a Philippine city, and with a friendly, progressive atmosphere. It's honestly a place I would consider living in the future- especially since the birding in Panay, as we'll see later, is excellent.

Monday through Friday were spent doing work things, and while I was able to get out into the countryside of Iloilo province, it was mostly to interview farmers and meet with unctuous local politicians rather than go birding. I did manage to add Philippine Tailorbird (endemic to the Western Visayas) to my year list, and some more fairly common birds to pad my Iloilo province list in those days. Nothing wrong with filling in another little polygon on my eBird map!

The most interesting Iloilo record was the first official observations of Lowland White-eye in the island of Panay. Lowland White-eyes appear to be in the midst of a massive range expansion began within the last 10 years, likely even more recently. Chris Chafer had the first official record for Cebu around the same time I was there, I made the first observation of them in Tablas Island during my visit earlier this year, and Anre Kuizon has had them breeding in his backyard in southern Leyte for the past few years. I expect it's only a matter of time before they have colonized Mindanao, and perhaps beyond, particularly as they appear to be filling a habitat niche that no other white-eye occupies. Everett's White-eye and Yellowish White-eye don't spend much time in mangroves, which Lowland White-eyes prefer above all other areas, while Lowland White-eyes don't spend much time in forest areas like the aforementioned two species. At any rate, I expect that the range maps for this species will have to be extensively updated in the next editions of the field guides. 

Lowland White-eye, a bird that's definitely not supposed to be in Panay but is now breeding there...

My work assignment was only until Friday morning, but I decided to reschedule my flights out of Iloilo for the following Monday, which meant I had two and a half days to do some solo birding somewhere around Panay. I managed to arrange a rental car out of Iloilo after a great deal of searching, which meant that the only thing left was to decide where to go. 

Panay is part of the Western Visayas faunal region, along with the adjacent, unfortunately-named island of Negros. Negros and Panay share a few species with Mindanao to the south and a few species with Luzon to the north, but mostly they're a self-contained unit with very high endemism, including some very charismatic species like Flame-templed Babbler, Negros Bleeding-heart, and Walden's Hornbill. Panay, however, is largely off the birding circuit as most birders choose to visit Negros, which is much more developed and has some more accessible birding sites. That's a shame, as while Negros has lost almost all of its forest cover, Panay still has a great deal left, particularly in the Central Panay Mountains, which form the rugged spine of the western part of the island. That means it remains the stronghold of some species that are virtually extinct from Negros, and possibly some new or poorly-known birds such as the mysterious Negros Fruit Dove. There's surely lots to be discovered there (its only endemic, Panay Striped Babbler, was discovered only in the 1980s), but since there are only a couple of birders based on the island, it's still virtually unknown. 

When birders do visit Panay, they generally go to precisely three spots, all in the province of Antique in the western part of the island: Northwest Panay Natural Park, which holds Negros Bleeding Heart; the Alegre Valley, which holds Walden's Hornbill; and Mount Madja-as, the highest mountain on the island, which has Panay Striped Babbler. The latter bird is the only Panay endemic, while the former two have been virtually extinguished from Negros with no known reliable sites. Unfortunately, all those spots are in the northern part of the island, 6 hours or more of driving from Iloilo, and more importantly require a great deal of organization and preparation that I just didn't have the time to do. That meant I was just going to have to find my own spots to bird in, rather than going to the spots that every other birder visits.

Once it became clear that I would need to improvise on my birding plans, I set about doing my usual strategy to find birding spots: scanning the Google Maps satellite view of Panay to find areas of good forest cover that didn't seem like they'd require climbing a mountain and/or being kidnapped by rebel militias in order to visit. Eventually, I happened on what looked like a stretch of newly-constructed road in the municipality of San Remigio in southern Antique province. Not only did this road go through a decent-looking stretch of mid-elevation forest, even more tantalizingly it ended in a bit of high-elevation forest, about 1100 meters above sea level. "Road going through mountain forest" is a siren song for birders anywhere in the tropics, and in Panay specifically it raised the tantalizing possibility of some very difficult-to-find birds like Panay Striped Babbler. After a search through eBird and elsewhere on the internet, however, it seemed that absolutely no-one had ever visited this site for birding. "Lots of interesting endemics" and "never-before-birded area" are even more exciting phrases for me, so I suddenly started to have very high hopes for the weekend. 

One of these days I'll get around to actually drawing a proper map of the Philippines, but for now enjoy this Google Maps screenshot of where I went

The Google Maps view that tantalized me enough to go visit

I finished my work meetings on Friday morning, and on Friday afternoon went to pick up my rental car in Iloilo City. I ended up getting a Ford Territory, which ended up being an ideal car for the trip as it had an easy-to-use navigation system and high enough clearance to navigate rough roads. This was my first car-based road trip in the Philippines, so I was a bit nervous given how scary drivers can be on the national highways. Thankfully, I didn't have any safety issues, with the main annoyances being slow tricycles and jeepneys and the overall poor condition of the roads outside of Iloilo City.

The drive took me westwards along the southern coast of Panay, then suddenly north through a windy, potholed road twisting its way through the southern tip of the Central Panay Mountains, my first introduction to the province of Antique. It was a scenic drive, through deep valleys and over rugged limestone ridges mostly denuded of forest cover, but I couldn't really focus on the scenery since the road was in such awful condition I had to make sure not to get a flat tire on a particularly large pothole. After a couple hours of white-knuckle driving the road dropped down to the western coast of Panay, through the towns of San Jose and Sibalom. I passed by the entrance to Sibalom Natural Park, which is reputed to have remaining populations of Negros Bleeding-heart and Walden's Hornbill, but didn't have time to visit- certainly a destination the next time I decide to explore Panay. The road began to climb again as I entered the municipality of San Remigio, with a large sign proclaiming it as the "summer capital of Antique", and the Central Panay Mountains loomed above me once more. 

The scenery along the road above San Remigio

I had hoped to have some time for birding that afternoon, but by the time I finally got into the first bit of forest I'd scoped out on Google Maps, it was only about 20 minutes before sunset, and things were getting quite dark. Still, I decided to get out of the car and walk along the road to see if I could make some last-minute bird sightings.

The road through the woods

Predictably I didn't see much, at least at first- a few Coletos flying overhead giving their squeaky-door-hinge calls, and raucous flocks of Visayan Bulbuls and Balicassiaos. Then, as I neared a bend in the road, I heard the whirring of wingbeats above me. At first I thought it was just more Coletos, until I looked through my binoculars and realized it was a family group of Yellow-faced Flamebacks! Huge woodpeckers with almost impossibly bright yellow and red plumage, they are easily the best-looking woodpecker in the Philippines, and probably in the top 5 worldwide. They're also highly endangered, with a population of under 500 birds spread between Negros and Panay, and one of the most sought-after endemics in the Philippines. Nikki and I had heard a pair calling in Balinsasayao Twin Lakes in Negros, but this was my first time getting a proper look at one. This was also a new site for them, and certainly one of the more accessible ones. I did my best to get some pictures in the failing light until they moved further uphill. 

Female Yellow-faced Flameback

Male Yellow-faced Flameback

It was very dark and gloomy by the time the flamebacks left, so I headed back down toward my car. Luzon Hawk-owls (probably the most common owl in the Philippines) were calling all around, but I never heard any Negros Scops-owls despite some speculative playback. Back in the car, I continued uphill until I reached the little mountain community of Aningalan, a popular destination for tourists from Antique and Iloilo due to its cool air, mountain views, and vegetable and fruit production. I stayed at Eden Park, a little guesthouse and restaurant overlooking a scenic valley, and the first place in the area I was able to contact online before arriving. It was decent if a bit overpriced, but the owner was very friendly and happy to arrange meals for me at odd hours of the day. There were also a few interesting moths outside my room at night, which is always nice.

The view from Eden Park

Some kind of tussock moth (Nygmia sp.)

Baphomet Moth (Creatonotos ganga)

One of the many undescribed Scopula geometer moths in the Philippines

Some kind of colorful assassin bug (Euagoras sp.)

My original plan for Saturday morning had been to try the high-elevation forest above Aningalan. However, my brief stint in the lower bit of forest was good enough that I decided to go there instead to see what it was like at peak birding hours. I woke up at 4:30 and got to the roadside forest with about a half hour to sunrise. The Luzon Hawk-owls were calling once again, along with early-riser Visayan Bulbuls and Spotted Wood-kingfishers. As the sun rose, I had a good look at a Balicassiao perched on an exposed tree, giving its usual raucous calls. 

Balicassiao- this subspecies sometimes split as Visayan Drongo due to its bright white belly and longer bill

As soon as I got to the spot where I'd seen the flamebacks the evening before, I found myself in the midst of a massive mixed flock of birds- Elegant Tit, Visayan Bulbul, Sulphur-billed Nuthatch, Balicassiao, Black-belted Flowerpecker, Visayan Pygmy Woodpecker, Philippine Tailorbird, Maroon-naped Sunbird, Yellowish White-eye, and Black-naped Monarch. It was a refreshing change after being totally skunked by mixed flocks so far this year on Luzon. I spent most of the time speculatively playing tapes for Flame-templed Babbler, as this seemed like perfect habitat for them, but sadly there were none to be found. I also heard a distant Yellow-faced Flameback, but it only called once, while endangered Visayan Hornbills were calling but never seen.

Black-belted Flowerpecker: formerly considered conspecific with Red-keeled Flowerpecker, but now deservedly its own species

Visayan Bulbul- another recent split, this time from Philippine Bulbul. Very similar looking, but with notably different vocalizations

The rarely-seen Visayan subspecies of Philippine Pygmy Woodpecker, sometimes split as its own species

Sulphur-billed Nuthatch

I probably could have stayed at that one spot the whole morning (and indeed, just about every good bird seen in this patch of forest was seen along the same 10 meters or so of road), but I can never stand still for too long so I kept walking until I came out the other side. To the west there was nothing but farmland draped over deforested hills, although it was a nice view. To the south, a trail went down the hill further into the forest, which didn't have many new birds except a calling Philippine Hawk-cuckoo and a showy male Magnificent Sunbird. Back on the road, I was able to finally get decent views of the noisy but extremely cryptic Philippine Tailorbird and Visayan Shama. Despite all that walking, the best birding was still at the corner where I'd seen the flamebacks: when I got back there was still mixed flock activity, with Visayan Bulbuls and Sulphur-billed Nuthatch. Part of the activity might have been driven by a huge hatch of winged termites that day, which were flying around everywhere in the morning, and by the afternoon had shed their wings and were crawling around trying to find a nest.

Magnificent Sunbird

Philippine Tailorbird

Visayan Shama

Visayan Bulbul

Sulphur-billed Nuthatch chowing down on a termite

Common Sun Skink (Eutropis multifasciata)

Some unidentified Parvoscincus skink

Mycalesis teatus

Luzon Grass Dart (Taractrocera luzona)

One of the thousands of winged termites (Odontotermes sp.) that were flying around that morning

The scenery outside the forest, with the West Philippine Sea in the background

It was late morning by then, but I still had spots I wanted to explore before lunchtime, namely the highest spots of the new road. Above the little village of Aningalan, the road continued eastwards and upwards, getting above 1,000 meters above sea level in the process. The road below Aningalan was an ordeal to drive through, full of potholes and completely missing pavement in some spots. Above it, however, it became a surprisingly pleasant drive, nice and smooth and complete with sidewalks and streetlights (despite the near complete lack of population), cutting through some beautiful stunted mountain forest until it suddenly and abruptly ended at the border between Iloilo and Antique provinces, becoming an unmaintained dirt path barely fit for motorbikes. 

I can only assume that this nice little road to nowhere was built through the outgoing administration's "Build Build Build" program, which has seen massive investment in infrastructure across the country, which has the benefits of creating (temporary local employment and making road transportation much easier. Oh, and of course plunging the government further in debt to foreign lenders and lining the pockets of local politicians and their contractor relatives in the process. Many of these new roads have been built directly through forest areas, which is already greatly accelerating the rampant deforestation throughout the Philippines, making it easier for settlers to come in and clear forests for farmland, and for illegal loggers to come in and transport logs out. It's one of the primary things making the legacy of this administration an environmental disaster. On the other hand, in the short term it leads to to some formerly inaccessible bits of forest suddenly becoming easy birding sites, meaning the onus is on birders to enjoy the newly-birdable forest while it lasts. 

The new road cutting through montane forest

I decided to drive to the top of the road and walk around there to see what was around. Right after I got out of the car I ran into a flock of white-eyes I was sure were Everett's White-eyes, until I checked eBird and found that Everett's aren't supposed to be in Panay. As it turns out, the (possibly undescribed) subspecies of Warbling White-eyes on Panay often have the yellowish stripe on their belly that I usually associate with Everett's. Just to make white-eyes more confusing (beyond the surprise Lowland White-eyes I mentioned earlier), Warbling White-eye used to be called Mountain White-eye and was a Philippine endemic, before being lumped on eBird with Japanese White-eye and lots of other similar species in the great Zosteropocalypse of 2019. Otherwise the forest was pretty quiet, with some calling Visayan Bulbuls and Balicassiaos, and more distantly calling Blue-crowned Racket-tails and Bar-bellied Cuckooshrikes. I spent some time photographing some beautiful dragonflies in a little roadside pool.

Warbling White-eye

Indigo Dropwing, one of the most beautiful dragonflies I've ever seen

Crimson-tailed Marsh Hawk

Pea Blue (Lampides boeticus)

Streaked Rattlepod (Crotalaria pallida)

It was noon by then, so I returned to Aningalan for lunch and a much-needed nap. That afternoon I headed back to the lower forest to see if I might happen upon something else interesting. There wasn't much new, but there was once again a mixed flock passing through, including Visayan Bulbul, Elegant Tit, Black-naped Monarch, Bicolored Flowerpecker, Yellowish White-eye and my first Visayan Fantail of the trip. A little further down the road I tried once again for pictures of Visayan Shama, with decent results at least by shama standards.

Visayan Bulbul- presumably a young bird molting into adult plumage

Immature male Bicolored Flowerpecker

Yellowish White-eye- the birds on Negros and Panay are surprisingly dull, rather than bright yellow like the birds on Luzon

Elegant Tit on a road sign

Female Black-naped Monarch

Visayan Shama

Since there wasn't much new, I headed back uphill, stopping at the Igbaclag Cave, a tourist destination that included some paths through the limestone forest (though, oddly, no caves that I could find). There was a huge flock of swiftlets wheeling over the cave entrance, including Philippine Swiftlets, Grey-rumped Swiftlets, and Pygmy Swiftlets, giving me another change to practice some swiftlet photography. I spent some time walking down a nice little path through the forest towards where rafflesia apparently flower sometimes. It was mid-afternoon, just about the worst time for forest birding, and unsurprisingly there wasn't much around, besides a calling Philippine Pitta that I never got a look at, and some cool endemic begonias. 

Pretty sure this one is a Philippine Swiftlet

Grey-rumped Swiftlet

Pygmy Swiftlet

Long-tailed Shrike

Lexias satrapes, a nice endemic butterfly

Cyriotasiastes rhetenor, a huge endemic longhorn beetle

Some kind of ichneumonid wasp

Some kind of cool-looking fungus

Begonia merilliana, endemic to Panay

Some kind of cool waxcap mushroom

Some kind of flowering tree

Wild-growing Parrot's Beak (Heliconia psittacorum)

The entrance to Igbaclag Cave

That evening I decided to do a moth sheet and some night walking in search of owls and nocturnal mammals. That didn't last quite as long as I'd have liked, partly because I had to go back to my hotel before it was too late to get my dinner, and partly because intermittent rains meant I kept having to rush back to the car to take down the moth light. Owling was decent- mostly lots of Luzon Hawk-owls, but also a distant calling Negros Scops-owl, very rare on Panay and an endangered species in general. I got excited seeing a mammal feeding in a tree that could have been a cloud rat, but instead it was just an Oriental House Rat, a native species but not a particularly exciting one. I also found a very small mouse feeding next to the road, but I have yet to identify it. Mothing was also decent, with a pretty good diversity of tiger moths coming in despite the rains. I don't do nearly as much moth lighting in the Philippines as I do in the US, mostly because my house in Sorsogon is terrible for moths, but also because it's virtually impossible to ID anything here; if you're lucky you can ID moths down to the genus, but the vast majority are undescribed, and thus impossible to list. 

Luzon Hawk-owl

Oriental House Rat

Some unidentified mouse

Barsine sp.

Glyphodes sp.

Eugoa sp.

Cyme sp.

Carea sp.

Hemithea tritonaria

Metaemene sp.

Agrioglypta itysalis

The next morning, the goal was to start in the higher-elevation forest, in hopes of finding Panay Striped Babbler, among other things. The striped babblers have only been found on a couple of high mountains on Panay, and are supposedly most common above 1350 meters above sea level. I could only access up to about 1100 MASL in Aningalan, at the lower part of a ridge that went up to about 1200 MASL. There's also a valley separating this area of mountains from the known range of the striped babblers that goes down to about 700 meters, so I couldn't be 100% sure I would even be in range. Still, it was worth a try, especially since Mount Madja-as, the primary area to see that species, is reputed to be a truly unpleasant uphill slog. 

The mountain forest I'd visited on Saturday was pretty quiet, but there was a small side road to the north that seemed promising, so I decided to explore that. I got up at 4:30 and drove uphill until I reached the end of the pavement, and decided to walk from there until I got to the end of the small dirt two-track, where a small fork in the road led to a nice grassy clearing on the right and a narrow motorbike track to the left. I opted to go right for better visibility.

My starting spot

This turned out to be the wrong decision: it was first thing in the morning, theoretically peak birding hours, but the clearing was oddly quiet, with only a few birds calling and no mixed flocks moving through. I heard the calls of Sulphur-billed Nuthatches and managed to tape a few of them in, but even this usual mixed-flock bird was on its own. The only good birds in that spot were a pair of endangered Samar Hornbills that moved through quickly, not letting me get their picture. The spot was overall not particularly pleasant to bird in: the birds were few and far between, and the grass was thick and covered in dew, soaking my shoes and socks as I tried to walk through it. 

After an hour or so of fruitless waiting for birds I gave up and decided to try the fork to the left. I immediately realized that this was where I should have been the whole time: what I thought was a muddy bike track was actually quite a nice little open path through the mountain forest, probably the primary track along the ridgeline for locals to get to the next village. As soon as I started walking down the path, I heard the grumbling calls of a couple of small birds in the undergrowth nearby me. I tried very hard to get a look at them, but all I ended up seeing were a couple of small, dark shapes flitting away from me. I got some recordings of calls I couldn't ID, and this moment has continued to haunt me ever since, especially after I posted my calls online and opinions among the experts were divided between whether it was White-browed Shortwing or Panay Striped Babbler! To me the calls sound much more like babblers than shortwings, and a couple of small birds in a group is more more on brand for a zosterornis babbler. One issue is that there are still almost no recordings of their calls, with the only recording online being of an alarm call that will only scare birds away if you use it as playback (I still tried it, predictably without success). Until someone else visits the site (or I have time to go back) and is able to confirm that there really are striped babblers around, I won't be putting it on my life list. Argh!

The high-elevation forests of Aningalan

Aside from Schrodinger's Striped Babblers, there were still lots of good birds along the path. A little further along I heard a male White-browed Shortwing singing from a little ravine, and got a good look at it, albeit no pictures. White-browed Shortwing taxonomy is a bit of a mess: the various subspecies have some widely diverging songs, and once someone gets around to splitting them, there will be at least two endemic species in the Philippines: the birds in montane forests of Mindanao (called Mount Apo Shortwing or Mindanao Shortwing), and the ones everywhere else in the Philippines (Philippine Shortwing). However, there's some evidence to suggest that the birds in Negros and Panay may in fact be their own separate species as well, possibly including the undescribed subspecies at mid-elevation in Mindanao, so this might end up being a lifer for me at some point. 

Another sighting along the path was a pair of very territorial Mountain Leaf Warblers, both carrying food in their beaks suggesting I'd happened upon a nesting site. Mountain Leaf Warbler is another bird with a convoluted taxonomy: the birds in the Philippines are sometimes split as Negros Leaf Warbler (despite being found in mountains throughout the country, not just Negros), but there are likely at least a few different species involved, probably including the incredibly whacky birds I discovered in Lake Holon back in the day. Regardless, this was my first time seeing the nigrorum subspecies, which I was very happy about. 

Negros Leaf Warbler carrying a bug to its nest

Walking back toward the beginning of the trail, I suddenly found myself in the middle of a huge mixed flock, the thing I had been looking for the whole morning. I frantically tried to balance getting pictures with making sure I was IDing all the birds. Sadly there were no striped babblers (it was mid-morning, and I suspect that the birds I had seen earlier, if they were indeed striped babblers, had already headed upslope as the day warmed up), but there were many other things: Sulphur-billed Nuthatches, Elegant Tits, Visayan Fantails, Visayan Bulbuls, Balicassiaos, Coletos, Magnificent Sunbirds, Maroon-naped Sunbirds, Orange-bellied Flowerpeckers, and surprisingly enough quite a few Bicolored Flowerpeckers. I finally managed to find a singing Turquoise Flycatcher of the locally endemic panayensis subspecies. Even more surprisingly, it was chased off its perch by a male White-browed Shortwing, sitting high in a tree in a mixed flock in a very un-shortwing-like fashion. The pictures I got are some of the only pictures online of this subspecies (subspecies?), so I was very happy about that. 

Visayan Fantail- formerly considered conspecific with Blue-headed Fantail, but with a white (instead of rufous) belly, brighter blue coloration, and a different call.

Sulphur-billed Nuthatch

Visayan Bulbul

Bicolored Flowerpeckers

The endemic subspecies of Turquoise Flycatcher

White-browed Shortwing (Negros Shortwing?) doing rather un-shortwing-like things like perching in the open above eye level

Orange-bellied Flowerpecker

Visayan Balicassiao showing off the bright white belly- hopefully a split at some point.

Some kind of beautiful leaf chafer beetle

Phalerimeris phalerata, a very fuzzy scoliid wasp.

By now it was getting close to noon, so I started heading back to the car, stopping only for some pictures of cool dragonflies and plants. I checked out a little roadside stream to see if any good kingfishers were nearby, but didn't see anything except some cool mica and feldspar rocks and some Green Paddy Frogs in a little pond.

Green Paddy Frog

Calomera lacrymosa, a cool endemic tiger beetle

Another beautiful tiger beetle (Thopeutica sp.)

Emerald-banded Skimmer

Orange Skimmer

Diplacina bolivari

Gastrimargus marginatus, a cool grasshopper

Some kind of beautiful heliotrope moth (Utetheisa sp.)

Cool rocks in a mountain stream- these are apparently mostly mica and feldspar from a section of exposed basement rock; the Aningalan road divides the basement complex to the north from the karst limestone to the south, information which is probably interesting to maybe two people who will ever read this.

I took a much-needed shower back at the Eden hotel, and checked out. On the way back down I stopped once again in the lower forest, and found that the exact same corner that had mixed flocks before had once again. There wasn't much new, except a single White-vented Whistler that got me excited thinking it was a much-rarer Negros Jungle Flycatcher until I got a better look at it. It was still the first time I'd managed a picture of that species, so I was happy about that. There were a few Pygmy Flowerpeckers around, which was also nice. After that I headed straight back to Iloilo so I could drop off my rental car. I did head back to the Iloilo river walk to get more pictures of the Lowland White-eyes, but early the next morning I headed back to Manila, and then Sorsogon.

White-vented Whistler- Negros Jungle Flycatcher should have a white throat, warmer coloration, and a rufous-colored tail but otherwise looks annoyingly similar.

Pygmy Flowerpecker

Great Eggfly, an awful name for a beautiful butterfly

Green Tortoise Beetle (Cassida circumdata)

It was an exhilarating and frustrating trip; exciting to get a lifer like Yellow-faced Flameback and to spend so much time following cool endemic birds around, and frustrating to have missed my main target of Panay Striped Babbler (or, even more frustratingly, to have heard it, seen it, and recorded it but not been able to ID it). This is a great new site, and it's a shame no-one has birded it before; certainly a few hours of birding by me isn't enough to catalogue everything that's there and I suspect there are some very good birds not yet found. The thing, though, is that I have no idea when or if anyone will be back there.

That's the problem with living in a severely under-birded country like the Philippines: sure, it's easy to make discoveries and find exciting new birding sites even if you're a mediocre birder with a penchant for exploring Google Maps like me. On the other hand, lots of beautiful natural areas remain virtually unknown until they're destroyed since the country lacks a robust citizen science community pretty much anywhere outside of Manila. If Panay had the same density of birders as the US (or even, say, Thailand) this is the sort of accessible, nature-filled spot that would have birders visiting every weekend, with photographers with bazooka lenses lined up along the road to boot. Instead, I'm the only birder who's ever visited to date, and unless by some miracle it ends up on the birder radar (i.e. someone confirms Panay Striped Babbler), there will be maybe a handful of visits before the forest is inevitably cut down to make way for more vegetable farms or resorts. 

It's the tragedy of birding in the Philippines as a whole: Manila has a nice birding and nature-loving community, as do a few other spots, but beyond that birding is mostly about list-building than birding for fun or for citizen science. International birders and birders from Manila generally visit the same 10 or 15 spots where they know they can get most of the endemic birds, while the spots that are off the usual birding circuit get completely ignored unless some new discovery is made there. I very much hope someone else can come back to this spot, and perhaps that will happen. In fairness, several Panay-based birders have expressed interest (shoutout to Arsen and Flavio!), and there are certainly some notable exceptions of birders and enthusiasts going out and doing some exploring and making amazing discoveries. Here's hoping the next generation of birders here can continue to proselytize so we can have more birders, more citizen science, and hopefully more political pressure for any semblance of environmental preservation as well!