Pajareo sin fronteras

  When I was putting together an itinerary for Andrew and Doug's trip to the Philippines, a big part of it was gritting my teeth and cutting out lots of sites that I would have liked to visit that would have gotten us some very cool birds. A month might seem like a long trip, but in the Philippines that's barely scratching the surface of what the country has to offer, particularly in terms of restricted-range species that require special trips to see. One of the hardest sites to take off the table was Mount Tagubud in the province of Davao de Oro (formerly known as Compostela Valley or ComVal). It's a really excellent birding spot and the only place to see some species like Lina's Sunbird and Mindanao Brown Dove, as well as the best spot for others like Bagobo Babbler, Red-eared Parrotfinch, and Bukidnon Woodcock. But alas, sacrifices had to be made in order to maximize the overall trip list and, especially, our chances of seeing Philippine Eagles.  Plans changed, howev...

  Most of August was fairly quiet for me, partly since Nikki and I both managed to catch Covid during our time in Manila (or at least I did, and passed it to her... oops). That had us quarantined for a couple of weeks, but thankfully we managed to escape with only mild cases and have since made a full recovery. The wonders of vaccines! Birding of course was entirely limited to a bit of time each day sitting on the balcony with binoculars, enough to keep up my checklist streak but not really all that satisfying.  All of that changed dramatically in late August, when I headed to Mindanao to begin a 3-week period of travel that I'm only just now finishing up with. A few months ago, I found out that my friend Larry, who I had birded with in the US back when I had first moved there, was coming to the Philippines as part of a massive trip through island Southeast Asia. I've been trying very hard to get people to come visit me in the Philippines and go birding ever since the country...