Pajareo sin fronteras

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....

The forests of Senator Ninoy Aquino, Sultan Kudarat are a place I can never really get tired of. After the discovery of some excellent birds on my  first visit , I returned a  second  and  third  time, adding more and more impressive birds to the site list every time. Every time, I left wanting to come back for more; it's an area of good-quality forest as big as PICOP, Pasonanca, or any of the other more-famous birding spots in Mindanao, and there's so much to explore. Even beyond the good birds (and potential of so many more), the area is fascinating geographically and culturally, and I always want to learn more about the non-bird parts of it whenever I'm there. Any time there's discovery of an accessible place where Mindanao Wattled Broadbill can be seen there's bound to be some interest from others as well, and indeed there were a number of birders and bird photographers who visited there once word got out. Surprisingly not among them was Pete of  B...