Arjan Dwarshuis Biggest Year: 8 t/m 24 februari

February 8th BACK TO BEAUTIFUL BORNEO! For the 3rd time in my life I was heading in a plane from Kuala Lumpur to Sabah, the Malaysian part of the island of Borneo. This must be one of my all-time favourite birding destinations in the world so naturally I couldn’t wait to get off the plane and start birding!
The flight went smoothly and half an hour after landing we were well on our way to the Tambunan Rafflesia Centre. Jelmer Poelstra and Sander Bot – our traveling companions for the next 14 days – had arranged a rental car, which meant that we could travel with lightning speed across the island.
The surroundings of Rafflesia Centre were amazingly productive especially considering the fact that we had arrived at midday. Even after 2 previous visits I managed to connect with 2 lifers, the endemic and highly charismatic – not – Pygmy White-eye and Bornean Bulbul. In addition to these endemics we connected with 4 species of barbet – 3 of which endemics – that were all seen.
After cleaning up at the Rafflesia Centre we drove down to the D’Villa Rina Rina Lodge were we met up with Andy Boyce, a seasoned biologist doing an eight year running study on the breeding biology of Kinabalu’s birds, just the guy you like meet when you’re on a Biggest Year and you have just 1,5 days on the mountain 🙂
February 9th MAGIC MOUNTAIN Mt. Kinabalu is famous for a lot of things, but 3 avian attractions in particular stand out from the rest, the legendary Whitehead’s trio: the fluorescent green Whitehead’s Broadbill, the canopy-dwelling Whitehead’s Spiderhunter and the most stunning of all Asian Trogons, the Whitehead’s Trogon. All 3 are rare, all 3 are beautiful and all 3 are on top of any birders wish list, but many birders go home empty-handed. We knew we had a huge task at hand, since we had just 1 full day here where people usually build in at least 4 in their itinerary; we however would hit the mountain Biggest Year-style… We had one huge advantage, Andy had given us some locations which would significantly increase our chances at the big 3. So at first light we were on the Pandanus trail on the lookout for the incredibly elusive Everett’s Thrush, but our first attempt at this zoothera proved fruitless, luckily we would have a second chance the next day.
Next we slowly walked up along the road parallel to the Silau Silau Trail and within just 10 minutes we heard the unmistakable call of a Whitehead’s Broadbill, moments later we all enjoyed fantastic views at a pair of this beast of a Broadbill. 1 Down 2 to go, well actually 3, since the monotypic Fruithunter is equally cool, equally desired and equally elusive. After the Broadbill it was slow going, but despite that we were steadily picking up the commoner targets along the lower part of the Liwagu Trail like the tiny Bornean Stubtail, the stunning Bornean Forktail, the weird White-browed Jungle-Flycatcher and the sole Asian descendant of a predominantly Australasian family, the Bornean Whistler.
Andy had told us of a flowering tree below the power station where until recently the Spiderhunter was regular. At the stakeout the colour-blind Andy asked me whether those dark blobs in the vine-tangles were indeed flowers, ‘well if dried out lump of twigs is what they feed on then we are in the clear’ I replied. Indeed it didn’t look good, but we hadn’t even finished the conversation when suddenly a Whitehead’s Spiderhunter started giving its distinctive call right overhead! Jelmer was quickly on the bird, which meant that we could enjoy amazing scope-views of this stonking Spiderhunter. 2 down 2 to go…
After a quick stop at one of the only known nesting sites of Bornean Swiftlet – the Swiftlets around the powerstations are NOT Bornean-, but Glossy Swiftlets! – we decided to hit the Kiauw View trail in the afternoon, this proved a great move since we found the skulking Mountain Wren-babbler, the bizarre looking Bare-headed Laughingthrush and, best of all, a male Fruithunter that was calling high up in the canopy. 3 down 1 to go…
We still needed the Trogon, but we were quickly running out of daylight. Then Sander came up with the brilliant plan to split-up, using walky-talky’s to stay in contact with each other and we had barely separated when Sander whispered through the walky-talky ‘I got a pair of Whitehead’s Trogon, I’m not shitting you!’. We rushed over to where he was standing and there sat the last of the Whitehead’s trio, the absolutely cracking Whitehead’s Trogon, male and female, having no idea how happy they just made 4 Dutch Birders 🙂

February 10th FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE STEAMING LOWLANDS – BORNEO BIG DAY In the twilight we were back on the Pandanus Trail, Sander and I went up, walky-talky ready, Jelmer and Max stayed down at the usual stakeout for the Thrush. As we slowly walked up there was nothing on the trail, but as we went down I suddenly picked up a movement on the trail. Bam! Everett’s Thrush, well actually a pair! There was one problem, Max and Jelmer where below and we were above the thrush and the bird was right in a bend of the trail. So I called it in and urged them to slowly walk up, but naturally they only heard the ‘Thrush!’ part before they began to sprint up and subsequently flushed the birds from the trail before we could warn them… As you can imagine the mood was a bit dire after that.
Next up we drove to the powerstation to intercept the endemic Mountain Backeye coming to feed on moths that are attracted to the station’s surrounding lights. We quickly found this target so now we had to make a difficult choice, walk up to try for Friendy Warbler or drive down to Poring Hot Springs. Since the latter location would probably produce more species for my Biggest Year we decided to go for a morning at Poring.
It was still raining when we were on the Waterfall Trail which meant that it was quiet despite being Chinese New Year. This meant that we could connect with two quality birds: the diminutive White-fronted Falconet and a flock of the rare Waterfall Swiftlet overhead, in addition to these rarities we had a good number of commoner species so to us Poring was not that boring!
The heat of the day was used to drive all the way down to Sepilok so the last hours of daylight were spend on the fantastic canopy boardwalk of the Rainforest Discovery Centre. The birding was awesome despite the complete lack of Bristleheads. Red-throated-, Copper-throated- and Van Hasselt’s Sunbird, eye-to-eye views of 7 species of Bulbul and the clownish Black-and-yellow Broadbill, two juvenile Wallace’s Hawk-eagles and best of all – as dusk set in – a fantastic Banded Kingfisher perched just 3 meters from us in the canopy! And don’t forget the constant Jurassic Park-like calls of Green Imperial Pigeons in the background and Giant Flying Squirrels gliding from one huge dipterocarp tree to another. With 39 new ones this was huge day!

February 11th A DAY ON THE RIVER, AND WHAT A DAY! 6 AM sharp we were at the jetty waiting for our first boat safari on the Kinabatangan River. 10 Years back I visited the fantastic Kinabatangan Jungle Camp and now – 10 years later – we were back! While waiting for the pick-up we heard a good new one for my Biggest Year list, Sunda Scops Owl calling in the distance.
After picking up the legendary Robert Chong at the Kinabatang Jungle Camp our first of 3 boat safaris began. We had barely left when we heard the oriole-like song of the now increasingly rare Straw-headed Bulbul. This stunning bulbul has been caught away in vast numbers for the illegal bird trade, an ongoing problem in Southeast Asia, especially the combination of beautiful colouration and beautiful song seems a deadly one and birds like Java Sparrow and Bali Myna have been driven to the brink of extinction.
After feasting our eyes on Bulbul we continued upriver. A group of Wrinkled Hornbills was the next highlight, but it struck me that numbers of Hornbills have dropped dramatically along the Kinabatangan since my last visit 10 years back. Hornbills are especially vulnerable since they have slow reproduction cycles and because they are highly dependent on mature dipterocarp trees for nesting, so industrial scale deforestation over the course of the last decades to make way for palm oil plantations has had a huge impact on hornbill populations. For the most majestic of all – the Helmeted Hornbill – the future looks especially grim; they are poached in vast numbers in especially Indonesia, the reason being the increasing demand for ‘yellow ivory’, derived from the casques of these awesome birds. I sincerely hope that governments all over the world give it their upmost to stop this ongoing tragedy, a good start would be to increase the pressure on China, the country where the majority of these endangered animals are grinded into pills or carved into statues. Robert told me that quite recently they found an emboweled Sun Bear flowing downriver, its gal-blather removed and its paws cut of…
The next highlight was another star bird of the Kinabatangan, the rare Storm’s – or Sunda – Stork, two birds put on a fantastic performance as they flew right overhead. Like all other large bird species that are solely dependend on Southeast Asia’s riverine and peat swamp forest they are seriously endangered, the reason? Slash-and-burn to make way for palm oil plantations. Luckily Robert was optimistic about the future of the Kinabatangan and he told us that the Malaysian government is finally putting an effort into protecting their last remaining rainforest and that currently reforestation projects are initialized all over Sabah. This is more needed than ever to counter the ongoing deforestation in neighbouring Indonesia.
Along the tributary we were lucky enough to hear one of the most difficult of all Bornean endemics in Sabah, the Bornean Ground-cuckoo, a species I was lucky enough to see at exactly the same location 10 years ago. While listening for the Ground-cuckoo we heard another mega, White-crowned Hornbill and after Robert’s imitation of their call 4 birds glided overhead. Wow!
After lunch we had our next boat safari, but just before we boarded Jelmer found our first Orang-utan quietly foraging on figs high up in the canopy. I had seen them before, but for Jelmer, Sander and Max this encounter with the ‘man of the forest’ must have been the undoubted highlight of our trip so far.
The afternoon boat safari started slow, but a chance encounter with the very rare Bornean Pygmy Elephant – a small subspecies of Asian Elephant, sometimes treated as a valid species – was of course exhilarating!
Now we had to wait till dusk set in before we would try for one of my all-time most-wanted birds, the Large Frogmouth and surely half an hour later we were gasping at this alien-like beast of a night bird. What an incredible ending to an incredible day!

February 12th MY ALL-TIME MOST WANTED BIRD, FINALLY! This morning we took a boat safari upriver to the Menanggol River, a tributary of the Kinabatang River. And what a boat ride it turned out to be! The birding started all right with targets like Long-tailed Parakeet and Blue-rumped Parrot, but things took a turn for the awesome when Jelmer suddenly started going mental while pointing at a distant tree in the distance. ‘I got a %$&* Biristlehead’!!! First we thought that he had gone mad, but as we pointed our binoculars at the distant dark bird on top of the tree we could all clearly make out the bright red head. There was my all-time most wanted bird, the Bornean Bristlehead, which I’d missed twice before on previous visits to Saba. There were actually 5 birds together of which one was carrying nesting material. The Bornean Bristlehead has all the features of a top bird, it is rare, endemic, beautiful, bizarre and utterly amazing so what an enormous thrill to finally connect with this species! Until they flew off we enjoyed fantastic views of these very strange birds that are placed in their own monotypic family. Naturally we were all smiling the rest of the day, now and then mumbling ‘Bristlehead’…
We said goodbye to the Kinabatangan Jungle Camp and headed for the Comantong Caves, known for its enormous colony of bats and 4 species of swiftlet that breed inside the cave-system. Besides the common Glossy Swiftlet there are plenty of Black-, Mossy- and Edible Nest-Swifts around, but you can only safely identify the latter three by their nest, this means that you actually have to see the birds sitting on the nest. We quite readily found the nests, the Edible nests – these purely white nests are built solidly from the swifts calibre and are consumed as a delicacy in, you guessed it, China – clearly stood out from the far more common Black- and Mossy nests, but unfortunately there were no birds on it, so we had to wait until nightfall to find the birds roosting on their nests. There was plenty to see in the meantime with Orang-utans and Red Leaf Monkeys hanging around in the forest surrounding the entrance of the cave and as dusk set in a real spectacle began; 100s of thousands of bats kept pouring out of the cave in a single zigzagging column while Bat Hawks, Eagles and Peregrines constantly dove down on them, an unbelievable experience.
After this spectacle we drove down to Lahad Datu where we would have our pick-up for the Danum Valley Field Centre 6 AM the next day.

February 13th TOUGH GOING IN THE VALLEY After our transfer we arrived at the legendary Danum Valley Field Centre around 8 AM and after a quick breakfast we hit the trails. We started off with a bang with 2 male Crested (Bornean) Firebacks on the trail, but from that point on it was tough going. Very humid conditions, lots of leeches and mosquitos and slippery trails made finding incredible difficult and the only two endemics we encountered were only heard, namely Bornean Wren-babbler and Black-crowned Pitta. The highlight of the day was probably a small group of the endemic Bornean Gibbon, our 4th species of Ape this trip. Tomorrow we will have to step up our game!
February 14th STEPPING UP THE GAME! Yesterday was a bit slow which was a clear message that we had to step up our game, so 6 AM sharp we were on the Waster fall Trail, an undulating trail through beautiful primary dipterocarp forest. In primary lowland forest all over the world an exponential curve can be drawn with just a handful of common species and a lot of rare birds. With so many species you have to make long hours on the trails to eventually see or hear most of them. We however had just 1 full day, so heavy rains would have messed up everything, luckily the weather gods were on our side.
The birding was spectacular with many of those lowland gems only or primarily found in Borneo’s lowland rainforests. The first – and by far the commonest – endemic Pitta was quickly found along the trail, the Black-crowned Pitta. This bird is so red that it looks like a hot coal moving across the forest floor! Next we heard the magnificent call of a Great Argus somewhere ahead of us and as we cleared a ridge I suddenly had 2 males crossing the trail, unfortunately it all went so fast that the rest could not get on the birds. We picked up some stunning birds in quick succession like Red-bearded Bee-eater, Banded Broadbill, Red-naped Trogon and the endemic Bornean Blue Flycatcher. The definite highlight of the day came in shape of another – far less common – endemic Pitta, the almost too beautiful Blue-headed Pitta, what an absolutely smashing bird!
When we finally arrived at the waterfall we were completely soaked in sweat and covered in leeches, but the juice was definitely worth the squeeze and while we were taking a pit-stop at the waterfall the rare Blue-banded Kingfisher flew past and a Chestnut-naped Forktail showed itself incredible well.
We spend the afternoon along the entrance road birding with two young Australian birders, Brandon and Julian. The afternoon session was a lot better than yesterday on the sweaty and muddy trail and we picked up some nice Biggest Year ticks, but as we cleared a bend in the road our leisurely afternoon birding session suddenly became a very dangerous one. There, barely 20 meters away from us was a herd of 5 Bornean Pygmy Elephants on the road. I literally jumped back. The name ‘Pygmy’ is very misleading and from 20 meters distance they actually look huge. Elephants seem friendly, but looks can be deceiving, they can be incredibly dangerous and are known to kill people especially when they have young with them. We quickly went up a nearby watch tower to call the DVFC to pick us up with a car, but as we looked down at the elephants we suddenly noticed two girls – tourist naturally – standing 10 meters from the elephants taking photos with their phone, completely oblivious to the fact that they were in great danger. From the tower we signalled at them hoping they would leave, but stupidly blond as they were they even went closer! Finally it got dark and they turned around and when we arrived an hour later at the Field Centre and told them girls the facts they only said: ‘OOOOoMG it was you guys in the tower, O my god, you guys were freaking out, the elephants were tooooootally not dangerous and we are very good with elephants’! Some people are not worth saving I guess…
February 15th ONE LAST MORNING ON THE TRAIL We still needed two endemic Pittas to complete our set of Bornean lowland endemics, so we decided to wake early to walk up the Waterfall Trail in the dark. Our goal was to arrive with first light at the far end of the trail, the prime location for Bornean Banded- and the most difficult of them all, the Blue-banded. It turned out to be a good gamble as a Bornean Banded Pitta started calling from nearby right at the crack of dawn. The bird continuously called from very nearby, but we failed to get our bins on this jewel – luckily I’d seen it 10 year ago. 100 meters further along the trail a Blue-banded Pitta started calling. We got very close, made some amazing recordings, heard the bird breathing, but it managed to stay out of view. Pittas are the greatest price in oriental birding, but sometimes the biggest source of frustration. Luckily a Bornean Wren-babbler was a lot more cooperative and gave smashing views as it gave is mournful two-note whistle from a nearby perch.
The day before we had stumbled across a fruiting tree with a lot of fructiferous birds in it and for that reason I had carried my scope and tripod all the way up the trail – luckily Swarovski and Vogelinformatiecentrum Texel sponsored me that amazing lightweight ATX telescope and travel tripod! The fruiting tree teaming with birds – especially Bulbuls and Barbets and after some scoping we picked out two very good species, the colourful Scaly-breasted Bulbull and the yeollow-throated Finch’s Bulbull. A Helmeted Hornbill gave his hysterical call in the distance, but the bird wouldn’t fly into the fruiting tree…
We took a well-deserved cold shower, said goodbye to Danum – the valley had not disappointed! – and drove to Sandakan for our evening flight to mainland Malaysia. If all goes well we will be birding at Fraser’s Hill tomorrow!

February 16th FRASER’S HILL We had arrived at Fraser’s Hill around 3:30 AM after a delayed evening flight and a 3 hour drive so when we tried for Malaysian Whistling Thrush around 7:15 AM we felt a bit shaky on our legs. The Whistling Thrush was not home so we started birding in the surrounding forests of this colonial-style hill station. We quickly heard the endemic Malaysian Partridge and notched up most of the commoner high elevation birds in quick succession, but around midday things got very slow and the lack of sleep and hot sun mend that we had to take a little rest (a rare thing during my Biggest Year). After that little rest we were back in the game and that little bit of extra energy surely helped to find the absolutely stunning Blue Nuthatch and the two more difficult laughingthrushes: Black- and Malaysian. After this tiring day my bed felt very good, tomorrow a new day to go the full 100% again!

February 17th FROM PRE-DAWN TO PAST-DUSK After a good nights’ rest we found ourselves with new found strength at the Whistling-thrush stakeout, but despite our efforts, no Thrush. No time to waste! We drove down to the Gap and back up again – it is a one way road up – to a stakeout for Marbled Wren-babbler. We played the tape, but the bird kept quiet, this wasn’t going as planned. Jelmer and I walked a bit up to try another gully when suddenly Jelmer picked up on a strange 4-note Trogon call, we made some recordings and it sounded spot-on Cinnamon-rumped Trogon, 800 meters above its normal range and possible a first record for this site! While recording the trogon suddenly a Marbled Wren-babbler started singing and after 20 minutes of peering into thick undergrowth only I managed decent views. And I’m sorry to say this guys; what a stunning bird! After Fraser’s Hill we drove down to Merapoh, the far less well-known entrance on the other side of Taman Negara. The afternoon session at this location was a bit slow, but I still managed a couple of descent year-ticks. The real birding started after dusk when we had both Gould’s- and Blyth’s Frogmouth and 2 Reddish Scops-owls calling! It is rare to get all your target nightbirds in one go, let alone 2 lifers!

February 18th A FLYING DINOSAUR The morning at Merapoh started well with a calling Green Broadbill that after a short playback showed well to all of us. The rest of the morning was not spectacular, but we heard both Garnet- and Malayan Banded Pitta that both – like true Pittas – managed to stay out of sight. It got a whole lot more interesting when suddenly we heard the bizarre duet of a pair of Helmeted Hornbills not that far away so we rushed down the road to find them. The song of this Hornbill must be one of the most fantastic bird sounds in the world, but it is also one of the loudest which mend that they could be in any tall tree in about a kilometre radius. Suddenly Max was on one of the birds and shortly thereafter we watched this amazing bird through the telescope. What a shame that these majestic dinosaur-like birds are currently being driven to the brink of extinction; all because of the demand for ‘yellow ivory’. When we were finished at Merapoh we drove all the way to Kuala Tahan, at the other side of Taman Negara NP (this is a 3 hour drive, which will give you an estimate of the size of this huge park). Here we met our friend Thomas van der ES and his girlfriend who were also on a birding trip through Malaysia. They told us that birding was tough and that it was very quiet, so we knew we had to work hard to find most of the parks’ target species tomorrow.

February 19th RAILING IN THE RAIL-BABBLER For any birder visiting Taman Negara there is one bird in particular that is on top of the wish list, the ground dwelling Rail-babbler. I saw this enigmatic species exactly 10 years back, when I camped for more than a week in the park, back than it took me no less than 6 days to finally see one… Rail-babblers are already thin on the ground, this year they seemed especially difficult to find due to El Nino. We decided to hit the river trail in the morning, we started walking pre-dawn to get as far away from the lodge-grounds as possible to hopefully get some of the more shy and uncommon species. The birding was not exactly what we’d hoped for and besides Black-throated Babbler, Large Green Pigeon and the rare Brown-chested Jungle-flycatcher, there was not much of else of note. In the afternoon Sander and Max decided to take a nap and Jelmer and I grinded on through the dead-of-the-day along the Jenet Muda trail. As we were working our way up the hillside – dripping with sweat – I now and then played the song of Rail-babbler when suddenly I got a response. When you hear the pure melancholy whistle of a Rail-babbler the hair in your neck go up, it’s that exciting. Now that we’d found one came the difficult part, actually seeing it since there are very few birds that are harder to see. It took us eventually more than half an hour of whistling, creeping through thick jungle, waiting and sweating before finally we both got gripping views, what a bird! After that we kept momentum and not long after the Rail-babbler we obtained fantastic views a pair of Large Wren-babbler and the rare Striped Wren-babbler. We finished off with a Blue-winged Pitta on the boardwalk! Naturally the other guys were a bit shaken after we told them about our afternoon tally…

February 20th ONE LAST LONG DAY IN MALAYSIA Already our last day in Malaysia. Of course we started on the Jenet Muda trail to look for the Rail-babbler with the other guys, but not before we first stumbled on a fantastic Blue-winged Pitta, followed by a group of 4 Crested Firebacks including a displaying male on the boardwalk and finally 2 Black Magpies calling in a tree overhead. Not a bad start! The Rail-Babbler was calling at more less the same location, but this time nobody managed any views of the beast. As we continued along the trail we suddenly heard the song of a very rare bird, a White-necked Babbler, but I was not 100% convinced of its identity yet, however after a short playback of its call the bird perched right in the open. Wow, what an unexpected sighting and what a finish to Taman Negara! Before Max and I were dropped off at the airport we paid a visit to Kuala Selangor where we did a short but productive birding session in the mangrove forest. Chestnut-bellied Malkoha was the definite highlight. At the terminal we said goodbye to Sander and Jelmer. Guys, it was an amazing 2 weeks and thanks for your amazing preparation! By now I’m at 1151 species, an incredible tally for 51 days in Asia. A 22.57 bird a day average. Now we’re off to the Philippines where most of the birds we encounter will be new so it is still possible to end this month at over 1300 species. Let’s keep our fingers crossed!

February 21th FLOWERPECKER BONANZA Upon arrival in Davao, Mindanao, the largest island in the Philippines, we were met by our driver arranged for us by Pete Simpson. We were driven straight up to an area about half an hour drive from Davao. At this site a trail runs high up the mountain and along this trail some nice species can be found that are endemic to the island of Mindanao. The main attraction at this site are the flowerpeckers and probably nowhere else on earth a greater variety can be found. Among these Flowerpeckers is one very rare one, the Whiskered Flowerpecker which is only reliable at this specific site. As we walked up new birds kept pouring in since about every bird we saw was endemic to Mindanao or to the Philippines as a whole. Our first new bird was of course a Flowerpecker, the beautiful Red-keeled and not long thereafter we struck gold with a Whiskered Flowerpecker that perched right in the open. At the end of the day we counted no less than 7 Flowerpecker species! Another highlight was the endangered endemic Pinsker’s Hawk-eagle, the Mindanao Hornbill and our last Falconet species, the tiny Philippine Falconet. One target was still lacking, the rare Cryptic Flycatcher and exactly at the stakeout given to us by Pete we found a territorial pair. After this fantastic day we ate at the best BBQ place in Davao, not a bad way to end this day with 30+ new birds. Tomorrow we will go for my all-time most wanted bird, the Philippine Eagle…

February 22th MY ALL-TIME MOST WANTED BIRD What is a Biggest Year without the biggest, baddest bird of them all? There is one bird in particular that I’ve been longing to see since I was a little kid, the majestic Philippine Eagle. When people ask me ‘what is your favorite bird?’ I always answer ‘Philippine Eagle’. For many different reasons the Philippine Eagle ranks as the number 1 most wanted bird for me and in fact for most world-birders. 1) It is humongous. 2) It prays on monkeys and deer. 3) It is absolutely stunning with a wild crest, pale eyes and huge bluish bill. 4) Sadly it is incredibly and exceedingly rare with less than 100 pairs in the wild. 5) It is endemic to the Philippines, one of the most fascinating, diverse and most threatened bio zones on the planet. 6) It is difficult to find since it is a forest-dwelling eagle that only rarely soars. Today was the day that we would hopefully see one in the wild. Pete Simpson had made special arrangements for us in a tribal area on the slopes of Mt. Apo National Park. At this site an Eagle hatched more than 2 years ago and since juvenile Philippine Eagles stay with the nest for more than 1.5 years sometime, it was still lingering in the area along with its mother. The birds’ father was sadly shot. Why you ask me. Well for us westerners it is hard to grasp that anyone would harm the most incredible animal on the planet, but there is a complicated and incredible sad story behind this. The Philippine Eagle Foundation worked hard to convince this tribe that by protecting these birds and their nest they could benefit financially from the birders that will come to see them. This all went well until a tour operator told them that they could make a whole lot more money via this practice by charging birders double or triple. This caused corruption within the tribe; only a very small percentage of the villagers earned a lot of money from showing people the eagles and the rest of the tribe felt – and correctly – excluded from these benefits, so out of anger and frustration they shot the father bird. That hurts doesn’t it? There is a little bit of light at the end of the tunnel since recently a new adult male came in the area and is currently displaying to the female bird, so hopefully the nest will be occupied again in the near future. If there is still any forest left by that time (we could hear chainsaws and see smoke drift up from the forest in this ‘protected’ area). Anyways, after a 3 hour drive in the back of a pick-up, paying several different permits and making multiple donations to different fractions of the tribe, we finally arrived at the site; a forested valley at 800 meters altitude. From the viewpoint we could clearly see a huge nest some 100 meters below us in a large dipterocarp tree. We could also see the nearby hillsides were already cleared of forest… That is how bad it is in the Philippines. The waiting game started… Only one hour in we suddenly heard Macaques and crows alarming down in the valley and that’s when we heard the incredible piercing whistle of an Eagle. Goosebumps everywhere, the king of all birds had arrived on the battleground, but we still couldn’t see it. Then I noticed two crows calling at something in a tree on the opposite side of the valley and there it was, looking even larger and more amazing than I could have possible imagined, the Philippine Eagle. We gasped at the bird for more than 15 minutes before it disappeared out of sight leaving two baffled Dutch birders behind. Another half an hour later it started calling again, but wait we didn’t see the juvenile bird fly and this call came from the other side of the valley! A second later Max picked up a huge shadow gliding over the forest, the adult female! Holy s£$%t! We had seen not just one, but two Philippine Eagles on one day. Something that not many can say and a sight that will become even rarer in the very near future.

February 23th THE PICOP CHAINSAW MASSACRE Last evening we took a 6 hour minivan-ride to Bislig, the gateway to a legendary birding area named PICOP, an army controlled site that contains Mindanao’s last tracks of remaining lowland forest. The situation however is dire. How dire exactly we would experience today… We met our guide Zardo Goreng 3:30 AM at the Paper Country Inn hotel. Zardo is the best local guide by a long shot and he knows better than anyone else where to find PICOP’s star birds. We are talking about several of the rarest birds on the planets, birds that face imminent extinction in the very near future. After a bumpy two hour drive in an old jeep we reached ’the old cemetery’, one of the last viable pockets of lowland forest on Mindanao. Right at the crack of dawn we began to hear and see new species all around us, from the absolutely stunning Philippine Trogon and the increasingly rare Writhed Hornbill to the bizarre looking Black-faced Coucal. We also recorded a bird that Zardo hadn’t seen in over 10 years, the Blue-backed Parrot, a bird believed to be locally extinct! Almost the same goes for the Philippine Leafbird, the Philippine Dwarf Kingfisher and the nearly extinct Little Slaty Flycatcher we saw. The sad thing was that every pocket of remaining forest that contained these smashing species was surrounded on all sites by completely degraded habitat, from secondary shrubberies to barren limestone plains (Ones the trees are gone there are no roots to support the soil so it all gets washed away in the monsoon, by logging the forest these poor villagers are raping the very land they live on). This is due to the fact that these poor local villagers cut down the last remaining dipterocarp trees to sell as hardwood and the smaller trees to burn and sell as charcoal. This of course has a devastating effect on the forest and ones this forest is gone everything that lives in it is gone to. The worse thing is that the Philippine government is doing absolutely zero about this situation and in all likelihood the remaining forest will disappear in less than 5 years. To make things worse an air survey conducted on Mindanao shows that besides PICOP and 1 other small stretch of lowland forest on the western part of the island, all lowland forest on this large island is already gone, what remains is completely unprotected. This implies that if the forest at PICOP is gone, more than 10 bird species will disappear forever… My advice would be to go there before it is too late, tell and show the world that what is going on here is unacceptable. In Holland we have all these 555 rallies for humanitarian disasters like earthquakes and Tsunamis, but why do we never hold such a rally to do something about one of the biggest ecological catastrophes in the 21st century, the uncontrolled logging of lowland forest throughout Southeast Asia? The only solution I see is to buy the remaining forest at PICOP and put a fence around it, or else the birds in the pictures below WILL BE GONE in the very near future. Since this will of course not happen the end of PICOP’s incredible birds seems inevitable. I would be devastated if that happens and you my friend should feel the same… Ok back to some more positive stories, because we did see some incredible birds today! The absolute highlight was to stumble across an Azure-breasted Pitta on the nest – we accidently flushed a bird from a small palm tree on the side of the trail, in the crown of this tree we found the nest – and while looking at the Pitta we suddenly stumble across a Philippine Frogmouth in the same tree! We ended a massive day with more than 50 new species on PICOP’s old airstrip that is surrounded by a large swamp. The birding here is quite spectacular and we saw Blue-breasted Quail, Middendorf’s Grasshopper-warbler, the endangered Philippine duck and best of all several Eastern Grass-owls hunting on over the sides of the airstrip around dusk. We had an incredible day, but I have to see this is the most shocking ecological disasters I have ever witnessed with my own eyes. I went to bed with a very contradicting feeling in my stomach…

February 24th PICOPS LEGENDARY BIRDS Today we joined Pete Simpson and Zardo Goreng and 6 guys of a Birdtour Asia group they were guiding. Besides having a blast with this group the birding was phenomenal and Pete told us this day turned out to be one of the best he ever had at PICOP. We had scope views of our last remaining Mindanao Hornbill, the stunning Rufous Hornbill, we found another Azure-breasted Pitta and saw the incredibly difficult to see Hombron’s Kingfisher and the handsome diminutive Silvery Kingfisher, but best of all must have been that Mindanao Wattled Broadbill careering nesting material. This is a bird that very few birders ever get to see at PICOP and this may well be one of the first birds to disappear forever. While watching this global rarity we were accidently standing in a swarm of tiny biting ants which caused quite the spectacle (the Americans were joking that that’s how Dutchman celebrate seeing a new species, by jumping half naked across the road while scratching all over). We also heard the spectacular Celestrial Monarch, but besides our efforts this most-wanted bird remained out of sight.