Birdwatching Philippines: 1st Asian Bird Fair Davao City
 |
|
Image courtesy Asian Bird Fair
|
The 1st Asian Bird Fair will be held in Davao City later this year in conjunction with birdwatching clubs from: Thailand, Malaysia, Taiwan, China and Singapore. The plan is to promote birdwatching as a eco-adventure, recreational sport and to: encourage international friendship, collaboration and the exchange of experience & best practices among the birdwatching clubs of Asia; foster bird-watching as an eco-tourism activity; highlight bird festivals, bird fairs and bird races in the Asia region; and, promote the host cities/countries – their natural beauty, eco-adventure activities, wild bird conservation and cultural heritage.
In conjunction with the 1st Asian Bird Fair, a birdwatching adventure tour will take place in the forests and wetlands of the provinces of Bukidnon and Surigao del Sur, to the North & West of Davao City.
The 1st Asian Bird Fair will be held in Davao City, 23rd – 26th September, and will incorporate the 6th Philippine Bird Festival. Organised in partnership with the Philippine Eagle Foundation and the Wild Bird Club of the Philippines, birdwatching events in Davao will be open to participants and will include trips to the Philippine Eagle Foundation and Eden Garden Resort, plus other events held at the Marco Polo Davao & Waterfront Insular hotels in Davao City.
The follow-on birdwatching eco-adventure tour, named the Kitanglad Bird Festival Tour, will first go to mountains & forest around Mt. Kitanglad, Bukidnon, and then to the lowland birdwatching areas of PICOP, Bislig, Surigao del Sur.
Special birdwatching attractions at Mt. Kitanglad will be evening sightings of endemic night-birds such as the Bukidnon Woodcock, Mindanao Scops Owl and Philippine Frogmouth; daytime highlights to include the Great Philippine Eagle (one of the biggest raptors in the World) and endemics such as the funky-looking Apo Mynah, flowerpeckers and sunbirds – Olive-capped Flowerpecker and Grey-hooded and Apo Sunbirds, Black and Cinnamon Fantail, Cinnamon Ibon, Mindanao Ibon (Blackmasked White-eye), McGregors’s Cuckoo-shrike, Yellow-bellied Whistler, White-cheeked Bullfinch.
Birdwatching highlights at PICOP, Bislig, will be Writhed, Rufous and Mindanao Hornbills, Blue-capped and Silvery Kingfishers, Black-faced Coucal, Red-bellied and Steere’s (Azure-breasted) Pitta, Celestial and Short crested Monarchs plus Black-chinned Fruit-doves, Amethyst Brown-dove and a good selection of imperial pigeons.
By the way: PICOP – covering more than 180,000 hectares, with 40,000 hectares devoted to plantation-forestry, including logged and primary forest – stands for ‘Paper Industries Corporation of the Philippines’, a company that gave the port town of Bislig the name “The Philippines Paper Capitol”.
Participants of the 1st Asian Bird Fair Davao and the Kitanglad Bird Festival Tour who wish to partake of birdwatching in all locations (Davao, Bukidnon and Cagayan de Oro) have the option of flying to Davao International Airport for the 1st Asian Bird Fair, taking the Kitanglad Bird Festival Tour and then either, returning to Davao or, flying out from Cagayan de Oro airport. It is possible to fly direct to Davao International Airport from other Philippine international airline hubs in Cebu and Manila or, fly to Davao direct from Singapore.
Links:
Contact information for 1st Asian Bird Fair Davao
The nearest webcam to Davao City is Hof Gorei Beach Resort, Samal Island
Fly to Davao International Airport
Cagayan de Oro Airport information