Birding Adventure Philippines runs a month-long tour every year. This tour will feature most of the Philippines endemic birds from its three major avifaunal regions: Luzon, Mindanao and Palawan as well as island endemics from Negros and Bohol. Please check out our main tour schedules here.
For those with limited availability and less flexible schedules, we are proud to offer our Custom Tours - trips that are designed to maximize your time to get the most number of your target birds. We are offering these custom trips year-round so please feel free to drop us a message in our Contact Us page.
You can also download our brochure for more information about the birding sites and the recommended number of days for each site. Click here for an easy-to-print PDF file of our brochure.
Main Tour - The Best Birds of the Philippines. (Tour Duration - Three Weeks)
This is our endemic-rich tour showcasing birds from the Philippines' six major islands - Luzon, Mindanao, Palawan, Negros, Bohol and Cebu. This is a fast-paced schedule, traveling from one bird area to the next.
Luzon birding will feature lowland and montane birds with stunning targets such as Flame-breasted Fruit-dove, Spotted Wood-Kingfisher, Rufous Coucal and the endangered Luzon Bleeding-heart. There are four sites to visit here - Mt. Makiling is a good introduction to lowland birding in the Philippines featuring special endemics such as Indigo-banded Kingfisher, Grey-backed Tailorbird and White-browed Shama among others; Subic Bay is a former American Naval base with vast expanse of primary lowland forest. Special targets here include Green Racquet-tail parrots, 4 kinds of woodpeckers, the localized Rufous Coucal and Blackish Cuckoo-shrike; Candaba Marsh is the one of the remaining freshwater wetlands close to Manila and features the endemic Philippine Duck, Pheasant-tailed Jacana, Philippine (Purple) Swamphen and other migrant and resident waterbirds; Mt. Polis is our Luzon montane birding site located near the UNESCO World Heritage Site Banaue Rice Terraces. Luzon montane specialists found in this site include the stunning Flame-breasted Fruit-dove, Chestnut-faced Babbler, skulking Luzon and Benguet Bush Warblers and the localized Luzon Scops Owl.
Mindanao, on the other hand is the biggest island in the archipelago and maintains large tracts of lowland and montane forest. There are two sites here - Mt. Kitanglad for montane birding and PICOP for lowland endemics. Targets here include the majestic Great Philippine Eagle, Celestial and Short-crested Monarch, funky Apo Mynah and many more.
Palawan is regarded as the Philippines' last frontier due to relatively intact forest cover in the island. The avifauna here is somewhat similar to that of mainland Asia but still features 11 endemics with the Palawan Peacock Pheasant as the number one target. Other birds here include the Palawan Hornbill, Palawan Tit, Ashy-headed Babbler and the elusive Falcated Ground Babbler. It is also one of the reliable sites for Philippine Cockatoo.
The other three islands feature highly-localized birds - the island of Cebu for the Cebu Flowerpecker and Black Shama; Bohol for Yellow-breasted Tailorbird and Visayan Wattled Broadbill; and Negros for the Visayan Hornbill and Flame-templed Babbler.
Custom Tours
Birding Adventure Philippines also offers personalized tours for birders who have less flexible schedules or for those who have schedule conflicts with our main tour. Whether it is a day, a week, or a month-long holiday, we’d be happy to do a custom-designed itinerary for you. These custom tours are also designed for individuals seeking specific island species, such as the rare Black-hooded Coucal, Calayan Rail, or the Zamboanga Bulbul which may be difficult to see in our regular main tour. We can offer these custom tours year-round so please email us for your preferred schedules and we’ll try to fix an itinerary for your birding holiday.