In June 2025, while conducting a routine avian biodiversity survey on Lawak Island in the Kalayaan Island Group, staff from the Palawan Council for Sustainable Development spotted something they hadn’t seen before. It was small, quiet, and unfamiliar.
Later confirmed to be a Horsfield’s Bronze Cuckoo (Chalcites basalis), the bird marks the first official record of its kind in the Philippines.
Typically found in Australia, New Zealand, and nearby Pacific islands, the bronze cuckoo isn’t known to breed or migrate through Southeast Asia. Its appearance on a remote coral island in the West Philippine Sea is unexpected, and significant.
Lawak Island, a designated critical habitat, is already known as an important refuge for seabirds. It’s part of a fragile chain of marine and coastal ecosystems in Palawan that conservationists have worked to monitor and protect over the years. PCSD said the recent sighting underscores the importance of those efforts.
No further sightings of the bird have been reported since the survey. But the documentation alone adds to the country’s growing database of avian species and migratory patterns.
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It also raises questions, about what brought the bird here, whether it was simply passing through, and how changing climate or habitat conditions might be shifting the routes of even the most unassuming travelers.
