John Whitehead, an English naturalist and explorer, collected birds in the Philippine Islands from 1893 to 1896. In 1895, he lost a hundred birdskins when the London-bound steamer S.S. Weiland caught fire off Singapore. Whitehead dutifully returned to the island of Samar to replace his lost collection, and on this repeat expedition, captured the very first specimen of the Philippine ‘monkey-eating’ eagle.
What would Whitehead’s Ark look like?
Embark on a VR journey to find ten of John Whitehead’s Philippine birds that are now
threatened, vulnerable, or endangered, in dreamworlds inspired by Whitehead’s field-notes and indigenous Bagobo folklore.
Pithecophaga jefferyi specimen from the birdskin collection of Natural History Museum at Tring, Hertfordshire/UK.
