The Best of Vietnam Dec 28, 2007—Jan 18, 2008
Posted by Susan Myers
Susan Myers
Susan Myers absolutely loves birding and traveling in Asia. As she says, "The combination of incredible and diverse wildlife, ancient and fascinating cultures, and the...Related Trips
This comprehensive tour of Vietnam is designed to cover a variety of habitats, thus allowing us to observe a range of the fascinating and unique Indochinese avifauna and other wildlife. The forests of Vietnam have been severely depleted since the end of the war, and, in fact, are still being heavily exploited, so the birding here can be a challenge at times! That said, I have noticed so much improvement in the last few years it is quite heartening. This year, although we had some bad weather at the end of the tour, we had our usual good luck with mostly excellent weather and many outstanding birding highlights! Our trip to Vietnam, as always, included not only the remarkable birdlife, but fabulous food, a varied and exotic culture, and terrific people and general atmosphere.
We started off at Cat Tien National Park, a few hours drive from Saigon. This large area (80,000 ha) of southern lowland rainforest provided much fascinating birding during our stay. The long jeep drive to Dac Lua gave us many birding opportunities, including brilliant views of a male Germain's Peacock-Pheasant as he called loudly from a small mound not 10 meters from us! On our walk along the Crocodile Lake trail we saw some more great birds such as a beautiful male Banded Kingfisher and a very entertaining pair of Blue-bearded Bee-eaters; the near-endemic Gray-faced Tit-Babbler was quite common, but not easy to see; and, to finish off, we had an incredible look at a pair of stunning Bar-bellied Pittas. Exploration of other areas of the park allowed us to enjoy views of the endangered Green Peafowl, Siamese Fireback, and Red Junglefowl. For the first time we recorded six Phasianids in one day!
En route to Da Lat we birded at the excellent Di Linh Pass with superb results: Long-tailed Broadbill, many Maroon Orioles, and the very difficult Orange-breasted and White-cheeked laughingthrushes, as well as exceptional looks at the cute and highly sought after Black-crowned Parrotbill. Our next destination was the delightful highland town of Da Lat where we enjoyed sumptuous accommodation and great birding. We experienced a number of memorable moments here. A walk up Mount Lang Bian was off to a good start with a pair of Vietnamese Greenfinches encountered along the path, followed later by super views of a number of other Da Lat Plateau specialties. Multiple visits to the delightful Ta Nung Valley never failed to turn up something new, but best of all were the endemic Red-vented Barbet, the high-quality Gray-crowned Crocias, and the delightful mixed flocks. We had a good afternoon at Ho Tuyen Lam, catching up with Chestnut-vented Nuthatch and Slender-billed Oriole.
From Da Lat we drove to the seaside town of Nha Trang and then on to Da Nang and Hue in Central Vietnam, enjoying some birds and plenty of history and culture along the way. From Hue we headed up to Ha Noi and then drove to Cuc Phuong, Vietnam's oldest national park. Located in the Red River Delta, the park protects a 22,200 ha area of limestone peaks and evergreen tropical rainforest. Our explorations of the park included a walk through a semi-cleared valley, a longer walk to the 1,000 Year Old Tree (Terminalia myriocarpa) through many limestone crags, and exploration of the numerous trails around the headquarters. Simply birding along the park road proved to be most rewarding, however. We racked up a good number of excellent sightings. Of special note were superb and prolonged views of Pied Falconet, scope views of Asian Barred Owlet, Green-eared Barbet, Blue-rumped Pitta, some lovely Silver-breasted Broadbills, good views of White-winged Magpie and Black-breasted Thrush, Limestone Wren-Babblers, the rather odd-looking Ratchet-tailed Treepie, Fork-tailed Sunbird, Crimson Sunbirds in the headquarters' gardens, a couple of rather recalcitrant Large Scimitar-Babblers, Sultan Tits, and some super-sneaky White-tailed Flycatchers.
From Cuc Phuong we struck north for our next destination, Tam Dao. This former French hill station lies north of the capital at an altitude of 930 meters. By this time the weather to our north from China had caught up with us, and we shivered through the very chilly conditions, but still managed some good birding with nice looks at a few goodies such as Red-billed Scimitar-Babbler, Chestnut Bulbuls, and Fork-tailed Sunbirds amongst others.
As mentioned above, apart from the terrific birding, I think it is safe to say that other highlights of our trip included the wonderful and varied scenery, the never-ending enterprise that we observed as we sped around the countryside, the sheer variety and deliciousness of Vietnamese food, and, above all, the Vietnamese themselves, who are endlessly accommodating and friendly, and made our visit such a pleasure. Thank you all for your delightful company. I hope to see you again soon!