DAY 8: Da Lat - Ho Tuyen Lam Lake Da Lat is an interesting place, because it’s very different from the rest of Vietnam. It’s a mountain plateau separated from the rest of Vietnam altitudinally, with drastically different habitat than what we’ve seen in the other places (though it did bear some resemblance with Bach Ma, I suppose). Because of this, it’s one of the areas in Vietnam that has the most endemics and near-endemics, and it is thus a very popular birding destination. The main two birds everyone comes here for are grey-crowned crocias and collared laughingthrush, two endangered and very beautiful laughingthrush species endemic to the region, but there are many other birds that are either endemic to the region, or that are easiest to spot here. Another special thing about Da Lat is that it seems to be one of the only places in Vietnam where the birding seems to be good outside of national parks - there are many parks and forests and hills around the city that are good for birding, meaning you can stay in the middle of the city and go to a different place on each day. This means it’s much easier to go to a store if you need something, it’s much easier to have some more variable meals, and instead of staying in expensive and/or very basic rooms supplied by national parks you can stay in fun and cheap hostels. The three places mentioned often online in Da Lat are Mount Lang Bian (which is the best place for collared laughingthrush), Ta Nung Valley (which is the best place for grey-crowned crocias) and Ho Tuyen Lam Lake (which is the best place for most other birds). This was one of the best places in Vietnam and we knew we were only going to have two days and a bit of a morning here, so we were going to have to choose wisely what we were going to do. For both of us, grey-crowned crocias was pretty much the main highlight here - they were thought to be critically endangered or even extinct until 1994, they have a very small range, a large portion of which is being threatened even more, and they are visually one of the most unique and distinct of all the laughingthrushes. We decided we would visit Ho Tuyen Lam on the first day after arriving, though, as we were quite tired after the night bus. We would then try for grey-crowned crocias at Ta Nung Valley the day after, and see what we’d do with the third day depending on what we felt more like doing and depending on what we still needed. We were staying in a youth hostel in the center of Da Lat that rented out motorbikes, and the way to all three birding locations is either time intensive or expensive, so we decided to hire a motorbike again and drive to Ho Tuyen Lam lake ourselves. There are multiple forests around the lake, but it seems like the most accessible one is on the west bank of the lake, so this is where we went. On the way there we immediately had a pair of greenfinches (which really are more yellow than green) right above us, and once we were there the parking lot was full of Burmese shrikes and white-rumped munias. 273) Vietnamese greenfinch, Chloris monguilloti 274) White-rumped munia, Lonchura striata We couldn’t really find the good birding trails immediately, so we started off by walking in the direction not many other people were going (which is usually the right direction when you’re birding), which was towards the lake. The birding here was fairly good, and soon after we had racked up quite a nice amount of lifers! 275) Little cormorant, Microcarbo niger 276) Gould's sunbird, Aethopyga gouldiae 277) Hill prinia, Prinia superciliaris 278) Black-headed sibia, Heterophasia desgodinsi 279) Flavescent bulbul, Pycnonotus flavescens 280) Grey bush chat, Saxicola ferreus For the first time since I landed in Vietnam, we encountered leeches. I was expecting they’d be more common throughout the country, but we only really saw them in Da Lat and Cat Tien. I got bitten twice in total, but neither of the times really ruined any socks, which was great. I was wearing shorts, so usually I would see them before they could climb above my shoes and I could flick them off, and if I didn’t I’d usually feel them before they could really bite. The bites itch, though - up to about a month after returning home I’d still feel itchy in the two places they bit me. After the path seemed to suddenly disappear into nothingness, we turned around towards the parking lot again, because mobile service here was bad and we really didn’t want to get lost in some forest somewhere. Eventually we had found the path we wanted to find, and not long after we saw a bunch more great birds! As a European birder, the large scaly Zoothera thrushes have somewhat of a mystical status, with White’s thrushes being very rare vagrants in Western Europe that are usually very shy and short-lived when they do get found. This made it even more special when suddenly two of these huge thrushes were suddenly flying over the path right in front of us, one of them being so kind to pose on a branch for a few seconds. Wow! A pair of black-collared starlings gave great views as well, but they were a bit too far away for pictures. 281) Black-naped oriole, Oriolus chinensis 282) Scaly thrush, Zoothera dauma 283) Indochinese barbet, Psilopogon annamensis 284) Blue-winged minla, Actinodura cyanouroptera 285) Green-backed tit, Parus monticolus 286) Ashy bulbul, Hemixos flavala 287) Chestnut-vented nuthatch, Sitta nagaensis After a short walk to a “secret garden,” which looked like a very weird mix between an unused camping ground and an old park with crazy art installations, we had found two trails that both looked promising for birds, one to the left and one to the right of a broken down old van. The first one was a fairly short piece of forest that ended up at a part of the lake that had dried up. In the forest we found a beautiful orange-headed thrush (which was smaller than I had remembered them being from the zoos I had seen them in - maybe it was just the contrast between the scaly thrushes earlier that made them appear that small) and got some good views of the last drongo we still needed and some very nice laughingthrushes that seemed to be quite common in the area. The dried up lake had a pair of grey bush chats that weren’t shy at all, and a very surprising hoopoe! 288) Orange-headed thrush, Geokichla citrina 289) Lesser racket-tailed drongo, Dicrurus remifer 290) White-cheeked laughingthrush, Pterorhinus vassali 291) Eurasian hoopoe, Upupa epops The other trail ended up being quite a bit more promising! It ran through a variety of different habitats, some amusingly similar to the forests we have in the low countries, and ended up by the Southern bank of the lake. Just over halfway to the end of the path, we found a very large fruit tree that seemed interesting, and after waiting here for a few moments we had gotten fantastic views of a Vietnamese cutia! Vietnamese cutia is also one of the birds for which Da Lat is probably the best place in the world, and we were very excited to see this near-endemic bird species, another one of the very unique laughingthrushes. The same patch of forest also held some other very nice birds. 292) Vietnamese cutia, Cutia legalleni 293) Barred cuckoo-dove, Macropygia unchall 294) Verditer flycatcher, Eumyias thalassinus 295) Rufous woodpecker, Micropternus brachyurus After arriving at the end of the path (it seemed to bend around after the path reached the lake, but from then on it went directly into some people’s property and it was fairly clear we weren’t welcome there) we scanned the lake for some potential water birds; we found a group of about 7 or 8 little cormorants, which would normally get me very excited but instead it was quite a depressing sight - there was a motorized boat on the lake with people on them that appeared to be shooting at, or at least in the direction of the cormorants… I don’t know whether or not their intention was to kill the cormorants or to chase them away, but it was a fairly sad and angering sight, and reminded me that poaching is still very real here (this reminds me, we had also heard gunshots somewhat frequently in Cuc Phuong National Park earlier…). I assume these people were probably only trying to defend the fish in the lake, though, which was likely their main source of income - it definitely put things into perspective! Flying over the lake after that was a mountain imperial pigeon, which was quite impressive. For some reason, imperial pigeons (and laughingthrushes, among others) really seem like birds that you go to the zoo to see - not birds you can actually see in the wild! The same fruit tree from earlier now had a maroon oriole which was a species I really wanted to see, and on the way back we got a bunch more fantastic species! Dalat shrike-babbler is another species endemic to the Da Lat plateau (I only saw a female then, though), and it was great to see my first real niltavas, a beautiful male taiga flycatcher which is another rare vagrant in Europe, and some other fantastic new additions. A trogon that flew over the road directly in front of us was the icing on the cake! 296) Mountain imperial pigeon, Ducula badia 297) Maroon oriole, Oriolus traillii 298) Large niltava, Niltava grandis 299) Dalat shrike-babbler, Pteruthius annamensis 300) Taiga flycatcher, Ficedula albicilla On our way back to the parking lot we stumbled into another pair of birders - a guide guiding around someone else. Together we heard a group of black-hooded laughingthrushes and a red-billed scimitar-babbler, but neither of them wanted to come to the (in my opinion way too loud and prominent) playback the guide had put on. He did point out a male Dalat shrike-babbler though, which was great, and told us about a path where they had just seen a group of parrotbills. We went to the place where he had seen the parrotbills, but soon after it started raining and as the path was very steep and muddy we turned around and went back home. 301) Little pied flycatcher, Ficedula westermanni 302) Blyth's leaf warbler, Phylloscopus reguloides 303) Mountain bulbul, Ixos mcclellandii All things considered, it was a great day! No crossbills or black-hooded laughingthrushes that we had hoped to see here, but we did get the cutia, the shrike-babbler and the greenfinch with a very impressive supporting cast!
DAY 9: Da Lat - Ta Nung Valley The quest for the crocias began! Ta Nung Valley, while being one of the most popular birding destinations in the area, was quite hard to find information for and the most recent info we found was already a few years old, of the valley being a fenced off and technically inaccessible area because it was a construction site, but if you offered the people at the gate money they’d let you in. The place “Ta Nung” is easy enough to find on google maps, so we were headed there early in the morning and looking for a fenced off gate after which there was a road going into the valley. The construction site multiple years ago was for an “ecotourism” place, so we could also be looking for that - there wasn’t any recent information so it wasn’t clear whether or not that had been built by now or not. On the way there we saw a stunning red-billed blue magpie flying over the road, which was completely unexpected and a fantastic bird to see in the wild! This was the only individual of its species we ended up seeing. 304) Red-billed blue magpie, Urocissa erythroryncha Almost immediately as we arrived in what must have been the Ta Nung area, we saw a large wooden gate on our left that looked like it fit, and it ended up being the correct place - For others interested in going there, the place is called “Ecotourism destinations Hoa Son Dien Trang” (which you can find easily on google maps) with the entrance being at (11.934, 108.376). As the name would suggest, the area is now an “Ecotourism destination,” and has a bunch of fake Vietnamese buildings, fake Vietnamese gardens and manmade ponds and waterfalls. I really don’t understand why you’d take one of the only three places where a species of bird lives, recognize that many people come there to see those birds, and then destroy most of the habitat in that place and call it “ecotourism” though, but whatever. In between all the tacky buildings and art installations and flowery gardens there was still some original forest where we saw more of the same birds we had seen the day before (Indochinese barbets, mountain imperial pigeons, white-cheeked laughingthrushes, a black-headed sibia, flavescent bulbuls) and, almost immediately, a grey-crowned crocias! Not even in any of the natural forest places left, either, but in a fruit tree in a small flower garden right next to the road, with many people walking by continuously (11.934, 108.378). We saw it foraging together with some bulbuls, white-cheeked laughingthrushes, some maritime squirrels and a tree-shrew, but unfortunately it wouldn’t let me take any pictures. What a sighting though, and what a bird! A bit later we also stumbled upon a group of spot-billed ducks (there were a few mallards and what looked like hybrids in between them, so we didn’t trust them to be wild), another slaty-backed forktail, and a male of the stunning local race of black-throated sunbird! 305) Grey-crowned crocias, Laniellus langbianis 306) Black-throated sunbird, Aethopyga saturata 19) Northern smooth-tailed tree-shrew, Dendrogale murina Next to a gravel parking spot there was an opening in the bushes that led to a very dark and tropical path, completely different to the habitat we had seen yesterday! After only a few minutes of walking here we had found a giant squirrel right above us, which was fantastic, and a few groups of white-cheeked laughingthrushes. After a bit more searching we found a fantastic mixed species foraging flock of a grey-headed canary-flycatcher, a pair of lesser racket-tailed drongos, a group of white-cheeked laughingthrushes, a maritime squirrel and a speckled piculet, which was my first ever piculet and a very cool bird. The path ended soon after this flock, though, and when the birds had moved on we decided to move on as well - we had seen basically all of the paths there were to see here, and we had gotten the crocias, so we decided we’d drive back to the city to get some breakfast and then go back to Ho Tuyen Lam lake to hopefully see some crossbills. 307) Speckled piculet, Picumnus innominatus Unfortunately, Da Lat has a gigantic traffic issue. Imagine the classic images of Asian cities, with hundreds of motorbikes and small buses and vans everywhere, and multiply that a few times, and then you’ve got Da Lat. In the morning there hadn’t been much of an issue since we had left the hostel to go to Ta Nung very early, but right now we were right in the middle of the morning rush hour, and if there’s one place you don’t want to be in on a hired motorbike it’s in the middle of the morning rush hour. Generally everything was going great, until it suddenly wasn’t anymore… We were driving on the right of the road, when suddenly an older man on a motorbike was overtaking us on the right (even though there wasn’t really any space for that). All was fine, until we were suddenly also being overtaken on the left by a small truck that hadn’t seen us and merged back to the right of the road too quickly. We anticipated him bumping into us so we slowed down, but it wasn’t enough and he tapped us regardless, knocking us over, which meant we knocked over the older person on the motorbike next to us and all three of us were lying on the road. Luckily none of us got hurt too badly except for a few scratch wounds that did sting fairly badly, but the impact was enough to crack my phone screen and knock my binoculars out of focus, which was quite annoying. The guy who had bumped into us just drove away… Once we arrived back at the hostel (luckily their bike hadn’t been damaged!) and fixed up our scratch wounds it started raining pretty badly, and we weren’t very motivated to continue birding so we stayed there for the rest of the day. It was definitely unfortunate that we lost a day of birding (and that I’m now stuck with a bunch of conversations with insurance people and phone repair people), but it could also have ended much worse, and at least we hadn’t driven all the way back to Ho Tuyen Lam to find out there that it’d rain for the rest of the day! We spent the rest of the day planning out how we’d get to Cat Tien the day after, and how we’d continue to Ho Chi Minh after that. A bit of a low point of the trip, but we did see one of the best and most memorable species that day!
Nice. I missed out Ta Nung because the road was closed for construction. Interesting that the crocias are so easy to find there, although I doubt I'll be back to Vietnam any time soon. And good news about the road accident too - it's not a proper trip if you don't have some sort of vehicular incident.
Definitely go there if you do revisit! The birding isn't fantastic and is a bit awkward, but seeing crocias so easily is nice. I do wonder if they'll still survive there for long if the ecotourism thing keeps going, though. And yeah, I was glad to get that road accident out of the way without too many issues! It did suck to not have my binoculars completely functional for the rest of the trip though (the left telescope was knocked out of its focus, so I could only see things through the right scope), and it probably cost me an Asian fairy-bluebird for the year list that my friend saw but I couldn't find quickly enough. I saw them in Singapore 3 years ago though, so I'll survive!
DAY 10: Da Lat - Ho Tuyen Lam Lake Because we had lost a large part of one of our only two birding days, we now had to choose - either go to Lang Bian for collared laughingthrush, or back to Ho Tuyen Lam for Vietnamese crossbill. Apparently the best places for collared laughingthrushes in Lang Bian are on very muddy trails, though, so we decided that after yesterday’s bad luck and very intense rain, we didn’t want to try that and would prefer going back to a place we already knew. Another positive about this is that we knew approximately how long it’d take to get back to Da Lat, so we definitely wouldn’t miss our bus in the afternoon. Unfortunate that we had to skip trying for collared laughingthrush, but we still had a great day regardless. Once we arrived at Ho Tuyen Lam lake we went to the place where the guide had told us he saw parrotbills. Not much luck there, and it was another one of those paths disappearing into nothingness, but we did get another nice mixed flock, and soon after that a mountain tailorbird! This is an interesting bird because even though they look just like the other tailorbirds and also make the tailored nests, they were recently discovered to actually belong to the Cettiidae family - a family I had previously only seen one species of, the much less colourful Cetti’s warbler back at home. Another name for these birds is apparently “mountain leaftoiler,” which I quite like as well, but generally I am of the opinion that common names should be based on usage, and that we have scientific names to describe a species more accurately - and these birds do look and act a lot like tailorbirds! 308) Mountain tailorbird, Phyllergates cucullatus A bit later, after stumbling into a few more good birds like golden-throated barbet, more large niltavas and a flock of blue-winged minlas, we found a very small path directly next to the main road leading from the parking lot to the 'secret garden'. The path proved to be very productive, with much better sightings of another Vietnamese cutia, a bunch more blue-winged minlas, a pair of yellow-billed nuthatches very closeby and an extremely active red-billed scimitar-babbler! The scimitar-babblers in Bach Ma were scolding at us from behind some trees and very hard to see, so it was great to now see another species doing the very typical ‘tree-running’ thing they do. Wow! A few Pallas’ squirrels and a weirdly light-coloured black giant squirrel also gave decent views. 309) Red-billed scimitar-babbler, Pomatorhinus ochraceiceps 310) Yellow-billed nuthatch, Sitta solangiae After this, we grabbed a cup of coffee (Vietnamese coffee is definitely the best coffee in the world, by the way) at the parking lot, and found a taxi that would take us back to Da Lat, so we could get on the bus to Cat Tien. We had gone with the taxi route today, because we didn’t want to get on a motorbike anymore after what happened the day prior. The bus from Da Lat to Cat Tien was one of those sleeper buses even though it was a bus that drove by day, which seems very impractical and illogical to me. After a 3,5-4 hour drive, the bus kind of awkwardly and quickly drops you off on the side of the main road, from where it is still quite far to get to Cat Tien. The people at the place we stayed in near Cat Tien offered to come pick us up where the sleeper bus dropped us off, which was great. On the four hour drive we passed by many villages that had quite a few herons, egrets and mynas, and upon closer inspection some of those mynas turned out to be vinous-breasted starlings. 311) Vinous-breasted starling, Acridotheres burmannicus At Cat Tien, we were staying in the Green Hope Lodge, one of the accommodations just outside of the park. It was quite a fun and affordable place, and they were very helpful in explaining what trails of the national park were good for which species, how early you can get into the park etc. When we said we were going to get to the park as early as possible on the next few days and we weren’t going to be able to have the (included) breakfast, they even immediately offered to cook us some eggs and give us some bananas each evening, so that we’d have something to eat in the park regardless! Definitely a very nice place, but it is unfortunate that it’s outside of the national park as that meant that the earliest we could be in the park was when the first boat crossed the river, and we could only be in the park until the last boat crossed… Each of the lodges there had a shaded balcony structure overlooking the river just outside the park. That evening we saw some greater racket-tailed drongos, a few dollarbirds actively hawking for insects, and an owl of some species - probably a scops owl as it was small and nocturnal. Great eared nightjars were also apparently very common as we heard their calls everywhere, but we didn’t see any. 312) Oriental dollarbird, Eurystomus orientalis
The Crocias and disturbed habitat is really interesting because the location that I got them really well at (on both times that I visited) near Da Tien Tourist Site at Ho Tuyen Lam Lake was disturbed habitat on the edge of the proper forest, with lantana and stuff like that typical of disturbed vegetation. I wonder if the Crocias does alright in disturbed habitat. The HBW page on diet notes visits to flowering shrubs including Lantana to forage for insects and that the habitat includes secondary growth and scrub. Perhaps as long as some forest is intact the species is able to utilise secondary areas?
Oh wow, that is definitely interesting! Now that you mention it, the entire valley had quite a lot of lantanas, in fact the 'flower garden' I mentioned the crocias being next to did indeed have quite a few of those. The valley seemed to have quite some forest intact, but a large portion of it also consisted of planted conifers, and the majority of the paths were in the disturbed habitat you mention. I also saw a forktail there, which I also didn't really expect in disturbed habitat!
DAY 11: Cat Tien National Park So this is it, Cat Tien National Park! Probably the best and most well-known National Park for both birders and mammal-watchers in all of Vietnam, and really the only place in the country that still has decent numbers of large mammals. We only had three full days here, so we wanted to maximize our time and we got on the very first boat to cross the river, just after 5:30AM. We got off to an amazing start, though, because the very first animals we saw after setting foot in Cat Tien were a group of gibbons! Four animals in total, that are apparently attracted to the area close to the entrance because of the calls of gibbons in a nearby facility for rescued gibbons and other primates (which is on the island in the river right next to the entrance, that we looked at from the balconies at green hope lodge the day before). We only ever ended up seeing them once, though, so apparently you still have to get lucky even though they’re in the area! Gibbons are such an impressive sight, and it was great to see some here as we missed the gibbons in Bach Ma. 313) Striated heron, Butorides striata 314) Common sandpiper, Actitis hypoleucos 315) Golden-fronted leafbird, Chloropsis aurifrons 20) Southern buff-cheeked gibbon, Nomascus gabriellae After a great start, we decided to move on so we’d get as much as possible of the early morning action! We started off by going right, which goes deeper into the forest, and were planning to go left (to the fields where gaur and peafowl etc. are) later, in the afternoon. We really wanted to see a hornbill (I saw them fairly regularly when I lived in Singapore until 2009, but my friend had never seen any and he had been in Asia for almost 4 months at that point) and we had read that the “hornbill bar” overlooking the river was a good place to see them, as they’d often fly over the river there and sit in the tall trees on the other side. When we arrived the bar seemed to still be closed, though, so we figured we’d do another trail first and then come back. The roads here have quite a few birds, you can constantly hear singing shamas but we also saw quite a few treepies, leafbirds, bulbuls, bronzed and greater racket-tailed drongos and a group of rufous woodpeckers. 316) Grey-faced tit-babbler, Macronus kelleyi 317) Ashy-headed green pigeon, Treron phayrei 318) Black-hooded oriole, Oriolus xanthornus When you continue to the right at one point the path splits into two - the asphalt road continues to the left, and on the right there is an unpaved road section. Other wildlife-watchers that my friend knew via the EPRC had told us that they had seen doucs and langurs here so we made sure to pay attention, but unfortunately we didn’t see any of those. This path was very birdy though, and we got a few more species we wanted to see! This is also where we first realized that the sound that we could hear everywhere around us were the calls of blue-winged pittas, and at one point we must have been surrounded by at least 6 or 7 calling pittas! This continued to be the case over the next few days… Black-and-red broadbill was a fantastic species and one we both really wanted to see, so we were really excited when suddenly one was giving decent views not too far away from us. The dirt path seemed to go on forever but didn’t give us that many more additions, so eventually we turned around and decided to follow the road a bit more. 319) Van Hasselt's sunbird, Leptocoma brasiliana 320) Vernal hanging-parrot, Loriculus vernalis 321) Indian cuckoo, Cuculus micropterus 322) Black-and-red broadbill, Cymbirhynchus macrorhynchos That seemed to be a good decision! Less pitta calls here, but a lot more other birds, the first of which a great female Siberian blue robin. A bit later we found a set of trees that had a bay and a pale-headed woodpecker, a violet cuckoo and a barbet that turned out to be blue-eared! Violet cuckoo definitely has to be one of the best cuckoos around. 323) Siberian blue robin, Larvivora cyane 324) Bay woodpecker, Blythipicus pyrrhotis 325) Violet cuckoo, Chrysococcyx xanthorhynchus 326) Blue-eared barbet, Psilopogon duvaucelii 327) Pale-headed woodpecker, Gecinulus grantia Eventually, on the right side of the road, there was a small path (which was apparently ‘reserved’ for the gibbon tours in the early morning, but by that time it wasn’t early morning anymore). We decided to check it out as it looked to be a lot more dense and dark forest, but there weren’t that many birds - a pair of common ioras and another blue robin seemed to be all. That is, until there was suddenly a stunning blue-winged pitta in the middle of the path right in front of us! It flew away immediately, but it was unmistakable… And huge! 328) Blue-winged pitta, Pitta moluccensis After that, we returned to the hornbill bar to get something to eat and drink. It was very hot in Cat Tien, to the point where you always seem to run out of water faster than you had hoped you would. Birding in Cat Tien is fantastic on one hand because there’s a lot of birds here that we hadn’t seen in the rest of Vietnam, but at the same time it can get pretty frustrating as well. Cat Tien is a fairly ‘flat’ national park with very thick forest on both sides of the road, which means that birds often see you coming from quite far away and can immediately fly away from the path. More so here than in the rest of Vietnam we had quite a lot of frustrating sightings of birds that one of us saw but the other didn't, or birds that we both saw but only saw a flash of. I think the main difference is that in Bach Ma you always had a mountain face on one side of the road and treetops on the other, so birds couldn’t really disappear as quickly, and in Cuc Phuong and Da Lat most of the birding was from small paths so the birds didn’t see you coming until you were very closeby. The variety of birds in Cat Tien is amazing, though. At the hornbill bar we grabbed something to eat and something to drink, while keeping our binoculars closeby - we didn’t really get lucky with any water birds or hornbills, but there were a couple fruit trees right next to the bar that had many bulbuls and occasionally flowerpeckers, sunbirds and leafbirds - a group of 4 golden-fronted leafbirds actively eating berries right in front of us was a great sight! We also saw a pair of golden-crested mynas (which wasn’t a species I had expected to see at all!), and a large cuckooshrike flying over the river. The bar had a lot more useful information, including a large whiteboard with recent bird and mammal sightings. 329) Scarlet-backed flowerpecker, Dicaeum cruentatum 330) Large cuckooshrike, Coracina macei 331) Golden-crested myna, Ampeliceps coronatus After lunch we returned to the unpaved path mentioned earlier to try again for some doucs and/or better views of the pittas, but we didn’t get lucky with either of those. We did get a few more great birds though, and both a Northern smooth-tailed tree-shrew and a Northern tree-shrew darting into the vegetation made for a great comparison of the two species. 332) Great iora, Aegithina lafresnayei 333) Blue-bearded bee-eater, Nyctyornis athertoni 334) Greater flameback, Chrysocolaptes guttacristatus 21) Northern tree shrew, Tupaia belangeri After that we returned to the main base, where we hired bicycles to cycle over to the fields, to hopefully see some gaur and peafowl. Unfortunately, right after we had the bikes it started raining, and at first we figured it’d be over soon so we kept going, but then eventually we figured it would be best to return anyways. This wasn’t before we turned to check out a small pond next to the road for some potential kingfishers, though, where we saw a huge female sambar! While biking through the rain we saw another blue-winged pitta flying away from the path, and I’m fairly sure I also saw a hornbill flying off in the distance, but it was too bad of a view to make anything of. 22) Sambar, Rusa unicolor Soaking wet, we made our way back to the main base where we returned the bicycles (I believe they only charged us for half an hour though, which was nice of them as I think you normally pay per hour) and checked our stuff to see if it survived the rain (my backpack has a rain cover but I couldn’t put it on immediately, and my phone had some holes in the screen from the accident). After waiting for the rain to pass and for it to get dark we headed out again, in hope of seeing something nocturnal. The disadvantage of not staying in the national park is that you can’t really go spotlighting because you have to catch the last boat that takes you back to the other side of the river, and that boat went at around 7PM (maybe - I might be misremembering this!). Whichever time it was, it meant that you could be in Cat Tien until the sun went down, but not really while it was dark. We saw a large group of crab-tailed macaques just before dusk, and around dusk we found two civet/mongoose-like animals crossing the road, which we unfortunately couldn’t see properly. A bit later we heard the typical whistle we had heard last night right above us, though, and flying over our heads was a great eared nightjar! What a fantastic way to end this fantastic first day at Cat Tien! 335) Great eared nightjar, Lyncornis macrotis
DAY 12: Cat Tien - Fields and Crocodile Lake Since we hadn’t been able to really get to the fields the day before because of the rain, we were going to go to them on this morning. The habitat on this side of the park is completely different to that on the other side of the park, with a lot more open areas, ponds, grass fields and bamboo. This meant that the birds, too, were overall completely different. The blue-winged pittas and shamas remained the two most often-heard species, though, and we also finally upgraded our quick view of a flushing bird to being able to look at a pitta for multiple minutes… It was calling high up in a tree, right above us! Besides the pittas we also saw many parrots and got some fantastic views of a group of white-crested laughingthrushes. Another highlight, and one of the birds we were really hoping to see was a peacock-pheasant, which was initially calling from behind a bush right next to the path, but eventually ran away and showed itself. 336) White-crested laughingthrush, Garrulax leucolophus 337) Germain's peacock-pheasant, Polyplectron germaini 338) Indochinese cuckoo-shrike, Lalage polioptera 339) Laced woodpecker, Picus vittatus Once we arrived at the open fields (which start right about after the new bear sanctuary to the right of the path) it was unfortunately already getting quite hot, which the birds probably don’t like that much. There didn’t really seem to be a whole lot of life in the fields themselves at all, no peafowl we could see and definitely no gaur, but the trees surrounding the fields did have a few new birds for us, including a very nice stork-billed kingfisher flying fairly closeby. We were now able to see some of the parrots better, and the majority of them were definitely red-breasted parakeets. 340) Red turtle dove, Streptopelia tranquebarica 341) Lineated barbet, Psilopogon lineatus 342) Black-winged kite, Elanus caeruleus 343) Red-breasted parakeet, Psittacula alexandri 344) Stork-billed kingfisher, Pelargopsis capensis After quite a long time of staring at the fields we decided to give up on the gaur and peafowl so we could move on. On the way back we saw a beautiful male koel flying away that we had heard on the way there but couldn’t see, and after that we finally got my friend’s first ever hornbill! I had missed them in Singapore in 2016, so this was the first time since 2008 that I saw any Asian hornbill - it's always great to see a species again that you haven’t seen in a long time! 345) Asian koel, Eudynamys scolopaceus 346) Oriental pied hornbill, Anthracoceros albirostris After this, we were headed to crocodile lake. We hadn’t seen any doucs yet, and the trail leading to crocodile lake is supposed to be the easiest place to see them. By staying in the park for one night it meant we could also spotlight a bit better than we had been able to the evening before. We had left most of our things in our big packs back at the lodge outside of Cat Tien, and brought only the essentials with us - not very efficient when it comes to money, but it was good that we didn’t have to bring our big backpacks all the way to crocodile lake, as a large part of the way there consists of walking on narrow and bumpy stone tracks and stopping to look for monkeys. In order to get to crocodile lake you have to either walk the distance entirely, or pay for a jeep that drops you off next to the narrow path, after which you have to walk about 5 more kilometers until you get there. We went for the jeep option, and from the jeep saw our first trogon in Cat Tien - probably an orange-breasted, but our views were very poor. Once we arrived we saw another hornbill, a pair of red junglefowl, and an ochraceous bulbul. 347) Ochraceous bulbul, Alophoixus ochraceus Earlier I had said “look for monkeys”… Perhaps it’s better to say “smell for monkeys!” Most of the time, you could smell the monkeys before actually hearing or seeing them - a very strong, almost musky smell. The birding wasn’t great on these paths (we practically didn’t see any bird at all except for some shamas, until we flushed an unidentifiable pheasant right before getting to the lake), but the mammal watching was. It seemed like every 10 minutes or so we stumbled into a group of monkeys. Most of these were crab-eating macaques, but sure enough when we were about halfway we were suddenly looking at a group of at least 8 black-shanked doucs! They were very shy, but unlike the red-shanked doucs at Bach Ma and Son Tra these actually let us take a few pictures of them high in the trees! Red-shanked doucs were probably my favourite primate before, but these definitely come close. 23) Black-shanked douc, Pygathrix nigripes The accommodation at crocodile lake is very interesting, and very basic - there’s no data service, no fans, no plug in the wall to charge anything, no lock on the door, no toilet paper… But at the same time you don’t really need any of those things there, either. The atmosphere in this place was fantastic, because there was so little and everything was so basic but at the end of the day that very basic way of living was all you really needed. The birding was great, too - many different birds than in the forested areas of Cat Tien, and also very different from the line-up of species at the open fields earlier! Siamese crocodiles were very common, too, which was really cool. After a bit of scanning the lake and the wetlands and trees behind it, there were suddenly two green peafowl standing in the fields next to the lake as well! It was great to see them, as we had given up on seeing those earlier today. 348) Indian roller, Coracias benghalensis 349) Grey-headed swamphen, Porphyrio poliocephalus 350) Oriental darter, Anhinga melanogaster 351) Purple heron, Ardea purpurea 352) Asian golden weaver, Ploceus hypoxanthus 353) Bronze-winged jacana, Metopidius indicus 354) Green peafowl, Pavo muticus 355) Grey-headed fish eagle, Haliaeetus ichthyaetus 356) Red-wattled lapwing, Vanellus indicus 357) Woolly-necked stork, Ciconia episcopus Dinner was included with a night at the crocodile lake, and as dusk was approaching we literally watched two of the four men that lived there catch dinner - two very nice fish, straight from the lake! Overall the dinner was probably some of the best food we had eaten in all of Vietnam, there was plenty of all kinds of soups and fish and chicken dishes - all in a beautiful wooden hut, with a backdrop of what had now turned into a quite a heavy rainstorm during sunset. After the rain had disappeared it didn’t take long for us to hear the first great eared nightjars (they must truly have been very common in the park, though we only ever saw the one), so we got our torches to go spotlighting. Spotlighting on the very narrow paths and boardwalks close to the crocodile lake accommodation isn’t very easy to do with two people, though, because one of us always had to walk behind the other. For the most part the forest was very quiet, with not much at all - not a single animal at all after about half an hour, and we were starting to get bitten by leeches and mosquitoes, so we decided to head back. When we were almost at the crocodile lake building again, on the narrow wooden boardwalk, my friend suddenly stopped as a small owl flew into the light of his torch - a collared scops owl! It was very interested in us (or interested in chasing us away), so after a few pictures we left it alone. Almost immediately after, I heard a large-tailed nightjar somewhere in the distance, and as we walked closer it must have been sitting in a tree right next to the boardwalk going towards the small lookout tower as it was very loud, but we didn’t end up finding it. It did end up keeping me awake for almost half the night, though, but I can’t really complain about that! 358) Collared scops owl, Otus lettia
DAY 13 & 14: Cat Tien, Ho Chi Minh and Departure One of the fun things about sleeping in the middle of a national park, like here at crocodile lake and earlier at Bach Ma, is that you can truly just wake up, leave your room and start birding immediately. We did just that, of course, and it’s definitely nice when there’s a huge lake with quite a lot of water birds right next to your room. For the most part the birds were the same as the day before but we got some better views of a few species - the pair of peafowl were still around as well. A new bird was a black bittern flying over the lake, which seems to be quite uncommon and/or hard to see in Cat Tien! That was really cool. 359) Black bittern, Dupetor flavicollis After scanning the lake we decided to start making our way back to the main road, because even though it was only a 5km walk we had told the jeep people we wanted them to pick us up at noon and we didn’t want to be late, so by leaving well in advance we could still stop to look at animals and didn’t have to hurry. We didn’t see a whole lot of animals, but it didn’t take long until we found another group of black-shanked doucs, that seemed to stick really close to a group of macaques… It got even more interesting when we found out that there was a juvenile swinging between the doucs, and when one of the females revealed that she was carrying a baby on her belly we were truly in awe! In total there were at least 9 animals in this group. After a bit more walking, which went a lot faster than we had expected it to, we stumbled upon another pitta on the path, that quickly flew away - a female bar-bellied pitta this time! A few minutes later we had also found a beautiful male fireback pheasant (which was probably also what we had seen the day before, upon arrival at the crocodile lake), that ran in front of us along the path for quite a while, until it disappeared in the bushes. 360) Siamese fireback, Lophura diardi We had arrived way too early for the jeep and even though there was a telephone number on a sign, neither of us had phone service to call someone to come pick us up. After what couldn’t be much more than half an hour, though, another group of people had arrived and we could return to the main base on that jeep. On the way back we saw a clouded monitor cross the path (which was the first and only monitor of the trip), and soon we were back at base camp, where we ate something, listened to the gibbons in the distance for a while, and took the boat outside the park to go back to our lodge (it was a very hot day, and there was a fan in our lodge). We spent the rest of the day not really doing much, as we had seen basically all of the things we had wanted to see, and spent some time planning how we’d get to Ho Chi Minh and how I’d get to the airport on the day after. Before it got dark I spent some time walking around the property and looking out over the river, and saw some interesting stuff like a black-and-red broadbill, a lesser racket-tailed drongo, a brown flycatcher and a chestnut-headed bee-eater. 361) Chestnut-headed bee-eater, Merops leschenaulti The day after, I had decided to go back into the park alone for one last day, to try one last time for orange-breasted trogon and silvered langur. It was a weekend day, though, which apparently meant that the first boat would only go at around 6:30AM, but I didn’t mind that much. A bit more birding in the forest area (the unpaved path I mentioned earlier, from the first day at Cat Tien) got me some more views of amethyst cuckoo, Indian cuckoo, koel, malkoha, drongo-cuckoo, lesser coucal (loads of cuckoos!), another black-and-red broadbill, probably the same pair of vernal hanging-parrots, a forest wagtail, a coppersmith barbet, and eventually an orange-breasted trogon! A beautiful male, really posing for pictures on many different angles. Another hornbill was very welcome, too, and a beautiful way to end it all off! 362) Coppersmith barbet, Psilopogon haemacephalus 363) Orange-breasted trogon, Harpactes oreskios In the afternoon we checked out of the lodge and someone (same car, different driver) drove us back to the big road, where we waved the next ‘sleeper’ bus to Ho Chi Minh to the side of the road and got on. From this point onward we didn’t really do anything wildlife-related so there’s not much to say, but we booked a cheap hostel in the middle of the city somewhere, from which I would leave very early the next day and in which my friend could stay for a few more days, after which he continued his journey to Cambodja (where he did a guided tour and ended up getting the three CR vultures, the two CR ibises and the florican). Ho Chi Minh seems to have grown quite a bit since I visited it with my family quite a while ago, it felt like there were a lot more large buildings there now. I didn’t really have time to visit anything in the city and I was going to say that I wish I did, but I’m not so sure - birding is just always more fun! It did seem like a much nicer place than Ninh Binh and Hanoi, though. The airport was great and very efficient (but then again most airports are probably fairly efficient at 5AM). From the large airport windows I saw the last few swiftlets, tree sparrows and barn swallows, and after a 13 hour flight back to Paris the first birds I saw there were also barn swallows!
Epilogue So, that was it! I'm probably going to post some more statistics and general comments/observations later so this won't be the last post, but I think I've said pretty much everything I wanted to. This was only the second time I did a trip where birding was the main focus (the first time was a camping trip to France/Spain last year, together with the friend I did this trip with and another friend) but it was my first designated birding trip outside of Europe, so it was great getting to know the common (and not-so-common!) species of South-East Asia. I have to say that it was one of the most fun things I've ever done in my life - the animals you get to see are great, of course, but organizing the entire thing and figuring out how to do everything you want to do is half the fun as well! I definitely can't wait to go back to explore the rest of Asia now... I hope this topic was an interesting read, and I hope it potentially inspires some of you to go on a similar adventure of your own, just like the many fantastic trip reports on this site inspired me to go on this one! We had a very limited amount of time, but still managed to see most things we wanted to see and a lot more. Of course more time in some of the spots (definitely Bach Ma, Da Lat and Cat Tien) would have been great, but I'm definitely convinced you can get a very good grasp of Vietnam's wildlife and National Parks in just two weeks - I hope this topic proved that, to some extent! I'll start uploading some pictures soon, as well, so keep an eye out on the gallery! Many of them won't be as good as some of the ones already present in the Vietnam - Wildlife gallery (as I think I mentioned, my camera started acting up around day 2), but hopefully I can add at least a few decent pictures of some species that were missing.
I decided I'd make a list of all species I saw chronologically, starting at 1 from the first species, up to 245 for the last species and including the species I had already seen elsewhere this year prior to the trip. Spoiler BIRDS: 1) White wagtail, Motacilla alba 2) Eurasian tree sparrow, Passer montanus 3) Barn swallow, Hirundo rustica 4) Brown shrike, Lanius cristatus 5) Red-rumped swallow, Cecropis daurica 6) Little egret, Egretta garzetta 7) Oriental magpie-robin, Copsychus saularis 8) Common tailorbird, Orthotomus sutorius 9) Stripe-throated bulbul, Pycnonotus finlaysoni 10) Rufescent prinia, Prinia rufescens 11) Black-crested bulbul, Pycnonotus flaviventris 12) Green-eared barbet, Psilopogon faiostrictus 13) Lesser coucal, Centropus bengalensis 14) Blue rock thrush, Monticola solitarius 15) Asian palm swift, Cypsiurus balasiensis 16) Asian brown flycatcher, Muscicapa dauurica 17) Crested serpent-eagle, Spilornis cheela 18) Sooty-headed bulbul, Pycnonotus aurigaster 19) Ashy woodswallow, Artamus fuscus 20) Puff-throated bulbul, Alophoixus pallidus 21) Olive-backed sunbird, Cinnyris jugularis 22) Crimson sunbird, Aethopyga siparaja 23) Ashy drongo, Dicrurus leucophaeus 24) Square-tailed drongo-cuckoo, Surniculus lugubris 25) Grey-capped pygmy woodpecker, Yungipicus canicapillus 26) Common iora, Aegithina tiphia 27) Fork-tailed sunbird, Aethopyga christinae 28) Arctic warbler, Phylloscopus borealis 29) Brown-breasted flycatcher, Muscicapa muttui 30) Grey-faced buzzard, Butastur indicus 31) Yellow-browed warbler, Phylloscopus inornatus - 32) White-rumped shama, Copsychus malabaricus 33) Plain flowerpecker, Dicaeum minullum 34) Red junglefowl, Gallus gallus 35) Plaintive cuckoo, Cacomantis merulinus 36) Bronzed drongo, Dicrurus aeneus 37) Bar-bellied pitta, Hydrornis elliotii 38) Brown-backed needletail, Hirundapus giganteus 39) Hair-crested drongo, Dicrurus hottentottus 40) Red-vented barbet, Psilopogon lagrandieri 41) Dark-necked tailorbird, Orthotomus atrogularis 42) Bar-winged flycatcher-shrike, Hemipus picatus 43) Common kingfisher, Alcedo atthis 44) Grey-headed canary-flycatcher, Culicicapa ceylonensis 45) Greater racket-tailed drongo, Dicrurus paradiseus 46) Little spiderhunter, Arachnothera longirostra 47) Yellow-rumped flycatcher, Ficedula zanthopygia 48) Pied falconet, Microhierax melanoleucos 49) Red-headed trogon, Harpactes erythrocephalus 50) Crested goshawk, Accipiter trivirgatus 51) Collared owlet, Glaucidium brodiei 52) White-tailed robin, Myiomela leucura 53) Racket-tailed treepie, Crypsirina temia 54) Buff-bellied pipit, Anthus rubescens 55) Pin-striped tit-babbler, Macronus gularis 56) White-bellied erpornis, Erpornis zantholeuca 57) Rufous-throated fulvetta, Alcippe rufogularis 58) Limestone leaf warbler, Phylloscopus calciatilis (heard-only) 59) Common hill myna, Gracula religiosa 60) Common green magpie, Cissa chinensis 61) Blue whistling thrush, Myophonus caeruleus 62) Crow-billed drongo, Dicrurus annectens 63) White-winged magpie, Urocissa whiteheadi 64) Greater yellownape, Chrysophlegma flavinucha 65) Thick-billed green pigeon, Treron curvirostra 66) Forest wagtail, Dendronanthus indicus - 67) Swinhoe's white-eye, Zosterops simplex 68) Common emerald dove, Chalcophaps indica 69) Green-billed malkoha, Phaenicophaeus tristis 70) Streaked spiderhunter, Arachnothera magna 71) Silver pheasant, Lophura nycthemera 72) Rufous-capped babbler, Stachyridopsis ruficeps 73) Hainan blue flycatcher, Cyornis hainanus 74) Hill blue flycatcher, Cyornis banyumas 75) Limestone wren-babbler, Napothera crispifrons 76) Grey-throated babbler, Stachyris nigriceps 77) Kloss' leaf warbler, Phylloscopus ogilviegranti 78) Black bulbul, Hypsipetes leucocephalus 79) Yellow-vented green pigeon, Treron seimundi - 80) Yellow-bellied prinia, Prinia flaviventris 81) Chinese pond heron, Ardeola bacchus 82) Spotted dove, Spilopelia chinensis 83) Asian barred owlet, Glaucidium cuculoides 84) Mountain hawk-eagle, Nisaetus nipalensis 85) Eastern cattle egret, Bubulcus coromandus 86) Intermediate egret, Ardea intermedia 87) Black drongo, Dicrurus macrocercus 88) Asian openbill, Anastomus oscitans 89) Great egret, Ardea alba 90) Little grebe, Tachybaptus ruficollis 91) Siberian stonechat, Saxicola maurus 92) Zitting cisticola, Cisticola juncidis 93) Golden-headed cisticola, Cisticola exilis 94) White-throated kingfisher, Halcyon smyrnensis 95) Greater coucal, Centropus sinensis 96) Shikra, Accipiter badius 97) Striated grassbird, Megalurus palustris 98) White-breasted waterhen, Amaurornis phoenicurus 99) Common moorhen, Gallinula chloropus 100) Grey-headed lapwing, Vanellus cinereus 101) Burmese shrike, Lanius collurioides 102) Yellow bittern, Ixobrychus sinensis 103) Cotton pygmy goose, Nettapus coromandelianus 104) Plain prinia, Prinia inornata 105) Pheasant-tailed jacana, Hydrophasianus chirurgus 106) Eurasian coot, Fulica atra 107) Common myna, Acridotheres tristis 108) Feral pigeon, Columba livia 109) Cook's swift, Apus cooki - 110) Cinnamon bittern, Ixobrychus cinnamomeus 111) Long-tailed shrike, Lanius schach 112) Swinhoe's snipe, Gallinago megala 113) Germain's swiftlet, Aerodramus germani 114) Blue-tailed bee-eater, Merops philippinus 115) Great myna, Acridotheres grandis 116) Black-collared starling, Gracupica nigricollis 117) Red-whiskered bulbul, Pycnonotus jocosus 118) White-throated fantail, Rhipidura albicollis 119) Indochinese yuhina, Yuhina torqueola 120) Grey-chinned minivet, Pericrocotus solaris 121) Blue-winged leafbird, Chloropsis cochinchinensis 122) Wedge-tailed green pigeon, Treron sphenurus 123) Common cuckoo, Cuculus canoris 124) Grey-cheeked warbler, Phylloscopus poliogenys 125) Lesser necklaced laughingthrush, Garrulax monileger 126) Rufous-fronted babbler, Stachyridopsis rufifrons 127) Golden-throated barbet, Psilopogon franklinii 128) Silver-breasted broadbill, Serilophus lunatus 129) Ferruginous flycatcher, Muscicapa ferruginea 130) Golden babbler, Stachyridopsis chrysaea 131) Ratchet-tailed treepie, Temnurus temnurus 132) Scarlet minivet, Pericrocotus speciosus 133) Green imperial pigeon, Ducula aenea 134) White-browed scimitar-babbler, Pomatorhinus schisticeps 135) Tickell's blue flycatcher, Cyornis tickelliae 136) Slaty-backed forktail, Enicurus schistaceus 137) White-crowned forktail, Enicurus leschenaulti 138) Orange-bellied leafbird, Chloropsis hardwickii 139) Grey wagtail, Motacilla cinerea 140) Long-tailed broadbill, Psarisomus dalhousiae - 141) Olive-backed pipit, Anthus hodgsoni 142) Mountain fulvetta, Alcippe peracensis 143) Black-throated bushtit, Aegithalos concinnus 144) Black-throated laughingthrush, Pterorhinus chinensis 145) Sultan tit, Melanochlora sultanea 146) Black eagle, Ictinaetus malaiensis 147) Silver-eared mesia, Leiothrix argentauris 148) Blyth's shrike-babbler, Pteruthius aeralatus 149) Streak-eared bulbul, Pycnonotus conradi - 150) Japanese sparrowhawk, Accipiter gularis 151) House swift, Apus nipalensis - 152) Vietnamese greenfinch, Chloris monguilloti 153) White-rumped munia, Lonchura striata 154) Little cormorant, Microcarbo niger 155) Gould's sunbird, Aethopyga gouldiae 156) Hill prinia, Prinia superciliaris 157) Black-headed sibia, Heterophasia desgodinsi 158) Flavescent bulbul, Pycnonotus flavescens 159) Grey bush chat, Saxicola ferreus 160) Black-naped oriole, Oriolus chinensis 161) Scaly thrush, Zoothera dauma 162) Indochinese barbet, Psilopogon annamensis 163) Blue-winged minla, Actinodura cyanouroptera 164) Green-backed tit, Parus monticolus 165) Ashy bulbul, Hemixos flavala 166) Chestnut-vented nuthatch, Sitta nagaensis 167) Orange-headed thrush, Geokichla citrina 168) Lesser racket-tailed drongo, Dicrurus remifer 169) White-cheeked laughingthrush, Pterorhinus vassali 170) Eurasian hoopoe, Upupa epops 171) Vietnamese cutia, Cutia legalleni 172) Barred cuckoo-dove, Macropygia unchall 173) Verditer flycatcher, Eumyias thalassinus 174) Eurasian jay, Garrulus glandarius 175) Rufous woodpecker, Micropternus brachyurus 176) Mountain imperial pigeon, Ducula badia 177) Maroon oriole, Oriolus traillii 178) Large niltava, Niltava grandis 179) Dalat shrike-babbler, Pteruthius annamensis 180) Taiga flycatcher, Ficedula albicilla 181) Little pied flycatcher, Ficedula westermanni 182) Black-hooded laughingthrush, Garrulax milleti (heard only) 183) Blyth's leaf warbler, Phylloscopus reguloides 184) Mountain bulbul, Ixos mcclellandii - 185) Red-billed blue magpie, Urocissa erythroryncha 186) Grey-crowned crocias, Laniellus langbianis 187) Black-throated sunbird, Aethopyga saturata 188) Speckled piculet, Picumnus innominatus - 189) Mountain tailorbird, Phyllergates cucullatus 190) Red-billed scimitar-babbler, Pomatorhinus ochraceiceps 191) Yellow-billed nuthatch, Sitta solangiae 192) Vinous-breasted starling, Acridotheres burmannicus 193) Oriental dollarbird, Eurystomus orientalis - 194) Striated heron, Butorides striata 195) Common sandpiper, Actitis hypoleucos 196) Golden-fronted leafbird, Chloropsis aurifrons 197) Grey-faced tit-babbler, Macronus kelleyi 198) Ashy-headed green pigeon, Treron phayrei 199) Black-hooded oriole, Oriolus xanthornus 200) Van Hasselt's sunbird, Leptocoma brasiliana 201) Vernal hanging-parrot, Loriculus vernalis 202) Indian cuckoo, Cuculus micropterus 203) Black-and-red broadbill, Cymbirhynchus macrorhynchos 204) Siberian blue robin, Larvivora cyane 205) Bay woodpecker, Blythipicus pyrrhotis 206) Violet cuckoo, Chrysococcyx xanthorhynchus 207) Blue-eared barbet, Psilopogon duvaucelii 208) Pale-headed woodpecker, Gecinulus grantia 209) Blue-winged pitta, Pitta moluccensis 210) Scarlet-backed flowerpecker, Dicaeum cruentatum 211) Large cuckooshrike, Coracina macei 212) Golden-crested myna, Ampeliceps coronatus 213) Great iora, Aegithina lafresnayei 214) Blue-bearded bee-eater, Nyctyornis athertoni 215) Greater flameback, Chrysocolaptes guttacristatus 216) Great eared nightjar, Lyncornis macrotis - 217) White-crested laughingthrush, Garrulax leucolophus 218) Germain's peacock-pheasant, Polyplectron germaini 219) Indochinese cuckoo-shrike, Lalage polioptera 220) Laced woodpecker, Picus vittatus 221) Red turtle dove, Streptopelia tranquebarica 222) Lineated barbet, Psilopogon lineatus 223) Black-winged kite, Elanus caeruleus 224) Red-breasted parakeet, Psittacula alexandri 225) Stork-billed kingfisher, Pelargopsis capensis 226) Asian koel, Eudynamys scolopaceus 227) Oriental pied hornbill, Anthracoceros albirostris 228) Ochraceous bulbul, Alophoixus ochraceus 229) Indian roller, Coracias benghalensis 230) Grey-headed swamphen, Porphyrio poliocephalus 231) Oriental darter, Anhinga melanogaster 232) Purple heron, Ardea purpurea 233) Asian golden weaver, Ploceus hypoxanthus 234) Bronze-winged jacana, Metopidius indicus 235) Green peafowl, Pavo muticus 236) Grey-headed fish eagle, Haliaeetus ichthyaetus 237) Red-wattled lapwing, Vanellus indicus 238) Woolly-necked stork, Ciconia episcopus 239) Collared scops owl, Otus lettia 240) Large-tailed nightjar, Caprimulgus macrurus (heard only) - 241) Black bittern, Dupetor flavicollis 242) Siamese fireback, Lophura diardi 243) Chestnut-headed bee-eater, Merops leschenaulti - 244) Coppersmith barbet, Psilopogon haemacephalus 245) Orange-breasted trogon, Harpactes oreskios MAMMALS: 1) Pallas’ squirrel, Callosciurus erythraeus 2) Javan mongoose, Herpestes javanicus 3) Maritime striped squirrel, Tamiops maritimus 4) Berdmore's ground squirrel, Menetes berdmorei - 5) Delacour's langur, Trachypithecus delacouri - 6) Asian red-cheeked ground squirrel, Dremomys rufigenis 7) Burmese ferret-badger, Melogale personata - 8) Northern buff-cheeked gibbon, Nomascus annamensis (heard only) 9) Red-shanked douc, Pygathrix nemaeus 10) Black giant squirrel, Ratufa bicolor - 11) Rhesus macaque, Macaca mulatta 12) Crab-eating macaque, Macaca fascicularis - 13) Northern smooth-tailed tree-shrew, Dendrogale murina - 14) Southern buff-cheeked gibbon, Nomascus gabriellae 15) Northern tree shrew, Tupaia belangeri 16) Sambar, Rusa unicolor - 17) Black-shanked douc, Pygathrix nigripes And to continue the trends: FBBird Pheasant Tally - 5 Red junglefowl, Gallus gallus - Silver pheasant, Lophura nycthemera (ssp beli & ssp beaulieui) Siamese fireback pheasant, Lophura diardi - Germain's peacock-pheasant, Polyplectron germaini Green peafowl, Pavo muticus Vietnam Primate Update - 7 Delacour's langur, Trachypithecus delacouri Red-shanked douc, Pygathrix nemaeus Black-shanked douc, Pygathrix nigripes - Rhesus macaque, Macaca mulatta Crab-eating macaque, Macaca fascicularis - Northern buff-cheeked gibbon, Nomascus annamensis (heard only) Southern buff-cheeked gibbon, Nomascus gabriellae
I've finally managed to find time to get my pictures uploaded to the Vietnam - Wildlife gallery! Apologies in advance for the slightly inconsistent quality, as mentioned in this thread earlier my fairly old lens couldn't quite handle the constant heat/moisture very well which meant that the autofocus all but stopped working after the first few days, and it turns out adjusting completely to manual focus takes some time. The majority of the species were already pictured on zoochat, but I think I did fill a few holes - Bar-bellied pitta probably being the most relevant. I will try getting some pictures up from the EPRC and Save Vietnam's Wildlife as well, but I'm not 100% certain which parts of both places were on/offshow so I don't know how much I'm allowed to post - I'll make sure to comment when I upload a few pics.
I know what that's like. My zoom lens is from a different camera body, so when I use it the auto-focus doesn't work and every photo has to be manual. I compensate by taking absolutely loads of photos of any one animal in the hope of getting a few good photos!
