INTRODUCTION
In February and March 2012 my wife and I spent 3 weeks in Vietnam and northern Laos. My wife is a non-birder, so only part of the trip was devoted to birding. Our itinerary took us from Saigon (as many people still call it) to Cat Tien National Park (3 nights), Dalat (3 nights), Hoi An, Hue, Cuc Phuong National Park (1 night), Van Long Lake, Hanoi, Halong Bay; and then via Hanoi to Luang Prabang in Laos, Muang La, a 2 day boat journey down the Nam Ou River stopping at Nong Khiaw, and finally joining the Mekong River for the final return stretch to Luang Prabang.
Cat Tien, Dalat, Cuc Phuong and Van Long are all well-known birding destinations in Vietnam. In each I used a local guide laid on by Richard Craik of Vietnambirding.com. (Richard@vietnambirding.com). Northern Laos, so far as I can tell, is basically not visited by birders and there are no local birding guides (per Richard Craik). Very limited time and lack of immediate familiarity with the birds meant that I did not see a lot in Laos, but I soon realised that the notion that birds there are very hard to find was wrong: at least in some places and situations they were quite numerous.
So I thought I would write this report to include some up-to-date impressions of the 4 birding destinations in Vietnam that I visited; some impressions of the local guides that I used; some ideas of what birds can be seen on brief visits to these locations; some impressions of the opportunities (or the lack of them) for birders away from these destinations; and some impressions of the opportunities for birders in northern Laos.
YOU MUSTN’T TALK ABOUT POLITICS ON THIS SITE
I’m sorry, but I cannot help it. When it comes to Vietnam, there is an enormous elephant in the room. The Vietnam War (known in Vietnam as the American War, to distinguish it from 2000 years of Chinese domination, 100 years of French colonial rule and 5 years of Japanese occupation during WW2) consumed the emotions and lives of huge numbers of people worldwide in the 1960s and 1970s. Median estimates suggest 2,000,000 Vietnamese civilians died during the war, 1,100,000 soldiers from North Vietnam and the Viet Cong (the communist guerrilla supporters of the North Vietnamese) died, 266,000 South Vietnamese troops died, 58,000 Americans died, and about 643,000 South Vietnamese perished during the years of communist “consolidation” following the fall of Saigon in 1975. This was blood-letting on a terrible scale.
What was the result of all this? Vietnam now is probably very different from what either side would have expected. It has become a tiger economy, embracing capitalism with glee, though subject to a strict one party government. People are pragmatic and like the West (it is China they detest). I think what happened is that the collapse of Soviet communism at the end of the 1980s caused scales to fall from the eyes of the ruling elite. They perhaps also realised that they did not want to end up like North Korea (where it was recently announced that the growth of its citizens is so stunted that anybody over 4’9”, or 144cm, is welcome to join the army).
As somebody who in the long years of the war avidly followed the news, it never occurred to me that someday I would get to visit Saigon, Da Nang airbase, Hue and Hanoi and revisit the era of the Tet offensive, My Lai, Hanoi Jane, Uncle Ho and LBJ (here standing for Lyndon Baines Johnson rather than little brown jobs). I wondered if there would still be reminders of the war (yes, especially the museums etc in the cities; the descriptions by the guides of how their families fared; and learning that Cat Tien in part owed its protection at this time to the fact that all the villagers living there were moved out so that it could be a “free-fire zone” –planes could shoot at VC insurgents in the area without fear of “collateral damage”). And I wondered how the Vietnamese would react to westerners (very well indeed as it turned out).
As for Laos, I really knew nothing about the place save that it had played a little-known role in the war. I was intrigued to find out more. So for me this whole trip stirred distant but still rumbling memories.
BACK TO BIRDING
How should a birder tackle Vietnam? Standard holidays there do not visit the birding hot-spots, save that some do include Dalat, and Sapa (which we did not visit) is a well-known backpacker destination. Renting your own car is very tricky: driving in the region of Saigon and Hanoi struck me as a non-starter, since the roads are awful, there are dangers from manic bus drivers charging down the middle of the road, there are unbelievable hordes of mopeds weaving every which way, and there are few useful road signs. The guides I met had not encountered westerners renting cars. That leaves three options. If you are a top calibre birder and able to acquire a library of playback calls and songs, and you have the expertise to ID the birds in the field, then it would make sense to hire a car/minibus plus a driver, bearing in mind that few drivers speak English; some birders have travelled by bus and train, though you would need a lot of time for this . Or you can join an organised group birding tour, usually led by a westerner and one or more local guides. Or you can travel independently and hire local guides for some or all of your trip. The advantages of an organised tour are obvious, but bear in mind that in tropical rainforest the ideal ratio of guide to client is about 1:1. It can be very frustrating when multiple numbers of tour participants are all trying to latch onto some elusive bird visible only through a small gap in the foliage. This could be especially the case in Cat Tien where the jungle vegetation can be very dense. The advantages of local guides are again obvious, but bear in mind that you have no prior knowledge of just how good or reliable the guide is.
What we decided to do was to travel independently to the standard tourist destinations and to graft on the birding segments. These were arranged by Vietnambirding.com, and involved transport by minibus to and from the birding destinations and the provision of local guides at each of them. In birding terms this worked very well at Cat Tien and Dalat, less well at Cuc Phuong and Van Long. Obviously I also kept my eyes open for birds in the other areas we visited.
Richard Craik has been a pioneer of developing birding tours in Vietnam and in encouraging local guides to develop their birding skills. I take my hat off to anybody who can do this. I believe that one of the best ways to conserve habitat and birds is to get local people to realise that that good habitat and wildlife have an economic as well as an environmental value -- and that they can have a stake in this -- and this is what he does. Apart from Vietnambirding’s organisation, which is based in Saigon, you can find local guides on sites such as birdingpal.com. It would also be worth contacting Bao Nguyen at birdvietnam@gmail.com, who runs his own birding tours the full length of Vietnam.
THE ROAD TO CAT TIEN
After a day sightseeing in Saigon ( I much liked the Presidential/Independence Palace), Vietnambirding’s driver met us on time after breakfast and we set off. The journey to Cat Tien on 19th February was slow, taking over three hours. Beyond Tree Sparrows, a Brown Shrike and a few Asian Palm Swifts, there were virtually no roadside birds. We passed long suburban tracts (the houses are characteristic, being tall, narrow, elegant and brightly painted) and then endless paddyfields, holding egrets as we got further from Saigon.
The Park at Cat Tien (pronounced Ka-teen) lies on the western side of the Dong Nhai River, which at this point runs north to south. As vehicles arrive from the east, you have to cross the river by boat in order to reach the HQ. Some birders stay here. The Forest Floor Lodge, where we stayed for 3 nights, is reckoned to be better. It is about 1 mile north of the HQ overlooking the river. We liked the Lodge a lot: really nice cabins, great ambience, reasonably good food and helpful staff.
The Park holds one of the last tracts of lowland rainforest in Vietnam. Despite constant pressures from farmers and poachers, the rangers seem to make a decent fist of protecting it. Our birding guide here was Mr Duyen, a quiet and gentle man of about 60 who had served in the North Vietnamese Army as a guard at the border with China. He has worked in the Park for many years and knows it and its birds as well as anybody. His English was a bit basic, but his ability to locate and identify forest birds was absolutely first-rate.
19th FEBRUARY BIRDS AT CAT TIEN
Having reached the Lodge about lunchtime, Duyen took us at about 3 pm in an open 4WD vehicle south along the main track, parallel to the river, for about 6 miles. We passed through some dense forest (with hindsight I would like to have stopped to have a look at some flowering and fruiting trees near the HQ at the start of the drive), then more open forest, in due course reaching an area of grass and bushes. Our destination was a rather rickety observation tower overlooking a broad swathe of grassland. En route we saw 10 Golden-crested Mynahs feeding in a blossoming tree along with 8 Hair-crested Drongos, and then many species including 1 Cinnamon Bittern, 1 Shikra, 2 Red-wattled Lapwings, 10+ Red-breasted Parakeets, 2 Chestnut-headed Bee-eaters, 1 Large Cuckoo-shrike, 1 Greater Racket-tailed Drongo, 2 Racket-tailed Treepies, 1 Eastern Stonechat, 1 Pied Bushchat, 2 Verditer Flycatchers, 1 Asian Brown Flycatcher, 1 Sooty-headed Bulbul, 1 Red-rumped Swallow, 1 Arctic Warbler, 1 Pale-legged Leaf Warbler, 1 Chestnut-capped Babbler and 2 Plain Prinia. Best of all were the 5 Green Peafowl, including 2 males, strolling and strutting through the clumps of grass looking exotically absurd and iconic. Dusk fell as we returned and 1 Large-tailed Nightjar hurried overhead.
20th FEBRUARY BIRDS AT CAT TIEN
Because I had perhaps not done enough research, and perhaps because I did not clearly understand what Duyen was telling me, the day turned out to be a lot more tiring for me ( I have some interesting medical conditions) than I had expected. What we did was to drive slowly, with many stops, north-west from the Lodge along a jeep track to the start of the Bau Sau trail. As I now know this runs for about 3 miles to Crocodile Lake; you then have to return 3 miles on the same trail, for there is no link to any other trail or to any jeep track at Crocodile Lake. So you have to be prepared for a substantial hike in weather that is often very hot. I wasn’t, and I did suffer a bit.
We did not reach Crocodile Lake till about midday. It’s obviously outstanding habitat, but I saw little there save 1 Black-backed Swamphen and 2 Black-naped Monarchs. There are a couple of buildings there, and birders can stay overnight in one of them.
However we did fairly well on the jeep track and on the trail. Birds included 3 Scaly-breasted Partridge, an astonishing 12 Siamese Firebacks seen from our vehicle, in small groups or pairs, and some crossing the jeep track very close to us, 1 Germain’s Peacock Pheasant, 5 Woolly-necked Storks, 1 Lesser Adjutant, 2 Crested Serpent Eagle, 6 Green Imperial Pigeons, 1 Emerald Dove, 3 Thick-billed Green Pigeons, 2 Vernal Hanging Parakeets, 3 Red-breasted Parakeets, 1 Violet Cuckoo, 1 Green-billed Malkoha, 1 Orange-breasted Trogon, 1 Green-eared Barbet (many heard), 1 Blue-eared Barbet (many heard), 1 Red-vented Barbet (several heard), 1 Heart-spotted Woodpecker, 2 Blue-winged and 2 Golden-fronted Leafbirds, 1 Grey-faced Tit Babbler, 3 Pin-striped Tit Babbler, 1 Scaly-crowned Babbler and 6 White-crested Laughing Thrushes.
Pittas were the biggest frustration. Duyen located 1 Blue-rumped Pitta, but it did not show. He then found no fewer than 15 calling Bar-bellied Pittas; using playback he saw 3 of them; my slow eyes only picked out the flimsiest of glimpses of one rather distant bird. These birds are not slam dunks.
There was some compensation in the evening : on cue at 6.10 pm 5 Great-eared Nightjars cruised elegantly south over the river.
21st FEBRUARY BIRDS AT CAT TIEN: THE DUDE WILL OUT
The cries of Yellow-cheeked Gibbons in the primate centre filled the sky as dawn broke. We set off on the 4WD vehicle north-east from the Lodge along the Heaven’s Rapids trail. This yielded 1 Ashy-headed Green Pigeon (what a shame we can’t call this one Pompadour Pigeon any more), 1 Thick-billed Green Pigeon, 4 Red-breasted Parakeet, 1 Indian Cuckoo, 2 Green-billed Malkohas, 1 calling Asian Barred Owlet, 2 Great Hornbill, 1 Bay Woodpecker, 1 Great Iora, 1 Purple-naped Sunbird, 2 Velvet-fronted Nuthatch, 1 Hainan Blue Flycatcher, 2 Ochraceous Bulbul and 1 Yellow-bellied Warbler.
Despite this steady trickle of goodies, we were finding it hard going at Cat Tien, not because the trails were hard ( they were easy), not because it was desperately hot or wet (the weather was fine and warm throughout our stay), and not because we were savaged by leeches or bugs (we saw none), but because the forest was flat and often dense with limited sightlines. There were no natural or artificial viewpoints. Birds were mostly wary; and trying to locate a fast-moving dot hidden in the canopy or the undergrowth got wearing. And although Duyen located more Bar-bellied Pittas, none were showing. My wife became mutinous. And for my part I was beginning to feel stir crazy in the rainforest.
I know this is sacrilege, but my inner dude could not be contained.
So in the afternoon we opted for a change of scenery. We took an 8 mile boat trip downstream to the village of Ta Lai. This was more productive than I had expected. Many hundreds of Black-crowned Night Herons crowded the riverbanks. Dozens of kingfishers, including 2 Black-capped Kingfishers, zapped about. 20 Orange-breasted Green Pigeons, 20 Golden-crested Mynahs, 4 Vinous-breasted Starlings and 6 White-vented Mynahs sat in riverside trees and flew overhead. Ta Lai itself bordered extensive paddyfields which held lots of birds including 2 Pintail Snipe, 2 Ashy Wood Swallow and 2 Richard’s Pipits. The highlight of the village itself was a beautiful little bamboo church.
In the evening the Great-eared Nightjars again performed their 6.10 pm flypast. A Golden-crested Mynah roosted on top of a dead tree next to the Lodge.
I did not do a night drive at Cat Tien because some other guests said they had not seen any birds when they had gone out the previous night. However I later learnt that Blyth’s Frogmouth was showing itself on occasions. The joys of hindsight! You should check directly with your guide about this.
22nd FEBRUARY BIRDS AT CAT TIEN
In the morning we visited another site birders usually miss, the primate centre which lies on a large island in the river. It is home to rescued White-cheeked and Yellow-cheeked Gibbons. These endangered animals must be some of the most attractive primates in existence. The forest here is a bit more open and some trees were in flower. A short walk yielded 1 Crested Serpent Eagle, 2 Ashy-headed Green Pigeons, 1 Banded Bay Cuckoo, 2 Brown-backed Needletails, 1 Stork-billed Kingfisher, 1 White-browed Piculet, 2 Red and Black Broadbills, 2 Ashy Minivets, 2 Little Spiderhunters, 2 Blue-winged and 2 Golden-fronted Leafbirds and 1 Stripe-throated Bulbul.
22nd FEBRUARY : THE ROAD TO DALAT
We left Cat Tien about 10.30 am. Once again the road journey was slower than I had expected: we did not reach Dalat till shortly before 4.00 pm. Once again there were very few roadside birds to be seen. As we approached Dalat we began to see hills with some forest on them.
Set on a plateau at about 4500 feet, Dalat was once a small hill town with a pleasant climate that was a centre of French administration, and some period buildings are carefully preserved. Today it is much larger, the main centre in Vietnam for growing flowers and vegetables. Many square miles on the plateau are given over to cultivation. There is plenty here for ordinary tourists: temples, pagodas, a large silkworm centre and a scenic cable car ride. New resorts (ie hotel/apartment type developments) are springing up, overlooking lakes and 6000 foot mountains such as the famous Mount Langbian. None of this area is protected, and there is some loss of habitat. Nonetheless it is still the case that a drive of only 15 to 20 minutes can take you into excellent forest habitat. For instance at the also famous Ta Ninh Valley, although some modest degradation has occurred, you can still see hills rolling away from you for miles to the horizon with good forest on them. The forest varies in density; pines are mixed in with broad-leaved species; the sightlines tend to be better than at Cat Tien. And for some reason, despite what is no doubt a severe rate of attrition to the birds there from the predations of the many hunters in the area, birds were often easy to find and to see. The brisker and cooler weather was a further bonus.
22nd FEBRUARY BIRDS AT DALAT
Arriving at our hotel as late as we did, I feared that the guide would say it was too late to do any birding. However I was in for a pleasant surprise. Our guide Mr Luyen met us promptly and transferred us to another car. We set off for a section of the forest that edged Tuyen Lam Lake, a massive, complex-shaped reservoir.
I’m afraid that I cannot give useful directions to the sites that we visited over the next few days. I was a complete stranger to the area, there were brand new roads popping up all over the place, and there were simply no road signs.
This late afternoon visit produced 2 Oriental Hobby, Annam Barbets heard, 1 male Slender-billed Oriole, 2 Eurasian Jay, 1 Burmese Shrike, 4 Vietnamese Greenfinches, 1 Black-collared Starling, 3 Mountain Bulbuls and 6 White-cheeked Laughing Thrushes.
Luyen had quickly shown himself to be an outstanding guide. He spoke good English, he was friendly and articulate, and he was a genius at finding and identifying the birds.
We stayed at the Hotel du Parc: first rate, but it had no garden, though there was access to the formal lawned garden of another hotel across the road. I don’t know if there are any hotels yet outside town where birders might find good habitat.
23rd FEBRUARY BIRDS AT DALAT
Luyen picked me up early in the morning and we set off towards a tarmac road that ran high above a different section of Tuyen Lam Lake. A good trail led uphill off this road and led to a less-used trail which I dubbed Luyen’s Trail (it’s an old hunters’ trail that Luyen came across and where he found lots of good birds). We didn’t actually cover much ground because there was plenty to see and with patience we were able to get good views of many of the species. These included 2 Grey-faced Buzzard, several Annam Barbets (calling abundantly in the more open forest), 1 Golden-throated Barbet (several calling in the thicker forest), 1 White-browed Shrike Babbler ( this bird, perhaps to be split as the Dalat Shrike Babbler, can apparently be very tricky to find, but at this time it was calling in abundance), 2 Indochinese Cuckoo Shrikes, 1 Long-tailed Minivet, 2 Lesser Racket-tailed Drongos, 2 Mrs Gould’s Sunbirds, 1 Streaked Spiderhunter , 1 Chestnut-vented Nuthatch, 2 Grey Bushchats, 2 Grey-headed Canary Flycatchers, 2 Grey-crowned Tits, 6 Black Bulbuls, 1 Flavescent Bulbul, 1 White-tailed Leaf Warbler, many Yellow-browed Warblers, 2 Mountain Fulvettas and 2 Blue-winged Sivas. We also heard Bar-backed Partridge, Black-hooded Laughing Thrush and got very close to an obstinate Blue Pitta calling close by the trail.
In the afternoon we drove down to the lower elevation Ta Nung Valley. Though famed for the prolixity of its birds, we found it rather quiet. However we did manage to see a distant Black Eagle being mobbed by a Mountain Hawk Eagle, 4 Mountain Imperial Pigeons, 1 Red-headed Trogon, 1 stunning male Black-throated Sunbird, 2 Pale Blue Flycatchers, 1 Rufous-backed Sibia, and 1 Hill Prinia. We heard distant Orange-breasted Laughing Thrush but it did not respond to the playback.
24th FEBRUARY BIRDS AT DALAT
Luyen arrived in the morning with a wonderfully ancient (65 years old) American Jeep that he lovingly maintained (the other car was undergoing repair). We returned to Luyen’s Trail. During the morning we slowly climbed about 2 kilometers up it to a ridge at about 4650 feet. Good birds were with us from the outset. Our tally of birds seen included 2 Black Eagles gliding low overhead, 1 Rufous Woodpecker, 1 Chestnut-fronted Shrike Babbler, several White-browed Shrike Babbler, 2 Fiery Minivet, 1 Burmese Shrike, 2 Streaked Spiderhunters, 1 Lesser Shortwing, 1 Pale Blue Flycatcher, 1 Flavescent Bulbul, 2 Black Bulbuls, 2 Collared Laughing Thrushes (good views of two that eventually responded to playback on top of the ridge), 3 Vietnamese Cutias (including a very striking male), 1 Grey-crowned Crocias (the rarest and most localised of the endemics, you really have to go to Dalat to see this bird, though it has recently been discovered at a site about 130 miles away. The bird incidentally was much larger than I had anticipated, being the size of a Starling. I saw one bird well out of a small group that eventually responded to playback) and 4 Red Crossbills. Quite a morning! In fact this was one of the most enjoyable mornings of tropical forest birding I have known. We also heard Collared Owlet, Red-headed Trogon, Green Cochoa close to, Maroon Oriole and Red-billed Scimitar Babbler.
In the afternoon we returned to the Ta Nung Valley. Again it was a bit quiet, producing only 2 Barred Cuckoo Doves, 15 White-cheeked Laughing Thrushes, 1 Rufous-backed Sibia and 1 Black-capped Sibia. And again the Orange-breasted Laughing Thrush disappointed: singing distantly but not responding to playback.
Luyen drove me back to town just avoiding a downpour of rain.
YOU DON’T NEED TO KNOW THIS
Beware of metal cutlery in Dalat. The spoons in particular are made of such thin metal that they bend into weird shapes upon the merest touch with a chicken bone.
ONWARDS AND UPWARDS
We flew from Dalat northwards to Da Nang, whence we drove to the coastal town and resort of Hoi An. The town is noted as a centre for architecture and cuisine, though we thought it a bit over-rated on both scores. The Victoria Resort Hotel sits on a beach and has a pool and is good. There were few birds however. On some fish farms and paddyfields across a river running behind the hotel parallel to the seashore, there were many egrets and herons, some distant waders and a lone Osprey. It looked like private land, but a closer look might have been possible.
Hoi An was full of caged birds. I saw my only Grey-capped Greenfinch of the trip flying around just inside the open entrance of a shop: I guess it had just escaped from a cage and was on its way to freedom.
Birders tend not to visit Hoi An. Instead they head for sites such as the Lo Xo Pass.
After a couple of days the sunny weather gave way to a constant “mizzle”, a mixture of mist and drizzle. The sea became glaucous and visibility declined, though it was mostly still adequate. The “mizzle” stayed with us for the rest of our stay in Vietnam.
From Hoi An we drove to Hue. Once again I saw few roadside birds. However it is worth mentioning the Hai Van Pass, a forested spur of mountain that reaches the sea just north of Hoi An. Because a tunnel takes most of the traffic under the mountain, it is easy to stop on the old road as it loops over the spur: I did notice a couple of birds disappear into the mist.
Hue has some great pagodas and temples and, above all, the Imperial Citadel, basically a small town enclosed by impenetrable stone walls around it. Most of the town was destroyed during the Tet Offensive of 1968, and you can still see the bullet holes in the walls. The pagodas and temples held some birds such as Grey Tits and white-eyes in the surrounding trees. The Citadel held 2 Chinese Blackbirds, 1 Eastern Stonechat and 4 Common Ioras. A boat trip on the Perfume River yielded nothing.
We stayed at the Pilgrimage Village Hotel just outside Hue. It had sizeable, heavily wooded grounds which looked very birdy. However there was little gain from a two hour walk and watch in the afternoon.
THE ROAD TO CUC PHUONG
On 1st March we flew early from Hue to Hanoi. Vietnambirding’s driver arrived 30 minutes late. As with previous drivers, he spoke no English. We drove south though paddyfield after paddyfield, heads with conical hats bobbing methodically to the horizon as far as the eye could see. Again the road and traffic were bad. Eventually hills emerged out of the mist. We passed through one, almost apocalyptic, area where vast machines, like creatures from War of the Worlds, ate up limestone mountains to feed nearby cement factories.
It took about 3 hours to reach the National Park of Cuc Phuong, in time for lunch. After the shock of the degraded landscape we had seen, Cuc Phuong was an astonishing contrast and revelation. The forest here was magnificent, majestic, magnetic. It carpeted both the steep limestone slopes and the valley floors. The sightlines were often good, though the “mizzle” made visibility sometimes less than perfect. I soon regretted that we had only booked in for one night. It meant that we only had one afternoon, one evening and one morning there: try to stay there longer if you can.
The Park HQ is reached shortly after the Park entrance. Here were cabins for visitors and a cafeteria. From the HQ a road goes several miles to the sub-station at Bong. Some birders prefer to stay there: I assume the facilities are pretty basic.
Vietnambirding had originally arranged for my birding guide to be Mr Tien, who worked at the Park. However he had left in order to work freelance. His replacement was Mr Bay, who also worked at the Park.
1st MARCH BIRDS AT CUC PHUONG.
Mr Bay proved very helpful in taking me to a site where he lured in 2 Limestone Wren Babblers in the mid-afternoon. We got close to (yet another) calling Bar-bellied Pitta. He guided me along a good trail along a valley beyond the sub-station at Bong. Here I had great views of 1 Crested Goshawk perched in a nearby tree: it pulled in 1 Black-winged Cuckoo Shrike, 1 male Maroon Oriole, 1 Large Woodshrike and 1 Sultan Tit. We also saw 1 White-winged Magpie, 1 Black-browed Fulvetta and 1 Puff-throated Bulbul.
Mr Bay was clearly an asset in finding forest birds, but I formed the view that he was not quite in the same league as Duyen and Luyen. I must stress that this view was formed on short acquaintance. In fact this acquaintance was much shorter than it should have been: he told me at the end of the afternoon that he would be unable to guide me the following morning because of a family health problem and that a deputy director at the Park would take his place. Obviously this was a considerable setback , but there was nothing I could do about it.
In the evening we did enjoy some consolation during a brief night drive to Bong and back. We flushed two smallish owls, one of which perched in a roadside tree. I later concluded (from the field marks and from pictures on the internet) that this was a Collared Scops Owl. We also heard Brown Wood Owl.
2nd MARCH BIRDS AT CUC PHUONG
The Deputy Director (who knew little about the birds) and I set off in our minivan early along the road to Bong. However we were not the first that morning to drive this road, which is good in the early morning for wintering thrushes and Silver Pheasant on the verges, so, apart from 3 Olive-backed Pipits, we only saw 1 Japanese Thrush and a few unidentified thrushes: (two morals: make sure yours is the first vehicle to go down the road, and drive very slowly.) In the forest near Bong I managed to find 1 Emerald Dove, 1 White-browed Piculet, 1 Fork-tailed Sunbird, 1 Verditer Flycatcher, 2 Puff-throated Babblers and 2 Puff-throated Bulbuls. Later we returned to the HQ and walked around the botanical garden (open forest rather than formal garden) where I found 1 Pied Falconet (high in a dead, mist-shrouded tree at the entrance to the botanical garden), 2 Ratchet-tailed Treepies and 1 White-winged Magpie, with 3 more back at the HQ.
Non-birders can visit an excellent primate centre as well as the botanical garden.
On my return to UK I asked Richard Craik about my experience with Mr Bay. He pointed out that Bay is the only resident birding guide at Cuc Phuong and that all the birders he sends there now use his services. Richard does have a roster of top-rate guides who have country-wide experience, and it might be worth discussing with him if it would be feasible to bring in one of them, especially if you are going to combine a visit to Cuc Phuong with a visit to another destination in the north such as Sapa.
There was also a separate disappointment at Cuc Phuong. The cabin accommodation was clean but very simple, and the food in the cafeteria was really too basic. This wonderful Park deserves better, perhaps something like the Forest Floor Lodge at Cat Tien.
2nd MARCH BIRDS AT VAN LONG LAKE
After lunch we drove an hour north back towards Hanoi, turning off the main road for a few miles before reaching Van Long. Once again there was an extraordinary contrast between the mediocre roadside surroundings and the sudden, enchanting vision as Van Long came into view. It is a large, shallow, man-made lake , with vast slabs of limestone mountains, covered in forest, randomly plonked down in and around the lake. A wizened woman paddled us skilfully out on a tiny wooden skiff. Herons and egrets were abundant. Short reed beds held numbers of smaller birds whose calls I could hear. Van Long is home to the exceedingly rare Delacour’s Langur (total world population about 250) whose black and white fur blends in remarkably well with the colours of the rock. I saw a family party with 3 youngsters. Birds were interesting (though there was a dearth of ducks): in the mid-afternoon I saw 3 Pheasant-tailed Jacanas, 2 White-browed Crakes (flushed by our boat), and 2 Paddyfield Pipits.
A brand new hotel overlooking the lake and the mountains, the Van Long Hotel, has just opened and might be worth considering: Van Long is great habitat as well as being stunning to look at, and birders have had lots of good species here over the years.
Two hours later we were back in Hanoi, the “mizzle” still drooping over the high-rise buildings.
HANOI AND HALONG BAY
Hanoi heaved with tourists, gazing at Ho Chi Minh as he lay in his mausoleum guarded by goose-stepping military. Much better was the Water Puppet Theatre, a must-see. Hawkers offered to fix my overworn hiking boots with superglue. But there no birds in the city centre.
We drove to Halong Bay. Indescribably, achingly, hypnotically beautiful, nearly 2000 islands lying in the jade sea, daubed with mist and greenery; also indescribably full of tourists, especially on the one island we were able to land on (the one with the three caves); and bereft of any viewable birds of note, just kites and crows.
We returned to Hanoi for our evening flight to Laos on 5th March.
FIVE VERY INTERESTING THOUGHTS ABOUT VIETNAM.
First, this was a good time of year to visit Cat Tien and Dalat in that the weather was very benign. As for central and northern Vietnam, whilst the weather was a bit glutinous, I never lost any birding time because of it. This is the time favoured by many bird tour operators.
Second, from what I saw, you will find few birds away from the known hot-spots. Any thoughts of good roadside birding were disappointed. There are obviously intense pressures on bird populations. Restaurant menus feature birds. Vast numbers are caged (the commonest that I saw being Red-whiskered Bulbul). This probably explains the dearth of roadside birds, along with the poor habitat and the sheer volume of traffic. If you can do so, you may find it better to use internal flights (which we found very efficient) whenever there is a handy airport (as at Dalat). By way of ample compensation the hot-spots I visited were outstandingly good.
Third, Richard Craik’s arrangements worked very well overall, and I thought Mr Duyen and Mr Luyen both first-rate. I was less convinced by Mr Bay; you could ask Richard about this (he may think I’m wrong).
Fourth, and this is a statement of the exceeding obvious, the more time and determination you can give to your birding, the more you will see. In my relatively brief time in the field I did manage to see most of the headline species, particularly in Dalat, but clearly there were a lot of birds that I missed. I saw 213 species in Vietnam, with about 25 heard: not a brilliant tally, but probably a fair result overall.
Fifth, I got the impression from what various people said that playback payback – where birds get bored or disconcerted at hearing the calls of their suitors or rivals, only to find that they are produced by lumpy humans, and so decide not to oblige the humans by responding – may be becoming a factor. Thus Mr Luyen specifically advised me at Dalat not to tackle the ascent and hike on Mount Langbian in order to see Collared Laughing Thrush: many birders fail to see the species there because it no longer responds. He recommended using Luyen’s Trail, which is much less used by birders, and said he could almost guarantee showing me birds there – and so it proved. Guides who can keep finding new sites for the goodies obviously will have an edge.
SOMEWHERE OVER THE RAINBOW .......
It was dark when our flight from Hanoi began its descent to Luang Prabang. Northern Laos seemed to be virgin territory for birders; travellers rave about the place; and so the omens looked good. As a bonus we had been told that blue skies would await us.
Not far from Luang Prabang I began to see scarlet crescents flickering in the black void below. What could this be? We soon found out. As we stepped off the aircraft at the airport, we smelled smoke. This was the burning season.
It was only the next morning that we could see just how bad the problem was. Sun-blotting, ash-dropping smoke was everywhere. Some of it came locally from rice farmers burning off dead vegetation; some from teak plantations where workers burn the dead leaves in the belief that this accelerates the growth of the trees; some was down to slash and burn; some may have drifted in from northern Vietnam (we saw none there in the very small area we visited) or Thailand. Nobody seems able to do anything about it despite the obvious health hazards. It is a major problem in March and April, and it was present everywhere in Laos that we visited. So my first suggestion is that you should not go to northern Laos in those months: we were told that the autumn months, when the weather is also good, were better.
HOW DO YOU PRONOUNCE LAOS?
The “S” is pronounced. Anybody who says it is silent is being pretentious. Lao is the language spoken there. This landlocked country was at the core of an “unknown war” that paralleled the Vietnam war, partly because the Ho Chi Minh trail (which took Viet Cong soldiers from the north of Vietnam down to the south) bypassed the Americans by the expedient of going through Laos, and also because a renegade faction of the Royal Family, allied with a communist insurgency (calling itself the Pathet Lao) waged a civil war against the Government. This insurgency was inspired and run by the North Vietnamese. The CIA masterminded ground operations against the communists and US planes dropped huge numbers of bombs. After many years of destructive warfare the monarchy was overthrown and the communists seized power. Laos remains to a considerable extent a client state of Vietnam. The people remain steeped in Buddhism. It is a really nice country to travel around. The population is less than 10% of that of Vietnam, so streets and roads are quiet and there was little urban development and no large-scale paddyfields in the areas we visited.
BACK TO BIRDING.
Laos is mainly known for the “Baldbul”, discovered just a few years ago in Central Laos. I have seen virtually no reports from anywhere in Northern Laos, and none at all from the places we went to. I think people assume the birds there are similar to those in northern Thailand and northern Vietnam, and are also influenced by the notion that “there are no birds in Laos” because of hunting pressures. In the north-west there is a protected area at Luang Namtha, and a couple of surveys there some years ago yielded an impressive list. Luang Namtha is accessible by air from Luang Prabang, and there is accommodation at the Boat Landing Guest House.
The route we took started with 2 nights in Luang Prabang (overlooking the Mekong River, this is a seriously beautiful city, fully deserving its superlatives). We then drove roughly 150 miles north to Muang La Resort, a very pleasant boutique hotel with views of mountains, forests and a small river; we stayed 2 nights here, taking a 4 WD drive organised by the resort up a fairly good road to some ethnic minority villages, the highest being a Hmong village at about 4500 feet. Next we drove about 30 miles to a port on the Nam Ou River, a tributary of the Mekong, at Muang Khua. Here we joined a long, narrow, wooden boat with a big engine that propelled us 140 miles downstream over 2 days, taking us down the Nam Ou till it joined the Mekong, and finally down to Luang Prabang. We flew out of Luang Prabang on 11th March.
ARE THERE ANY BIRDS IN LAOS?
There is no doubt that large numbers of birds are killed by hunters using traditional traps or guns and are also killed by kids barely able to walk with catapults. So far as I could see, birds were not kept in cages as in Vietnam: they were simply eaten.
Nonetheless I did find birds. In the grounds of our hotel in Luang Prabang there were quite a few species including Asian Barred Owlet, Taiga Flycatcher and Scarlet-backed Flowerpecker. On the drive north occasional mid-morning stops proved that roadside birds were present, but there was no time to spend on trying to identify species with which I was not immediately familiar. At Muang La Resort common birds such as Grey Wagtail, Sooty-headed and Red-whiskered Bulbuls and Yellow-browed Warblers were easy to see. An early morning walk over the bridge and along some forest edge again proved that birds were quite plentiful (thus a flock of probable yuhinas flew across the river) but once again time and lack of familiarity hindered identifications. The drive into the mountains was the same: lots of good forest habitat (despite some degradation), lots of roadside birds (only common species such as Olive-backed Sunbird actually identified). A few large raptors distantly disappeared over ridges or into the smoke. Our driver told us that vehicles travelling up this road early in the morning often disturb Silver Pheasants.
The 2 day trip down the Nam Ou River passed through scenery that would have been utterly stunning if only we could have seen it. Human use of the river and riverside was extensive: people grew crops, built houses, fished and panned or dredged for gold. However there was plenty of forest away from the banks.
I was struck throughout by how few herons, egrets and kingfishers there were. There was the odd small wader (Common Sandpiper and Little Ringed Plover) but nothing else. Birds did not fly across the river. Compared with the Dong Nhai River at Cat Tien this was dispiriting.
Every now and then we stopped briefly on a quiet part of the riverbank. As soon as we stepped ashore I could hear many birds such as Plaintive Cuckoo and Mountain Imperial Pigeon calling in the trees and bushes. At one stop I saw a singing Drongo Cuckoo. At another I heard the whistling call of what I took to be, tantalisingly, a Green Cochoa – it was the self-same sound as that identified by Mr Luyen at Dalat as coming from Green Cochoas.
On 10th March our boat stopped overnight at Nong Khiaw Riverside Resort, where the food and accommodation were good. This is an area popular with backpackers. During the night I heard the double toot of what I reckoned to be a Mountain Scops Owl. In the morning I took a 45 minute walk around the resort, trying to whistle the double toot myself. To my surprise quite a few birds responded, including a Pin-striped Tit Babbler. There were several other common birds present such as Ashy Drongo and Crimson Sunbird, and some calling barbets.
BIG BANG WEARY.
On 11th March we set off downstream again: exhilarating stuff, through the rapids and cataracts, basically white-water rafting in a long, narrow speedboat. But it was still pretty birdless when we were in motion.
In the afternoon we stopped at another riverside village called Muang Nhoi, also popular with backpackers. This village is famous for its scenery (largely still invisible in the smoky haze) and for some caves where the Pathet Lao sheltered from the American bombs. As we clambered up the riverbank something happened that I totally did not expect. Loud explosions rumbled high up in the nearby mountains, sparking echoes. Were people dynamiting for gold? Not so. The answer I found extraordinary. 37 years after the end of the war, de-mining teams were still hard at work finding and detonating unexploded bombs. In fact the programme only started 7 years ago and is only part-way through. The villagers will have to listen to these explosions for many years to come.
Outside the guesthouses and restaurants gutted bomb casings provided grim adornment. The area around the village is safe for walking, and a good trail leads to the caves for a mile or more. Once again, there were many birds on the edge of the village even in mid-afternoon, but there was too little time to do the trail properly and to stop to identify them.
ONWARDS AND DOWNWARDS.
We carried on downstream. The mighty Mekong River eased into view. We turned into it for the final leg. We landed at the impressive Pak Ou caves, full of Buddhist statues and icons. A few Dusky Crag Martins circled. A mile or two below Pak Ou we entered a lengthy stretch of cataracts. A flock of 15 or so birds suddenly appeared flying amongst the rocks: Small Pratincoles, really smart, weaving close alongside the boat. At last something decent. They probably breed on the sandbanks above or below the cataracts. And finally into Luang Prabang and the end of the trip.
LAST WORDS ON NORTHERN LAOS.
First, don’t go there in March or April.
Second, there are plenty of birds there, but a moving boat is not a good way to see them. Local birding guides do not exist. You will need to have, or to have the time to acquire, good expertise in order to make a visit worthwhile. Birding tours do not go there.
Third, the Government of Laos has a policy of persuading ethnic minorities to move from their remote (and unprepossessing) villages in inaccessible mountain areas down into settlements in the main valleys. This will not be very good for the habitat in the valleys, but it does mean, I think, that over time the mountains of northern Laos, which still hold lots of good forest, could in effect become one vast forest reserve – unless of course lumber companies destroy it. In this extremely under-watched part of the world, who knows what is up in them thar hills?