Birds in Vietnam

No I hadn't stopped blogging again. The brief interlude is because in January we went to Vietnam for a couple of weeks to see our daughter for the first time in 4 years. It's taken me weeks to recover! Because of having not seen her for so long we weren't planning on travelling around once there, just staying at her place and chilling. Since we last visited her she has moved to the city of Dalat, which I found out is a top birding destination. I wasn't expecting to see many birds though as we wouldn't even be going on any day excursions while there, the reason being it was the TET holiday, which is the major holiday in Vietnam. The few places we did venture to were jam packed with people, a bit like August bank holiday here! 

Because of Vietnamese bureaucracy we were not allowed to stay overnight at Martha's house as her landlord is not registered with the government to host foreigners. We were instead booked into a farm stay a mile away up an unmade road. This was in a forest clearing and on the edge of a river, so a great spot for birds. I didn't get much time for birding just an hour each morning before we set of to Martha's house. I also missed out somewhat by spending three days in bed with a stomach bug. Oh Joy!

At the farm stay and to a lesser extent in Martha's garden I managed to photograph 29 species of bird. I'd taken my shorter lens expecting to be mainly photographing butterflies, which were actually very few and far between as it was winter. So expect to see some shocking record shots!

 This is Martha's house (the small one) viewed from the road to the farm stay. As you can see the area is full of greenhouses, the climate here at 1500m above sea level is similar to our summer all year round, hot in the middle of the the day but cool at night. Dalat has been called the City of Eternal Spring.

 This is where we were staying. We were in the bus on the right and our son in the camper van on the left. The height of luxury!
 

A closer view of our sleeping quarters for two weeks. It does have a full sized shower room attached to the back.

View from the bus.

View from the platform where I did my morning's birding.

As I sat here I really wished had brought my best binoculars I'd have seen so much more. 

I'm going to put my photos into groups, the first being endemic and near endemic species. These are what many birders come to the Dalat Plateau to see. I only saw one endemic and three near endemics thus.

 

Vietnamese Greenfinch

I know, I don't see any green either!

I was lucky to see this male on my very first morning I didn't see another in the whole two weeks!

This bird is endemic not only to Vietnam but to the Dalat Plateau area.

 

 

White-cheeked Laughing Thrush

Near endemic. I saw quite a few of these but they don't stay still for a photo.

 

Plain Minla

This is a near endemic subspecies of Blue-winged Minla

Grey-crowned Tit

BULBULS

 Black Bulbul

These were the tamest birds I saw often coming up to a berry tree right by our bus and posing nicely for photos.

 

 

Black-crested Bulbul

 

 

Flavescent Bulbul

 

 

Southern Sooty-headed Bulbul

 

 

Streak-eared Bulbul

 

 

Stripe-throated Bulbul

 

 

Yellow-vented Bulbul
 

Yellow-browed Warblers

I saw quite a lot of leaf warblers but everyone I got a good look at or a photo of seemed to be a Yellow-browed Warbler (please correct me if they aren't) They are a common winter visitor in this area. Here's some of the better photos of them that I got. 

 

Now the rest of the birds I photographed, some are really poor record shots I'm afraid but I'm going to include them anyway.

 

Eastern Spotted Dove

 

Zebra Dove 

 

Bar-winged Flycatcher Shrike

 

Black Eagle

 

Black-collard Starling

 

Burmese Shrike 

This was one of the best birds I saw. I really like shrikes. I got really close views but totally messed up my attempts at a photo.

 

Chinese White-eye

 

Common Myna

 

Dark-necked Tailorbird

 

Fire-breasted Flowerpecker

 

Greater Coucal

These were always very conspicuous calling nearby (sounds a bit like a monkey) but almost always invisible. They hide well for a big bird. This is the only one I saw as it broke cover briefly before flying off.

 

Hill Prinia

These were the most common bird I saw, likely because they are very noisy.

 

Pin-striped Tit Babbler

 

Scaley-breasted Munia

I think the solid brown ones are juveniles?

 

Sooty Drongo

 

Streaked Spiderhunter

 

Yellow-vented Flowerpecker

 

Apart from these I also saw but didn't photograph, House Sparrow, Tree Sparrow, Little Egret, Eastern Cattle Egret, Eastern Yellow Wagtail, Chinese Pond Heron, Rufus Capped Babbler, Shikra and White-throated Fantail. I also saw several swift species but without my best binoculars had no chance of identifying them. 

So all in all not bad for a holiday where I wasn't expecting to see many birds at all. I only photographed three species of butterfly but I'll add them to the many I saw in 2019 and put them in another blog post.