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Birding trip Vietnam (South) and Malaysia (West) 29 Nov - 19 Dec 2009 |
John van der Woude - www.jvanderw.nl |
Photo report - see also Species list |
This was a combined trip to Peninsular Malaysia and South Annam, Vietnam. We had booked a cheap flight Amsterdam - Kuala Lumpur and first spent a few days at Fraser's Hill in Malaysia, to get used to the birds in this Oriental region again. Then we had 12 days in Vietnam: Cat Tien NP for the lowland forest, and the Da Lat area for the hill forests. The logistics of the Vietnam trip was excellently organized by Richard Craik of Vietnam Birding. Back in Malaysia, we birded the Panti forest reserve in the South, and paid a short visit to the former Dutch town of Melaka. |
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Vietnam - Cat Tien national park. See trip reports via travellingbirder.com, esp. the one of Henk Hendriks, with a map. We found birding Cat Tien far from easy, despite our experience with tropical lowland forest birding. We still managed to get several specialties, like Germain's Peacock-Phaesant. Four full days is really the minimum for this site. The Heavenly Rapids track was the most rewarding part (i.e. the driveable track, less so the concrete trail of the same name), followed by the Bau Sau trail, which goes for 5 km to the Crocodile Lake. Upon arrival, we let us convince by the local staff that we best take a four hour jeep ride (17 euro) in stead of single drives (7 euro I believe) to e.g. the start of the Bau Sau trail, but the four hour ride was rather useless: too short for any good birding. So after that we just took single jeep drives to the Bau Sau trail and made short bike tours closer to the headquarter. We also walked several times the trails which start near the HQ but found them slightly less valuable. Beware that the bikes are too rickety for the 15 km rather rough dirt road to the start of the Bau Sau trail, but good enough to cycle to the end of the Heavenly Rapids track. The bikes are less than 1 euro per hour. |
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![]() Cars waiting at The Gap for the one-way traffic up to Fraser's Hill, Malaysia, along the Old Road. Yellow-vented and Fire-breasted Flowerpeckers were on the left. |
![]() Traffic along the Old Road is up at uneven and down at even hours. At the gate (this one is at the upper end), ask permission to stay over halfway the Old Road; see the text above. |
![]() Male Black-throated Sunbird at The Gap. A common bird. |
![]() Female of the same species. |
![]() A mantis has just caught a huge bee or so. Note the long forelegs of the mantis holding the victim. |
![]() View from the balcony of our room at the Shahzan hotel onto the centre of Fraser's Hill. At the base of the renovated hotel left is a new sort of snack restaurant, but our favorite was the Chinese restaurant which is just visible behind the house with the red roof in the centre of the photo. |
![]() Along the Old Road a bit upward from The Gap. Here we had a group of four Black Laughingthrushes in the tangles, and a group of four Little Cuckoo-Doves in the bamboo. |
![]() Halfway the Old Road we saw and heard a group of foraging Siamang. For a sample of Siamang sounds, listen to this track from my 2002 report. |
![]() At this spot along the road from The Gap down to Kuala Kubu Bahru we saw Marbled Wren-Babbler, one of the specialties of the area. This was at c. Km 29. |
![]() The road from The Gap down to Kuala Kubu Bahru really deserves some birding time, especially around Km 29. |
![]() Our first impression of Vietnam, in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon): thousands of motorbikes, a very lively street scene! |
![]() HCMC/Saigon street view. |
![]() Houses in Vietnam are often very narrow, so space is obtained by building many stories and/or very long houses. One of you wrote me that this narrowness is (still!) regulated by a law dating from imperial times. |
![]() The concrete track near the headquarters of Cat Tien NP. This track is a good place to start your birding in this national park, with e.g. Racket-tailed Treepie, Great Eared Nighjar and several warblers. |
![]() Pond-Heron at Cat Tien, presumably Chinese although in winter it is inseparable from Javan. |
![]() Our room at Cat Tien NP. With modern, quiet airco and private shower. Not bad for a national park! |
![]() Along the Lagerstroemia trail, Cat Tien NP. |
![]() Exotic butterflies at Cat Tien NP. |
![]() Cat Tien's Heavenly Rapids track was good birding, with White-throated Rock-Thrush, Blue-throated Flycatcher, Banded Broadbill, White-browed Piculet and many others. This track should not be confused with the concrete Heavenly Rapids trail a bit closer to the river. |
![]() Dense spider web, Cat Tien NP. Would be nice if he would catch leeches, which we often had in Cat Tien. |
![]() Crocodile Lake at the end of the 5 km long Bau Sau trail. Osprey and Lesser Whistling-Ducks flew around, and Bronze-winged Jacana was in the foreground. |
![]() Same lake. Here we had the near-threatened Grey-headed Fish Eagle. |
![]() Nollie's friend - our bathroom frog in Cat Tien NP. |
![]() Cat Tien NP has a rich vegetation. |
![]() The Di Linh birding site, part of the Da Lat plateau, and a must while travelling from Cat Tien to Da Lat. Good for laughingthrushes and several other specialties. |
![]() White-cheeked Laughingthrushes quickly foraging before moving on. Photos by Luyen Nguyen ©. Luyen's photos on this page were all taken while we watched these photographed birds together with him. |
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![]() Stone cutter sharpening his tools at the small quarry at the Di Linh birding site. |
![]() Coffee plantations on the Da Lat plateau. We were told that Vietnam is the second coffee exporter in the world. |
![]() Black-shouldered Kite near Da Lat. Photo by Luyen Nguyen ©. This species is remarkably uniform across its wide Eurasian distribution, in contrast to species like Eurasian Jay which we 'hardly recognized' when seeing it near Da Lat. |
![]() Inside Ta Nung valley near Da Lat. Excellent birding, with crocias, tesia, laughingthrushes and many others. Even Vietnamese Greenfinch at the pines at start of the trail down to the valley. |
![]() Pine woodland at Ho Tuyen Lam. Large Woodshrike was common here. Also Red Crossbill, with a remarkably large bill so this may be a future split. |
![]() Grey Bushchat near Da Lat. Photo by Luyen Nguyen ©. |
![]() Road construction near Da Lat, permitting a quicker access to Bidoup NP. |
![]() Bidoup NP is a vast area of higher altitude broadleaved forest and pine woodland. In this national park we had Vietnamese Cutia, Collared Laughingthrush, Yellow-billed Nuthatch and many other species. Also Vietnamese Greenfinch again. |
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(photos of Vietnamese
Cutia later?)
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![]() Yellow-cheeked Tit near Da Lat. Photo by Luyen Nguyen ©. |
![]() At the waterfall near Da Lat. Despite the new large-scale tourist facilities (just not visible in this photo), this is still a nice birding site. |
![]() Annam Barbet (split from Black-browed Barbet) at the waterfall of Da Lat. |
![]() This seems a leaf .... |
![]() .... but it's a butterfly (Ta Nung valley bottom). |
![]() Ta Nung valley again, we never got enough of this splendid birding site. The last hour here we witnessed a group of 15 to 20 Long-tailed Broadbills, and in their company a male Japanese Paradise-Flycatcher. For the latter species, this was only the second record for South Annam, and the first winter record! |
![]() Another try at the Ho Tuyen Lam area. Not easy to find the trails on your own, but still got birds like Grey-faced Buzzard. We have rarely seen pine woodland with such a good understorey. |
![]() Sad sight in Da Lat: several of the special birds of the Da Lat area are for sale here. |
![]() Back in Malaysia, we paid a visit to Melaka town, where the Dutch ruled for about a century. These tombstones in the St Paul's church ruin show the young age at which several of them died, so it probably was not an easy life there. |
![]() View from the terrace of Tanjung Sutera resort near Kota Tinggi. We stayed here for our daily visits to the Panti forest reserve (a 30 minutes drive). On the rocks below, Collared Kingfishers watched the incoming tide. |
![]() The sand road ('Bunker track') through Panti forest reserve. At this spot we had both Fluffy-backed Tit-Babbler and Malaysian Rail-Babbler. We made a 1 minute sound recording of both species together. This is a 10 second mp3 cut, and this the full wav recording (96kHz/32 bit stereo; wav file, 22 MB). The rail-babbler is the whistling note on one pitch, the other two sounds are from the tit-babbler. |
![]() We were very lucky with the rail-babbler, so closeby! This is the most sought-after species in Panti, and Panti is probably the best place to see it. |
![]() Crested Serpent-Eagle in Panti. |
![]() A huge Monitor Lizard (Varanus spec.) crossing the sand road of Panti. |
![]() The only side road in Panti. Birding in Panti is mainly done from the 'main' sand road plus this side track, and some short trails. Along this track we heard monkeys 'laughing' (probably just communicating), and you can listen to a 1-minute stereo recording of it here (wav, 22 MB) |
![]() Butterflies abound in Panti, many of them being very colourful. |
![]() Cinereous Bulbul in Panti. This has been split from Ashy Bulbul. |
![]() Little Green Pigeon near the entrance of Panti, at a fruiting tree. |
![]() Back home in Holland, we were pleasantly surprised by a white Christmas, the first in 25 years or so. |
see also Species list |