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16 March 2011

A week in Hoa Binh (but not much birding)

Finally some time to report back. I spent last week (7 - 11 March) with my G11 Biology students, staying at V-Resort, in Hòa Bình. Several time, I managed to steal an hour away, to go to a Vietnamese Eco-park (yep, complete with the obligatory concrete animals in the forest etc.). This place, (called Cửu Thác- Tú Sơn) is in a small side-valley, about 5km from V-Reort. It still has a reasonable amount of diverse forest up a small stream, with a concrete track going up steeply for about 5km. I never got more than 1km up the river, and am keen to go back. I saw the following:



  • Bulbul – Puff throated

  • Bulbul – red whiskered

  • Flycatcher – Asian paradise (male – woo hoo, what a tail)

  • Flycatcher – Verditer

  • Forktail – Spotted

  • Minla – Blue winged

  • Myna – While vented

  • Redstart – Plumbeous

  • Redstart – White-capped water

  • Shrike – Grey backed

  • Shrike – Long tailed

  • Wagtail – Grey

  • Yuhina – Whiskered

Wayne

4 comments:

  1. woo woo... what a nice shot !!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Wayne,

    Nice birds you saw there - sounds interesting! I guess this place is somewhere in the mountains, given some of the species. What elevation is it?

    I'm not sure if you saw Red-vented Bulbul - that would be very unusual (or an escapee, also not very likely).
    Grey-headed Shrike - do you mean Grey-backed?

    Nothing new in Tam Dao where it's pissing down for 3 days in a row...

    Cheers,
    Falk

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hi Falk

    Yep, you got me on two counts. Birds should have been Grey-backed Shrike and Red-whiskered Bulbul. I hang my head in shame. Fixed on the post now

    Th elevation of the bottom of this place is, I guess 700-800m above the valley floor, but the bush does appear to go up a long way - they said it was a 12 hour walk to the top and back, and that it was 5-6 km to the top, so I dont know (yet). Will get up there one day...

    Cheers,

    Wayne

    ReplyDelete
  4. I searched a little bit on vietnamese web sites.
    Cửu Thác- Tú Sơn is a tourist site, many informations, including this one : summit at an altitude of 1.300m. Not bad...

    Cheers,
    Sebastien

    ReplyDelete