Skip to main content

Vietnam Birding - Dinh Quan

Caught the first flight out of Singapore to Ho Chi Minh and upon arrival, our Guide was there waiting for us. Driving out of the airport was a challenge as traffic was pretty heavy and we stopped by to take-away some local coffee and tea before continuing our journey out of HCM city. Finally after two over hours of driving, we finally made our first stop - at a local restaurant, and it was time for lunch!! It was a local style restaurant with a variety of dishes for us to choose from, and most importantly, it was good.

We had a full lunch and quickly set off to our first shooting site. We unloaded our stuffs and setup our gears along the road, then "chiong" (hurried) to our first Hide to watch our first Vietnamese Bird show. It was quite a fruitful achievement on this very first day of our trip. Our Guide was able to gather the main actors of the show, and we were all happy and satisfied. We spent about three hours there as our Guide told us that we need to check-into our hotel by 5pm. 

The afternoon lighting was not very co-operative when we were doing our photoshoot. And because it was our first hide, the photos yield were not very favourable either. Lots of trial and errors and testing out, and usually skills improved as the trip progresses on. Some of the birds seen were the Greater Racket-tailed Drongo, Orange-necked Partridge, Siamese Fireback Pheasant, Bar-bellied Pitta, Blue-rumped Pitta, Hainan Blue Flycatcher, Puff-throated Babbler, Buff-breasted Babbler, Emerald Dove and the Siberian Blue Robin.
After depositing our luggages at the homestay, we set out for dinner. We had both lunch and dinner in the same restaurant and food was great!! Our 1st day ended well - happy, satisfied and fulfilling.

We had only one night at this Homestay, packed our bags and checked out the next morning as we moved on. Managed to try their local Pho at a local eatery for breakfast as most stalls were not opened yet. Then we proceeded on to the next Hide for more bird show. Lighting was better when the sun came up from 9am onwards. It was a great morning of actions. The Asian Barred Owlet flew in but perched at a point which was heavily blocked by the trees. It flew off before I could get a record shot of it. Some of the birds seen were the Bar-bellied and the Blue-rumped Pittas, Orange-headed Thrush, Eyebrowed Thrush, Scaly-crowned Babbler, Ochraceous Bulbul, Orange-necked Partridge, Pin-stripe Tit Babbler and some others which were seen earlier before.
We spent the whole morning in this Hide and even had our lunch here. What a great adventure and experience given to us by our Guide and his team. Time was tight and right after lunch, we got to set off to Dalat which was estimated to be 4hrs+ drive away. 

The Dream Team:

Check out the Pittas we gotten for this trip!!
Next: Dalat

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Thailand Birding - KAENG KRACHAN

Off again for another awesome adventure!! The Team landed in Suvarnabhumi Airport at 7:35am, cleared immigration, and all ready to be picked up. We were famished and had breakfast at a local food stall along the way before starting our long journey to Kaeng Krachan (KKC) for the night. Our Guide, Mr Paan, brought us to our first shooting location, Red Lotus Floating Market, where we could catch a glimpse of the Pheasant-tailed Jacana and the Bronze-winged Jacana. The late morning sun was out with a vengeance, roasting us all as we did our shooting on a sampan, with the local boatman paddling us around the lotus pond. It was crazy under that scorching sun, but rewarding as all of us had managed to get our shots. Chop! Chop! And we continued our way down to KKC. We had a short stop along the road to see the Greater Painted Snipe couple, which were hidden among the long grasses and also a view of the migratory Glossy Ibis, because Guide said: "This one must shoot!!" We then proc
Post a Comment
Read more

Thailand Birding - KRUNG CHING

It's Day 4 of our trip and today, we would be embarking a long journey down to Krung Ching, a place in the province of Nakhon Si Thammarat, southern Thailand. We checked-out of KKC Lake Hill Resort at 5am half-awaked, and had breakfast on-the-go due to time constraint, ie. 7-11. After travelling for about 2 plus hours and eating along the way, we had arrived at Hat Wanakorn National Park for owls photoshoot. It was also time for a toilet break after food. After alighting from the vehicle, most of us wanted to chiong for the toilet but the Spotted Owlet was already perching there, looking straight at us, delaying our toilet session 😁 It was quite an owlicious shooting this morning as they were all in pairs. We gotten the Spotted Owlets, the Asian Barred Owlets and the Brown Boobooks. These fellos were pretty active under a sunny day, despite being owls. The Indian Roller also came by for a photoshoot. We left the park at 9am and continued our journey down South. At last, after abou
Post a Comment
Read more

Thailand Birding - PHANG-NGA

We are into Day 7 of our 8 days trip and today, we would be heading to Phang-Nga. We checked out of Krung Ching Homestay & Resort at 6am, and because our next destination was an additional add-on to the itinerary, we had to eat 7-11 breakfast on-the-go. After a long 2hrs journey, we had arrived at a place which I could not find it on Google map. The whole place was surrounded by plantations and our shooting area was in the plantation itself. We had a hike upwards into the plantation grounds, and settled down at a Hide at the top overlooking a view of rubber trees, and with lots of commando mosquitoes buzzing around. Mosquito coils were set up for us, and that saved us alot 😁  We set-up our gears and waited for the changing of shift of the white-morph Blyth's Paradise Flycatcher nesting, incubation period. According to the locals, the shift was changed at every 20~30 mins interval. When we arrived at around 8:30am, the birds had just swapped shift, therefore the next change wou
Post a Comment
Read more