Trip Reports

Tim Doran, Portsmouth, UK - 2012

(tmjd_1234@hotmail.com )

Hello Bao,
I just wanted to say thank you for guiding me over last two weeks and to say that I have arrived safely home in Portsmouth. The weather here is colder than Vietnam, but no snow or ice. My personal trip list was 261 (14 heard) and I am currently working through my lifers. I thought we did very well for the important endemics and got good views of most; so a very pleasing trip. I shall be interested to hear how John gets on in the north and that may be a trip for me in the future.
Best regards
Tim 


Mike Lewis & John Franklin, London - February, 2012

(mikelewisad@hotmail.com; john_franklin@talk21.com)

Dear Bao,

We have arrived safely home in the UK, all our travel arrangements having worked smoothly. I wanted to say that we were very impressed with Quang who did a very good job looking after us on the final leg of the Tour, and, he found us 2 Spoon-billed Sandpipers. We just hope that the incident with the local police will not cause him or you problems in the future. My final total for the trip was 273 species of birds and 148 Lifers - Johns figures are not too dissimilar.

Once again, we really enjoyed our trip thanks to you, An, and Quang 


Sandpiper survey in southern Vietnam - 2011

(Vladimir V. Morozov Bao H. Nguyen, Eugeny A. Koblik, Nikolai N. Yakushev (all Birds Russia))

Our team consisted of 3 Russian and one Vietnamese ornithologist. For the first 3 weeks, one Vietnamese student accompanied us as well. He learnt to identify and count shorebirds taking into account possible future monitoring into areas important for waders and SBS. We surveyed outer parts of Saigon River Delta and Thanh An island (Ho Chi Mihn Province, Long Hoa District), several outer parts of Mekong River Delta situated in Tieng Giang, Ben Tre and Tra Vinh Provinces and the most western Vietnamese sea coast at the Mu Ca Mau National Park and Dat Mui settlement vicinity (Ca Mau Province). 

After 18 days of unsuccessful searches we did record SBS finally. They were found on two sites within one area that is situated at both sides of one of the main branches of the Mekong River Delta. At least 5 Spoon-billed Sandpiper were recorded on December 17, on the outland mudflat located at the main branch of Mekong near from Tan Thanh village and small town Go Gong (Tieng Giand Province) and 3 we found out on December, 20 on mudflat of the offshore Ngang island at the contrary side same Mekong’s branch situated in Tieng Giang Province as well. 

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