Last Day of Dalat Birding

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I must say I'm starting to really tire of walking up at 5:30 every morning so that I'm up early enough for birding. That's a full hour earlier than I would have had to wake up for school!



Anyway, today was my last day here at Dalat as my return bus ride is tomorrow. I decided to see if I could save a bit of money today by calling a GrabBike to go to the lake. I wouldn't be able to call one all the way out for the way back of course, but I was going to ask them to call a taxi anyway. The GrabBike cost 53k which is almost exactly a third of the taxi and it would be my last chance to have a fun potentially fatal motorbike ride in Vietnam. The driver didn't know the way and we took the wrong turning several times and drove about back and fourth near the lake. Why he would accept a ride where he didn't know the way I have no idea. The good thing about Grab though is that the fe is fixed and upfront so it doesn't cost any more. I got to Da Tien and, like a pro, headed straight for the rubbish tip. Annoyingly, a massive dog decided it would be good fun to follow me along the track. It was was clearly playing, but I didn't want it. How do you make a dog go away? It wasn't a vicious or mangey stray it was a dalmation with a collar and was clearly a pet, but I didn't want it while birding and with strange dogs I'm always extremely nervous that they may suddenly attack. I probably worry about dogs attacking more than I should but I tend to assume that all dogs want to try and kill me unless proven otherwise.



It took a bit of shoving it away until the dog realised I didn't want it running up towards me and brushing up against me, and then even more persuading that walking a few metres behind me was also not acceptable. Eventually I had to pretend that I was going to throw rocks at it before it left.



The pine forest had all the usual pine foresty birds and here at Ho Tuyen Lam quite a bit of the pine forest has some broadleaf trees in the understory which attracts birds like Black-headed Sibias and White-cheeked Laughingthrushes out into the pine forest. There were some ospreys circling over the lake too.



I soon reached the broadleaf forest where the first stream had the Spotted Forktail that I was still missing. Just on the edge of the broadleaf forest, I got a really good sighting of a Grey-crowned Crocias. That's the super rare and endemic species that was believed extinct and rediscovered in 1994/5 I believe. This one posed really nicely and even let me get some fairly good pictures. The colouration is remeniscent of a shrike and it looks part way between a Sibia and Laughingthrush. Quite an inconspicuous bird too.



When I reached the clearing and looked across to where the poachers had been, I could see that they were back and through the binoculars I could see that they were doing something along the forest edge, I think mist netting. Then they set some small fires. Is the idea that the fire drives birds into the nets? I would have thought that bird trappers would use glue traps and then play tapes to bring their target species to land on glue covered sticks.



As with yesterday, the clearing had a lot of birds around the edges and I was pleased to get decent pictures of a Black-headed Sibia as well as a stunning male Mrs Gould's Sunbird. I also saw two Silver-eared Mesias in a bird wave along the edge of the clearing which is a stunning species that is very heavily targeted by bird poachers. All of this so that people can have a pretty bird to look at and sing in a cage.



However, at the clearing I simply could not find the trail on the other side. I think someone must have come along at night and moved all the trails because this was ridiculous. The clearing isn't just grass, it's mostly shoulder-high bracken and lantana so you can't just walk wherever. After over and hour (!) of walking along the trails that criss-cross the clearing, I eventually found the other end that I had found with relative ease yesterday.



I walked along for a couple of hours, it didn't seem quite as birdy as yesterday but it wasn't too bad. I was getting bird waves every hour or so, mostly common species but interspersed with rarer ones, as you'd expect. Then I could hear thunder. Then the rain came. Absolutely torrential rain, interspersed with bouts of hail. About the worst I've had on this trip. I was over two hours from shelter and that involves five stream crossings, a swamp, a now soggy rubbish tip, and some muddy slopes that were now perilously slippery. All this way forcing my way through vegetation that's now soaking wet. Although the air temperature today was not too bad, the rain itself was really cold! Hence the hail. I waited in the first for a bit, thinking that rain this hard couldn't last, but it turned out that it could. An hour later, and with no sign of cessation, I headed back. It gets to the point where you get so wet that whatever you do you can't get any wetter. I was at this point. Additionally, with my soles no longer properly attached I may as well have been in socks with sandals, everything was slippery and muddy and forging your own trail through this sort of sodden vegetation is even worse. I went sliding several times and at one point landed a bit badly on my camera bag, although it seems to be fine. Luckily that camera bag has good waterproofing. It's about the only thing though. I got back to the tourist places at about 2:30 having spent just over two hours trecking through sodden vegetation and what had become a swamp. I took shelter in one of the huts for a bit to recover and then in a slight lull went to try and get a taxi. Amazingly there was a taxi in the car park but he was already taken. Someone had hired it and had it wait with the meter running. It was almost up to half a million! But he was able to radio for another taxi to show up for mw and despite being a bedraggled soggy and muddy mess, he even let me sit in his car while I waited for my taxi.



It's a good thing I wasn't in an Uber or Grab. Had a spread that much mud and water and soggy vegetation in one of those, I'd probably have ended up with a bad rating and possibly a clean up fee.



I'm extremely happy about how well Dalat's birding went. I saw all my top targets and while there are obviously more species still to see on the Dalat Plateau, you'll never see every bird and I think I've done really well. It could have been much worse given the time of year though, as this afternoon was my only thunderstorm of the magnitude where you just have to stop and go home. I had rain most days, but the sort of rain you can keep birding through. I had also been warned that finding the endemics on Dalat is difficult-impossible on your own and without a guide. Rubbish. It's much trickier (most bird tours do all of Dalat in two days, rather than the four I spent here) and requires more luck - which I mostly had - but I think is far more rewarding.



The taxi ride back to Dalat was slow and in extremely thick fog all the way. And it was still torrential rain when I got back.



By 4:30 the rain had eased to a drizzle and not wanting to spend the rest of the day in my room, I headed out. I was not very keen on putting my feet back in those soaking squelchy shoes though. Not that I had a choice. This is why I buy waterproof shoes.



I walked down the approx 1.5km to Crazy House. This is a normal tourist attraction in Dalat, you know, like the places I usually visit aren't, and it had been suggested to me. I could pretend to be normal for once. I'm very glad I visited. The name says it all really: I knew it would be crazy, but it really is. It's not a theme park or anything, just ridiculous architecture that you walk around. I don't know how to describe it. Imagine walking along sort of raised walkway things around a cross between a medieval castle, a Japanese temple, and a Hobbit house from Lord of the Rings while you're absolutely off your face on very strange chemicals. Oh and there's one big that's under the sea with massive shells and mermaids and mutated marine life. Seemingly because why the hell not. Mostly the Lord of The Rings and off your face aspects. I think that just about sums it up. They charge 50k to visit and there are a few rooms too if you've got more money than sense. Well worth a look though. Great view across the town too and to the forest and mountain beyond where I've been spending most of my time. I could see the summit of Lang Biang from there, I'm quite impressed with myself for having got to the top of that.



Crazy House also seems to be expanding as they've bought the block next door and are spreading the mental-ness. I wonder if it's contagious, although I reckon I'm already long gone personally. Crazy House is open until 7 which is well after dark here. I recommend visiting at the end of the day and into the night - as I did - so that you can see the lights. The garden of giant mushrooms and weird mutated forest things really takes on a new dimension once they start glowing florescent purple, and the decapitated giraffe head really pops.



Tomorrow, I return to Saigon. Given the rather large numbers of flags everywhere, I think the fact that tomorrow is National Day may be interesting.



New birds:

Barred Buttonquail

Hill Prinia

Rufous-backed Sibia

Spotted Forktail

White-browed Scimitar-babbler

Necklaced Barbet

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