Phong Nha
Day 9: Saturday 23rd March 2019
Breakfast at the hotel at 06:00 and a short drive into the Phong Nha – Ke Bang NP, where we had a very good morning’s birding. Having successfully located and seen the recently described Sooty Babbler, we spent most of our time observing from a bridge over a river. Here the viewing – looking across and down – was much easier than the neck-breaking forest birding – looking up at birds high in the canopy - of the previous few days. Most of the birds seen as new for the trip I had seen on previous visits to Asian countries, but Slaty-legged Crake, Silver-breasted Broadbill, Asian Emerald Cuckoo and Barred Cuckoo-dove were all new for me. As can be seen from the image above, the weather remained overcast, but fortunately the rain held off until later in the afternoon (and then in the evening it was torrential and accompanied by thunder and lightening)
Breakfast at the hotel at 06:00 and a short drive into the Phong Nha – Ke Bang NP, where we had a very good morning’s birding. Having successfully located and seen the recently described Sooty Babbler, we spent most of our time observing from a bridge over a river. Here the viewing – looking across and down – was much easier than the neck-breaking forest birding – looking up at birds high in the canopy - of the previous few days. Most of the birds seen as new for the trip I had seen on previous visits to Asian countries, but Slaty-legged Crake, Silver-breasted Broadbill, Asian Emerald Cuckoo and Barred Cuckoo-dove were all new for me. As can be seen from the image above, the weather remained overcast, but fortunately the rain held off until later in the afternoon (and then in the evening it was torrential and accompanied by thunder and lightening)
On the outskirts of the national park we stopped briefly in an area of open country with rice paddies and found a few relatively common bird species.
Phong Nha Ke Bang is famous for its very large limestone caves, said to be the largest in the world. After lunch we visited the Phong Nha cave via a river boat which launched from very near our hotel. This is a very popular tourist attraction and there were many other boats making the trip at the same time. The caves were large and I guess we went in about 300m on the boat and then got out and walked around a bit before getting back in and riding back to the hotel. Some images from this excursion are in the gallery below - click on an image to enlarge and scroll through.