Vietnam is undoubtedly an excellent birding destination. Straddling the eastern coast of the Indochinese peninsula, Vietnam is a ‘long’ country that encompasses several distinct ecoregions, which explains the country’s outstanding biodiversity. Indeed, according to BirdLife International, Vietnam has 831  bird species recorded, including 12 endemics (and many more near-endemics). And one of the best ways to see some of these unique species is by going birding at Da Lat. This popular tourist city is well-known as one of the finest places to go birding in Vietnam.

Birding at Da Lat, Vietnam – trip report

Recently, Birdwatching Asia was invited to participate in the 2nd Vietnam Bird Race, held in Bidoup Nui Ba National Park near Da Lat, from 6-8 June 2025. Having never been to Vietnam before, I jumped at the opportunity to finally visit the country and of course, go birding at Da Lat.

Where is Da Lat?

Da Lat is a major city located within Lam Dong province of southern Vietnam, about 300km northeast of Ho Chi Minh City. The city straddles a highland plateau at about 1500m elevation. This plateau is known as the Da Lat or Langbian Plateau, and is situated at the southernmost reaches of the Annamite Range in Southern Annam.

The high elevation means that Da Lat is a popular tourist attraction for locals and foreigners seeking to escape the stifling heat of the lowlands. Additionally, Da Lat is also an important agriculture centre, producing fruits and vegetables that grow well in the cool climate.

Why go birding at Da Lat?

There’s an excellent reason why the organisers of the 2nd Vietnam Bird Race chose Da Lat as the event location. The Da Lat Plateau (and surrounding areas) is considered a biodiversity hotspot, with high levels of endemism. Indeed, the Da Lat plateau is designated an Endemic Bird Area by Birdlife international. Several range-restricted species and subspecies call the plateau home.

Going to Da Lat

Perhaps surprisingly, there is a direct flight from Kuala Lumpur to Da Lat, operated by AirAsia 3 times a week. This is the only international flight operating to/from Da Lat airport. So, for us at least, travelling to Da Lat was very straightforward. Otherwise, one would probably need to take a connecting flight at Ho Chi Minh City airport or take road transport from there.

Unfortunately for us, AirAsia cancelled our return flight, forcing us to reschedule to an earlier flight that week. Our original plan was to stay at Da Lat for 6 days (Friday to Wednesday). Due to this cancellation, we had to take the Monday flight, meaning our stay was cut short by two days. No reason was given for this cancellation, apart from the generic ‘due to operational reasons’ excuse. Go figure….

The 2nd Vietnam Bird Race 2025

The event took place over 3 days, from Friday to Sunday. The actual ‘racing’ and competition day was from Saturday morning until Sunday morning (just over 24 hours). Unlike the Fraser’s Hill International Bird Race, the Vietnam Bird race is a ‘photo’ race. This means in order for a species to count on the list, teams must have a photo of that species. This was certainly a new experience for us.

The event was a big success, with participants coming in from Vietnam, around Asia and even as far away as Peru! The winning team (a Vietnamese team) scored a total of 70 species over the race period.

It was an amazing experience to had the opportunity to participate in the race. And just as importantly was meeting all the like-minded people from across the world.  We even met a few familiar faces from past events. While we didn’t win anything, we certainly had a great time at Da Lat.

Birding locations

While participating in the bird race, we birded at three locations within the expansive Bidoup Nui Ba National Park. 

The locations are:

• Bidoup Nui Ba NP Headquarters. It is located some 30 km northeast of Da Lat city. The habitat here is mostly open pine forest. Birding here is straightforward, as we simply walked along the roads that crisscrossed the HQ area.

  

• Gang Ly Ranger Station. The ranger station is about 30 km east of the headquarters. The habitat here is mixed broadleaved montane forests bordering a mountain river. Here, we followed a small jungle trail for about 1km, then backtracked.

  

• Gang Ly Sturgeon Farm. This location is roughly 3 km by road from the ranger station, with similar habitat type. Here, we simply birded around the farm and access road.

  

Note: There are bird feeding stations dotted around the national park (feeding stations is big business in Vietnam). However, we didn’t visit any of these.

After the bird race, we went to the following location on our own:

• Tuyen Lam Lake (western shore). This spot is 13 km south of Da Lat City, and not part of Bidoup Nui Ba NP. The habitat here is mostly mixed broadleaved forest, with a bit of pine forest as well. Here, we birded along a quiet concrete road that passes through the forest. During our visit, the weather was grey and dreary but bird activity was fantastic. Indeed, we encountered several large ‘bird waves’ during our 3-hour session. (Note: We got the information for this location from one of the race organizers, as well as eBird)

  

Other birding spots

There were several more birding locations that we originally planned to check out, but were unable to do so due to the flight reschedule. These spots are quite popular for birding at Da Lat:

• Ta Nung Valley
• Mount Langbian
• Cong Troi. Part of Bidoup Nui Ba NP, but located at the other side of the park from the headquarters.
• Datanla Waterfall

Some of the birds that we saw

Throughout our 4 days birding at Da Lat, we saw a total of 67 species of birds, including 22 lifers. Not bad, considering the limited number of habitats we visited. Below is a list of our most memorable sightings:

Our Top Three  

1) Vietnamese Greenfinch (Chloris monguilloti) 

This species is endemic to the Da Lat Plateau, and thus endemic to Vietnam. A beautiful finch, with contrasting black-and-yellow plumage. We saw three of these birds at the HQ area on the morning of our third day. They were very unobtrusively perching on the pine trees, so much so that we almost mistook them for pinecones!

2) Grey-crowned Crocias (Laniellus langbianis) 

An interesting-looking bird that resembles a shrike but behaves like a laughingthrush or babbler. Prior to the trip, this species was high on my want-to-see list. So, naturally, we were very happy to see a flock of them during one of our birding sessions. It seems to be locally common around Da Lat. Nevertheless, this species is under some hunting pressure, thus is marked as ‘sensitive’ on eBird.

A range-restricted species, this bird occurs at the Da Lat Plateau, and in select locations of Central Annam (Kon Tum Plateau). It has also recently been discovered in far eastern Laos. There’s only one other Crocias species – the Spotted Crocias – and that one is endemic to Java.

3) Vietnamese Cutia (Cutia legalleni)

We were flabbergasted at spotting these birds, as the Cutia isn’t easy to see around Da Lat. We saw a pair clambering about some pine trees at Tuyen Lam Lake, resembling oversized shrike-babblers. They loitered about for quite a while, giving us good views despite the dim light. With this encounter, I’ve now seen both Cutia species in the world, the other being of course the Himalayan Cutia at Fraser’s Hill in 2023.

This is yet another range-restricted species, being found only at the Da Lat Plateau, Central Annam and a small corner of far east Laos. 

Coincidentally, the Vietnamese Cutia is also the 1000th bird on my eBird life list. Truly a fitting bird to mark the occasion!

Other notable birds:

1. Mountain Hawk-Eagle (Nisaetus nipalensis) We saw only one raptor in Vietnam, so we were elated that the one that we did see was a lifer! The bird we saw was soaring over the Sturgeon Farm and was a juvenile/immature bird.
2. Eurasian Jay (White-faced) (Garrulus glandarius leucotis). This subspecies of the cosmopolitan Eurasian Jay is quite distinctive in having a mostly white face combined with a black cap and ‘moustache’. There was a flock of 6-8 birds roving around the Bidoup NP HQ area during our visit.
3. Yellow-billed Nuthatch (Sitta solangiae). Beautiful nuthatch with blue upperparts and yellow bill. We encountered a large flock at Tuyen Lam Lake. This nuthatch prefers mixed forests, and thus are largely absent at the Bidoup NP HQ (which is almost wholly pine forest).

   

4. Chestnut-vented Nuthatch (Sitta nagaensis). In contrast to the Yellow-billed Nuthatch, this species prefers pine forests. Thus, they’re very common around the HQ area.

   

5. Necklaced Barbet (Psilopogon auricularis). Recently split from the Golden-throated Barbet, which means another lifer!
6. Long-tailed Minivet (Pericrocotus ethologus) The most common minivet that we saw at Da Lat. These colourful birds were especially easy to see around the Bidoup NP HQ.

   

7. Black-headed Sibia (Langbian) (Heterophasia desgodinsi robinsoni). Very handsome-looking sibia. Subspecies robinsoni differs by having white eyerings and white streaks on its ear coverts. We only saw a couple of birds during our visit.

   

8. Plumbeous Water Redstart (Phoenicurus fuliginosus). Drab-looking but special nonetheless, as this species is uncommon around Da Lat. We saw one bird at the Sturgeon Farm.

Unfortunately, we didn’t see any of the laughingthrushes, or the Dalat Red Crossbill, or the Grey-bellied Tesia, and many more. Definitely a reason to go birding at Da Lat again in the future!

Accommodations and food:

During the race event from 6-8th June, we (and most other international participants) stayed at the accommodations provided at the park HQ. This consisted of several bungalows with three rooms and two shared bathrooms each. The accommodations were basic but adequate for two nights. Meals were provided at the cafeteria nearby. Some participants chose to stay at hotels just outside the park’s borders.

After the race, we stayed at Da Lat city centre, where there were plenty of hotels to suit every budget. We stayed at H-Long Dalat Central, a budget hotel that was very affordable yet clean and comfortable. Plenty of food options available within walking distance.

Transport:

During the bird race, transport was pre-arranged for the international participants. We were transported by minivan to the Ranger Station and Sturgeon Farm. The only other transport options to these locations is by own or rented vehicle.

Since our visit to Tuyen Lam Lake was after the race, we had to organize transport ourselves. Thankfully, this wasn’t difficult. We simply arranged a taxi through our hotel receptionist, who was more than willing to help. Neither the receptionist nor taxi driver spoke much English, but this wasn’t a problem since they used a translation app. We arranged for the taxi to take us to the birding site, wait for us, then head straight to the airport to catch our afternoon flight. The taxi was clean and the driver very professional.

Taxi costs was reasonable:

• Da Lat to Tuyen Lam Lake was about VND 250,000.
• Waiting fee of VND 100,000 per hour (we birded for about 3 hours)
• Tuyen Lam Lake to the airport was about VND 250,000.
• The total was about VND 800,000 (which is roughly MYR 130)

Best time to visit?

Da Lat has a distinct dry and wet season:

• Dry season – November to March
• Wet season – April to October (wettest month is typically September)

The best time for birding at Da Lat is during the dry season, which corresponds to the Northern Winter season. Having said that, we visited in early June, and there was only a bit of rain over the course of the 4 days.

Being located at 1500m elevation, the temperature at Da Lat was pleasantly temperate. During our visit, daytime temperatures barely exceeded 20℃.

Conclusion

Our visit to Da Lat to participate in the 2nd Vietnam Bird Race was certainly an eye-opening and memorable experience. Despite having only 4 days to go birding at Da Lat, we saw a decent number of species including a Vietnam endemic as well as several range-restricted species. We had a great time birding at Da Lat, and sincerely hope we can visit this region again, to see all the other species that we missed.

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References

1. Robson, C. (2005). New Holland Field Guide to the Birds of South-East Asia (Concise Edition). New Holland Publishers, London, England.
2. BirdLife International (2025) Country factsheet: Vietnam. Downloaded from https://datazone.birdlife.org/country/factsheet/vietnam  on 03/07/2025
3. BirdLife International (2025) IUCN Red List for birds. Downloaded from https://datazone.birdlife.org  on 03/07/2025