4 Days Northern Vietnam Birding Tour to Sa Pa and Fansipan Mountain

Birdquest’s Vietnam birding tours explore the entire length of the most endemic-rich country in mainland Southeast Asia. Our ultimate Vietnam birding tour is the most comprehensive itinerary available in this fascinating and beautiful country and turns up a fantastic array of specialities. Apart from the very rich avifauna, we usually see some rare primates and Vietnam also offers amazing scenery, a fantastic culture and an overall great travel experience!

Vietnam has 13 currently-recognized endemics and of these our tour targets will be Orange-breasted, Collared, Golden-winged and Chestnut-eared Laughingthrushes, Black-crowned Fulvetta, Vietnamese Cutia, Grey-crowned Crocias, Dalat Shrike-babbler, Dalat Bush Warbler and Vietnamese Greenfinch.

NORTHWEST VIETNAM EXTENSION
Day 1: Drive to Sa Pa.
Days 2-3: Fansipan Mountain and other sites. Overnights at Sa Pa.
Day 4: Sa Pa area, then drive to Hanoi airport for late afternoon tour end.

Northwest Vietnam: Day 1 We will drive on a new expressway to north-western Vietnam to the famous town of Sa Pa, situated at the base of the sacred Fansipan Mountain, where we will stay for three nights.

Northwest Vietnam: Days 2-3 Our main quest at the mighty Fansipan Mountain in the Hoang Lien Son mountain range is to find the highly localized, near-endemic Pale-throated Wren-Babbler. Fansipan Mountain is sometimes called the ‘Roof of Indochina’ as it is the highest peak in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia at 3143 metres (10,312ft). The Pale-throated Wren-Babbler is confined to bamboo undergrowth in the lower parts of the mountain and generally rather scarce. It is only found in Northwest Vietnam and adjacent Southern China. We will be exploring suitable habitat for our target bird on various forest trails.

We will also come across some other Himalayan species such as Great Barbet, Yellow-cheeked and Yellow-browed Tit, Scaly-breasted Wren-Babbler, Grey-bellied Tesia, Ashy-throated, Davison’s Leaf and Blyth’s Leaf Warblers, Rufous-winged and Rusty-capped Fulvettas, Bar-throated Minla, Stripe-throated and White-collared Yuhinas, Snowy-browed and Brown-breasted Flycatchers, Small Niltava.

If we are really lucky we could come across one or two of the more scarce birds like Golden Parrotbill or Silver-eared Laughingthrush, or even the extremely rare White-throated Wren-Babbler (Fansipan is the type locality for this very little-known species).

On our second full day, we plan to climb to effortlessly climb to the top of Fansipan Mountain by cable car. This relatively new cable car has been awarded Guinness certification for being the world’s longest three-wire cable car (6292m long) and also having the biggest altitudinal difference between the starting and the ending point (1410m).

In the higher areas of the mountain, we may well see Chestnut-headed Tesia, Black-faced Warbler, Whiskered Yuhina, the near-endemic fooksi form of the Scaly Laughingthrush, Black-faced and Red-winged Laughingthrushes, White-browed Fulvetta (here of the form valentinae, a likely future split as Tonkin Fulvetta), White-browed Bush Robin and, if we are lucky, Slender-billed Scimitar Babbler and Bar-winged Wren-Babbler.

Northwest Vietnam: Day 4 On our final morning we will explore some more open habitats around Sa Pa and will look for Collared Finchbill, Little Forktail, Plumbeous Water Redstart and White-capped Redstart. After lunch, we drive back to Hanoi airport, where our tour ends in the late afternoon.