Birds of Vietnam

Vietnam is home to 19 endemic species, more than any other country on the Southeast Asian mainland, as well as 39 species that are almost endemic and a significant number of distinctive subspecies. It is an essential country to visit for anyone interested in the birdlife of the region, and as such has become a relatively popular birding destination. Birds of Vietnam is therefore a very welcome addition to the field guides of the region, and follows close on the heels of Birds of Thailand in the Lynx and BirdLife International Field Guides series. It is available as both a hard back version or with a soft, flexible cover.

Until now, birders visiting Vietnam have had to rely on Craig Robson’s Birds of Southeast Asia for birding in this country. Robson’s book, whilst comprehensive and regularly updated, is not very user-friendly, lacking maps. And, of course, all of the birds that occur in Vietnam are mixed on plates with species that do not. This makes it a frustrating guide to use in the field for anyone who has little or no previous experience of the region. Ascertaining whether one is in range for a particular species, not to mention which species one might need to compare your bird with, means that it can take a lot of time to discover what you are looking at, or indeed, what field marks to look for. Hence this new field guide, with an attractive design that includes clear distribution maps alongside the illustrations, and the text opposite the relevant plates, will be much appreciated by birders visiting Vietnam.

The book starts with a useful 16-page introductory chapter that includes a concise history of ornithological exploration, a section called Geographical Scope that briefly describes the geography, main topographical features, and Endemic Bird Areas (EBAs, in which at least two endemic species are confined: Vietnam has five in all), along with lists of important bird species that are associated with various areas described. Reading this short section, one can begin to appreciate the incredible diversity of habitats and the importance to birds of this long, narrow, densely-populated country, which has a coastline exceeding 2,025 miles (about 2.5 times longer than that of California). We learn here that Vietnam is not only important for its numerous forest bird species, but also for significant numbers of waterbirds, including many threatened shorebirds that winter or move through Vietnam on passage. The diverse habitats that are represented in Vietnam are also described briefly in the introduction, along with a short description of Climate and an overview of Birding Hotspots. The map here, repeated inside the back cover, is one of the few disappointing parts of the book since it has little detail. It merely shows the rough location of Birding Hotspots along with regional boundaries; no rivers or main towns are named and although it is a topographical map, there is no specific detail on altitude.

The Introduction is followed by an essential section on how to use the guide. Reading this section is important because this field guide includes separate accounts and illustrations for taxa that have been assigned to Subspecies Groups, defined here as “informal taxonomic units used in several recent world checklists to highlight seemingly monophyletic groups of taxa that at present appear to sit between the species and subspecies levels”. This novel approach will undoubtedly prove confusing to some users, even after reading the explanation of how these subspecies groups are defined. However, the treatment of taxa in Subspecies Groups will help keen birders differentiate between groupings of various closely-related taxa, presently treated as one species, some of which might be split in the future.

Another novel addition to the HBW and BirdLife International Field Guide series are QR codes. These are included for every species. Scanning the codes takes the reader to webpages of additional information as well as images and sounds of the species involved. Presumably, these QR codes will also indicate if there are changes in taxonomy that have occurred after publication of the guide. Also included with the book is a card with a unique code enabling the free download of a full checklist of the birds of Vietnam from the publisher’s website. This is a very useful checklist, with a map showing birding hotspots and ten columns to fill in with birds you have seen. It also shows in which hotspots each species occurs.

The bulk of the book is of course devoted to the species accounts. Following the taxonomy of the HBW and BirdLife International Illustrated Checklist of the Birds of the World, and including updates that had already been adopted in HBW Alive, the species accounts include illustrations and maps for 870 regularly occurring species as well as separate accounts, illustrations, and maps for numerous taxa in Subspecies Groups mentioned above. Vagrants have a species account and are all illustrated, but are not mapped. The book also includes a small number of taxa that have yet to be included in Vietnam, such as Dull-green Warbler Phylloscopus (trochiloides) obscuratus, which is in a different Subspecies Group to Eastern Greenish Warbler Phylloscopus (trochiloides) trochiloides and hence possibly a species in its own right. “Potential” species are described in detail and illustrated, but it is clear that not all potential species are included in the guide; for example Rufous-headed Robin Larvivora ruficeps could certainly turn up on passage but does not appear in this guide. As with Robson’s South-east Asia guide, and other guides published by Lynx, the text font is very small. Some users may find this a nuisance in poor light conditions, but presumably this is necessary if all of the text is to appear opposite the plates in a book of this size.

In all, there are more than 1,900 illustrations, mostly originating in the Handbook of the Birds of the World (HBW) series, and a total of 29 artists contributed to this guide. The illustrations are pleasing to look at, and most seem to be sufficient for identifying the birds that they depict. With so many artists, the style and quality of the illustrations vary significantly, although this doesn’t necessarily matter. What is perhaps more important to point out is that the illustrations are not always shown to the same scale on the same plate. For example, on one plate, two species of partridge are shown to be almost as large as a Crested Argus Rheinardia ocellata, which is clearly not correct. Using existing paintings has certainly enabled this book to be published quickly, but this might also have some downsides too. For example, the illustration of juvenile Indomalayan Honey-buzzard Pernis (ptilorhynchus) ruficollis (part of Oriental Honey-buzzard) in the Vietnam guide is the same illustration that is used to depict an immature Sunda Honeybuzzard in Birds of the Indonesian Archipelago (Sunda Honeybuzzard is split from Oriental Honeybuzzard in the latter guide). And although there is evidence that some new artwork has been included in this field guide, there is still room for improvement. It would be useful to add more paintings of immature birds or of birds in flight in some cases: for example, hornbills are often only seen in flight but none of the five species are illustrated that way here.

The maps are nicely presented and easy to use. Sitting right next to the illustration of the bird, these colour-coded maps give the user an instant idea of where the bird occurs, and whether it is resident or not. They seem to be very accurate, but mistakes in books like this usually only become apparent when using the book in the field. The maps also show the approximate range of all known subspecies that occur in the country by denoting parts of the range with “A”, “B”, “C” etc. and linking this to the subspecies named in the text.

The text itself is succinct and adequate to identify the majority of birds that one might encounter. It is nicely laid out, and very straightforward to use, and includes information on habitats and altitudinal limits, as well as a section on similar species where relevant. It also includes alternative names where appropriate. The text for each species starts with a clear statement about the status of the bird in Vietnam, such as “Scarce winter visitor and passage migrant (E. Tonkin, S Annam)”, which is one of the most important facts to establish when first identifying any bird in the field. In a few cases, the text of the last species on a page may finish on the next page, opposite the next plate, but in the majority of cases all the text is facing the illustration and map. Vietnamese bird names are also provided for all species, and also appear in a separate index.

In stark contrast to Lynx’s Birds of the Indonesian Archipelago, the index in this field guide seems sensibly designed and should be far easier to use in the field. However, there is definitely room for improvement: for example, I think it would have been better to list all warblers under Warbler, rather than have to look under Bush-warbler for some species, or, indeed, under “Locustella” because all Grasshopper-warblers have accidentally all been placed under Bush-warbler in the index.

Overall, this is an impressive and very welcome field guide, and the authors and those who helped “prepare” the text (Alex Berryman, Chris Bradshaw, Guy Kirwan, Tim Marlow, and Chris Sharpe) should be congratulated on getting this book out in record time. I am certainly looking forward to testing this guide out on my next visit to Vietnam. Whilst it does not have such detailed text as that in Robson’s guide, it does have the advantage of good maps, and if you are only going to Vietnam, you will not be confused by all the other species that are crowded onto the plates in Robson’s book.

– Reviewed by Frank Lambert