Happiness is a Rare Bird

by Gene Walz

  Seeing Crested Caracaras is always a treat for me. With their long, yellow legs, black and white feathering, and reddish facial skin, they are unique raptors and limited in their American range. When we finished lunch at the Forever Florida Wilderness Preserve we were treated to an aerial combat between two Crested Caracaras and a Turkey Vulture that had ventured too close to their nest. The caracaras dive-bombed and chased the vulture, but it was surprisingly nimble in making its escape relatively unscathed.

  Although I was exhausted when the bus finally returned to Breverd Community College (now Eastern Florida State College), the festival headquarters, I took Adam Kent’s advice and went for a walk to the nearby Chain of Lakes. There I found my final lifer of the festival: a Mottled Duck. I had seen it the day before but had mistaken it for a female Mallard. If you don’t look closely, you’ll likely make the same mistake I did. It shows you what a good bird guide can offer.

  Before I’d been invited at the last minute to Titusville, I hadn’t given much thought at all to birding festivals. I’d seen their advertisements in the birding magazines, and I’d even talked to a couple of my friends who’d been enthusiastic about attending them. I guess I preferred longer trips that include more than just birding. And I preferred to be in smaller groups than the crowds that frequent festivals.

  But Titusville changed my mind. I enjoyed rubbing elbows and sharing drinks with birding celebrities. It was invigorating trading stories with other birders about their great adventures and exchanging tips on where to find birds and what else to do there. (I would never have considered going birding in Columbia or Thailand if someone hadn’t recommended them so highly. These places are now on my to-do list.) I should have signed up much earlier, but I still added a dozen birds, lifers, to my North American list. And I got away from the Winnipeg winter for a week in shorts and a tee-shirt in sunny Florida.

  If other birding festivals are as well-organized, full, and fruitful as Titusville’s was, I may become a birding festival aficionado.

  Vietnam North to South

  When I went to Vietnam in February 2016, I got to the Winnipeg airport at the required time, waited in the lines to get processed, and realized after I’d checked my bags that I’d brought my Brazilian visa instead of the one for Vietnam. I wouldn’t be allowed into Vietnam without it.

  Panicky, I raced outside at 6:55 am. I had maybe sixty-five minutes to get to South St. Vital and back to the airport before I’d be barred from entering the plane. Nothing but Prius cabs (Prii?) outside. Arrrrgh! Not a speedy Camaro cab in sight—if there are such things. I paid a cabbie a hundred bucks to get me to and fro in an hour. I felt like I was in a weird spy movie! My two friends, John Weier and John Hays, going to Vietnam with or without me, bet against my making the flight.

  On the edge of my slippery taxi seat the entire way (plastic covers like my grandma’s couch), I got to my house in twenty minutes. Whew! So far so good. I tried unsuccessfully to stifle the thought that I had subconsciously sabotaged the trip.

  Not much luck on the return trip. Rush hour traffic stymied us. Each second at a red traffic light felt like a Pileated Woodpecker drilling into my skull. In a dead sweat, adrenalin pumping hard enough to explode my eyeballs, I rushed into James Armstrong Richardson International Airport at 8:12 am for my 8:30 flight. The check-in attendants said I was too late. I told them that my bags were already on the plane; it would take longer to find and off-load them than for me to get through security and into my seat. They hustled me through. My friends were stunned.

  As we flew to Vancouver, I remembered the premonitions I’d had about this birding trip. From the moment I hastily signed up for it, I’d had second thoughts and developed a vague, unfocussed sense of unease, apprehension. I had passed up a trip to India and wondered if I’d made the right decision. Vietnam sounded more interesting, but I wasn’t fully convinced. It was the first time that I’d ever felt this way.

  It was going to be a “strenuous” trip. That’s what the brochure said. Would it take more stamina than I could muster, more courage? Would it be a test that I couldn’t pass, an experience I wouldn’t like, a country I couldn’t stand? It was none of these really. What it was I couldn’t quite put my finger on. When I mentioned Vietnam to friends, people’s eyes widened. They too had seen the Vietnam movies and remembered the war coverage on TV. “What about the unexploded bombs?” they’d say. “Or the trip wires in the jungle?” Some even mentioned “the Commies.” Would the Vietnamese people, especially in the north, be receptive to western tourists? I guess these comments contributed to my own suppressed anxiety.

  Funny thing about weird premonitions: every little hint of disappointment or danger gets magnified. You think: is this going to be the moment when things go sideways into the ditch? Occasionally it gets even more dramatic: is this how it’ll end? I knew that making the flight did not put a stop to my troubles.

  Three weeks before my departure date I was warned by a Canadian Customs agent that my Permanent Resident Card was about to expire. She suggested to me that I would have serious difficulty re-entering Canada with an expired card. For thirty-six years I’d had a crumbling pink sheet of paper, folded to wallet-size, that I’d present at the border. My plastic replacement card lasted a mere five years, and the expiration date, which I’d never noticed, thinking it was a “permanent” Permanent Resident Card, was in fine print at the bottom of the card, overlooked unless pointed out. The agent also informed me that getting a replacement card usually took between six weeks and six months.

  I decided to throw myself into the maw of government bureaucracy. I filled out the forms, included a bank note for the not insubstantial fee, and sent them express to the Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada processing centre in Sydney, Nova Scotia where, I supposed, out-of-work miners would process them. Every day I raced to my community mailbox to check return addresses. No luck. The replacement card did not arrive by my departure date.

  Decision time. Do I wait for the card, buy a new ticket at that time, and join the tour late? No, it could arrive five months after the trip was over. Do I cancel the entire trip, forfeit the big bucks I’d already spent, and erase all those spooky premonitions? No, I decided to worry about my return when the time came, get on a plane, and go. Risk-taking can be bracing!

  For the first time ever, this birding trip was going to begin in Hanoi and head south. Tours in the opposite direction had ended anti-climactically; birds were few and far between in the north, and the weather was chillier. The two Johns and I arrived three days before the official tour was to commence and the weather was fine. Just how many of the 850 species of birds of Vietnam could we find?

  Leaving our hotel on our first morning, we were immediately struck by the birdsong—lots of it—in that crowded, noisy, urban neighborhood reeking with the smell of several million motorbikes. Then we discovered that all the birdsongs were coming from caged birds. Mostly jittery Red-whiskered Bulbuls and white-eyes in tiny wooden cages. Bulbuls predominated because of their bubbly, insistent, and incessant singing. It was truly depressing, a very bad sign. On our first bird walk in Hanoi, we saw more caged birds than free ones.

  Our hotel was in the middle of the quaint old quarter of Hanoi, a place of short, very narrow streets lined with small shops devoted to different bits of merchandise. Fish street, metal goods street, flower street, toy street, tools street, etc. The sidewalks were clogged with parked motorbikes. We had to walk in the streets—which were clogged with motorbikes driven intently by people of all ages wearing colourful surgical masks to combat the pollution. Traffic followed the North American pattern except for outriders who felt that the space closest to the sidewalks was for motorbikes travelling in the opposite direction. We had to constantly look over our shoulders for bikes that could take us out from behind. Every walk was a bit risky. My mind kept turning to irony. Headline: Birder offed by Vietnamese motorbike carrying an elephant-sized c
argo of flowers.

  Wanting something calmer and birdier, we headed for an island in the Red River outside the centre of the city. We’d heard it had some good birds.

  To get there, we had to cross a rickety, old iron bridge with narrow pedestrian walkways on each side, two lanes of traffic, and a railroad track. The bridge was probably a kilometre long. During what the Vietnamese call “the American War” (as opposed to the French and Japanese Wars), American prisoners were lined up on the bridge so that it wouldn’t be bombed. Somebody should bomb it now. Walking it was a scary experience. Many of the cement slabs on the sidewalks wobbled in their metal struts when you stepped on them. We felt as if we could plunge forty feet to our deaths at any minute. When a train chugged by, it seemed like the entire structure was about to collapse. More ironic headlines flashed through my brain.

  Once on the island, we didn’t see as many birds as we’d hoped due to an obstacle that kept the count down. As we came out of a grove of trees and rounded the corner on a muddy path, we came upon a meadow with a water buffalo grazing in the centre. He glared at us and started to charge. Ironic headline: Birder gored and stomped by a water buffalo? Luckily, it was tethered by a huge metal ring through its nostrils. Its rope kept it from reaching us but would have allowed it to get to us if we followed the path. We turned back. Still, we recorded fifteen species for the day, seven lifers for me. Not bad.

  Our first official day of birding took us on a long bus ride along a smooth, modern, four-lane divided highway with rice paddies all along the way. They were being worked by hand; some of them had small cemeteries with oddly shaped tombstones in the middle of them. At our destination, Cuc Phuong National Park, we learned the basic realities of tropical birding. It’s a lot like war—without the killing. Hours of empty boredom and fruitless searching followed by minutes of frantic action and panic. You hear more birds than you see, and others in the group see more birds than you do because of their positioning near the bird guide. The foliage is so thick, the openings so narrow, and the birds so flitty and wary that seeing them is more than a challenge. It was a frustrating introduction.

  We really had to earn our birds. At one point we all struggled up a path equivalent to a twenty-three storey building in search of a bird we didn’t find. Still, I managed to spot six of the ten target birds for the park, several with fabulous names: Ratchet-tailed Treepie (tree-pie like magpie, not tree-pee), Rufous-tailed Fulvetta (not Velveeta), Limestone Wren-Babbler, and Fujian Niltava. Bird-of-the-park for me was a Bar-bellied Pitta, a secretive ground bird with a stumpy tail, lime green head and back, yellow underparts with brown barring, and a blue rump. It’s so big and brightly coloured you’d think it would be easy to spot—not so. A wonderful bird.

  Just before leaving Cuc Phuong we paid a visit to the Primate Rescue Center where we saw fifteen different species of the area’s most endangered primates, mostly gibbons and langurs. We were able to see some wild langurs at our next stop, Van Long Wetland Nature Reserve. Two each in very narrow, shallow, and tippy boats, we were poled around the marshland to the backside of a mountain where Delacour’s langurs roamed the cliffs. Only 200 of these critically endangered monkeys remain. We saw six of the black and white langurs, their six-foot-long tails and fuzzy hairdos clear even at a distance. As we watched, a Black Eagle soared overhead. The marshland produced the only ducks of the trip, Garganeys, and most of the marshbirds: Common Moorhens, Purple Swamphens, White-browed Crakes, and the fantastic Pheasant-tailed Jacana with its enormous silver feet, white head and wings, brown and black body, and yellow hindneck that resembles an odd mullet. Swinging around quickly to spot birds in flight threatened to capsize the boats; so, not tempting fate, I missed the Yellow Bittern that others saw. Safety first.

  After Van Long, we headed for Tam Dao, a former French hill station, now a thriving tourist town because its cool, mountain temperatures contrast so nicely with Vietnam’s hot, humid climate. Our new, modern hotel had marble throughout but no heat. And the mattresses were as hard as granite; a hammer and chisel wouldn’t take a chip out of them. Cuc Phuong’s mattresses were hard too, but they provided two duvets and I used one for a mattress pad. Here there was only one duvet. Is this how it’ll end? Frozen to death on a ready-made slab?

  A storefront restaurant across from the hotel had the usual red children’s chairs and tables for all its customers—about a foot off the ground. In front was the five-by-eight-foot table with the daily choice of meat products set out from opening to closing time. There was the entire side of a hog, a couple of skinned squirrels, some piglets, a porcupine with some quills still on it (built-in toothpicks?), and an unplucked Silver Pheasant. One of our group tried to take a photo but she was chased away as some of the offerings were illegal. We did not eat there.

  Birding around Tam Dao was tough. We searched desperately along a motorbike trail that led, unbeknownst to us, to a popular teenage gathering spot. We had to constantly make way for the speedy bikes, sometimes barely. Is this how it’ll end? Clipped by a dirtbike driver on a cell phone? After a while, saying “xin chao” (sin-chow: hello) to them lost its charm.

  The birding there was a disappointment; long, arduous walks with only five of fifteen possible target birds spotted. One morning, we heard a Slaty-bellied Tesia noisily singing in a weedy embankment only four feet away from us. This bird, the size of a mouse with a grey belly and olive back, eluded everyone but me. After an hour search, I caught a glimpse of it as it scampered upright past an opening right opposite me. Everyone else had to list it as “Heard Only.”

  Highlights were an aptly named Red-billed Blue Magpie and several delightful Short-tailed Parrotbills, tiny rufous-headed birds with grey backs, white underparts, and over-sized, yellow, parrot-shaped bills.

  After Tam Dao we bussed back to Hanoi, flew south to Hue, and took a waiting bus to another national park, Bach Ma. Bach Ma means “white horse” in Vietnamese. We quickly discovered why: the park is usually in the clouds which resemble a giant white horse. Those (all!) of us hoping for a reprieve from the cold of Tam Dao were quickly disillusioned. Bach Ma was cold, rainy, and grey.

  Most of us had to traverse a rocky, puddle-filled path to get to our rooms. They were in an ancient, leaky building that had seen better days, probably six or seven decades prior to our arrival. It was clear that the floors had been swabbed with disinfectant moments before our arrival. They hadn’t dried by the time we left. Electricity was limited to three hours per day around mealtimes. There was no heat; it was so cold that most of us slept fully clothed, listening to the rodents having a good time slopping around in the disinfectant under our beds. We didn’t dare shower in the cold darkness in the morning. At breakfast, there was a campfire in the middle of the dining room. The washroom contained a pail. Sartre was wrong. Hell isn’t other people; it’s Bach Ma. Headline: Frigid, unwashed birders die of smoke inhalation in Vietnamese dining room.

  Fortunately, we were treated to close-up views of a very cooperative target bird—an Indochinese Wren-Babbler formerly called a Short-tailed Scimitar Babbler, which was a more descriptive name because of its long, curved bill and short tail. But its the size and colour of a wren and sings like one so the name change wasn’t entirely arbitrary as some seem to be. We also had a great sighting of a male Silver Pheasant walking slowly across the road, its peacock size and silver back, wings, and long tail brilliantly unmistakable.

  We all needed a break. Luckily, we got one back in Hue, one of the cities at the centre of the Vietnam War. For lunch we ate in the leafy courtyard of the fantastic Hotel Saigon Morin, a marvellous example of French Colonial architecture. Charlie Chaplin and Paulette Goddard stopped here in 1932; their photo is in a wonderful gallery. Another photo shows US marines in foxholes dug right outside the entrance. Now gloriously restored, it was a welcome recovery from Bach Ma.

  So too was an afternoon tour of the old Imperial City. It seemed bigger and more ornate (and decade
nt) than the Forbidden City in Beijing, Next door is an outdoor war-remnants museum the size of a couple of football fields. Jet fighters, various helicopters, tanks, anti-aircraft guns, jeeps, and other pieces of abandoned or captured US military equipment are on display there. It was an all-too-eerie reminder of the war that I had barely missed. I wonder if there were any soldiers who birded between battles, who returned from the war with Vietnam bird lists.

  From Hue we travelled to Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park. Here, we boarded sampans and were poled downriver and into Son Doong cave, probably the world’s largest cavern. It’s the biggest space I’ve ever been in, its size and odd formations truly awe-inspiring. We didn’t get much birding done, on the river or inside the cave, but by the end of the day, we’d gotten good looks at what our guide called “the endemic and charismatic Sooty Babbler”—small and sooty—and “the almost mythical Red-collared Woodpecker”—a very tough-to-find, large, olive-green bird with a red head and upper breast. It led us on a merry chase, zipping behind us from one side of a road to the other, from one impenetrable grove to an even denser one. Irony: Birder dies of whiplash.

  Our next day was a long travel day. Days like this can make you wish you were struggling mightily up and down some intimidating mountain trail, chasing unforgettable or un-get-able birds. Typical in some ways—up in the dark for a quick breakfast and early bird walk—it was mostly a day of cramped, bird-free tedium. Even a special beach stop to find, successfully, the recently discovered White-faced Plover was marred by the debris that covered its marvellous white sandy beach environment. Vietnam is a beautiful country but the carelessly strewn garbage—everywhere—scars the soul.