Situated in azure waters and clad in primairy evergreen and mangrove forests, Con Dao is a pristine tropical archipelago that is barely visited by Western tourists and even less by birders. However it hosts some specialities that only breed here within Vietnam like Pied Imperial Pigeon, Nicobar Pigeon and Brown Booby. Apart from the birds it is also an important breeding ground for sea turtles, making it highly interesting as an ecotourism destination. The island can be reached by a one hour flight from Saigon (70$) or by boat from Vung Tau.
We spent three nights on the biggest island, Con Son, and one on Bai Canh island. Accomodation on Con Son is widely available but on Bai Canh you can only sleep at the field station of the conservation workers. We arranged our visit to Bai Canh island at the national park office for 1,645,000 VND per person including boat, food, drinks, snorkeling equipment and a hammock at the field station. The main reason to go here is to see sea turtles, who come here between April and November to lay their eggs. At the field station there is also a big hatchery where you can see the little ones hatching. At high tide (between 23:00 and 04:00) you go to the beach to see the female turtle laying eggs. We saw this phenomenon once, but with luck more turtles can be observed. Two species of turtles nest here. The vast majority are Green turtles but occasionally a Hawksbill Turtle is seen as well. It is also possible to see the Dodo´s closest living relative, the Nicobar Pigeon, on Bai Canh, but make sure to state that you want to walk from the field station through the forest to the lighthouse to get a chance to see this species. Otherwise it is a turtle-only trip. We didn´t do the hike and therefore saw not many birds on Bai Canh apart from some Roseate Terns, Whimbrels and Pacific Reef Egrets along the shore and some White-rumped Shama´s and Stripe-throated Bulbuls in the mangroves.
Video of hatching Green Turtles (Chelonia mydas). Made by Anna van der Kaaden
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| Juvenile White-rumped Shama (Copsychus malabaricus) |
On Con Son are also sites where Nicobar Pigeons can be seen, so we spent a lot of time searching for the elusive birds, but in the end with no luck. We first walked to Bang Beach so we could also have a look at Thre Nho Island which apparently hosts Brown Boobies, but none were around. The next day we walked through So Ray forest which is indeed of very good quality but again no Nicobar Pigeons. Later we walked to Ong Dung Beach with the same result. Pied Imperial Pigeons however can hardly be missed and were seen constantly flying from one mountain to the other and were even observed flying over the village. Other birds of interest included: Edible-nest Swiftlet, Ermerald Dove, Dark-sided Flycatcher, Forest Wagtail and White-bellied Sea-eagle. The most surprising observation was however a calling Blue-rumped pitta next to the path to Bang Beach. Unfortunately it did not want to play and remaind heard-only.
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| Pied Imperial Pigeon (Ducula bicolor) |
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| Dark-sided Flycatcher (Muscicapa sibirica) |
For mammal and reptile enthousiasts the archipelago offers some specialities like the endemic Pulocondore Bow-fingered Gecko and the endemic subspecies of Black Giant Squirrel and Long-tailed Macaque. We also observed loads of Finlayson´s Squirrel, Northern Three Shrew and some unidentified bats. Dugongs are occasionally observed in the waters, especially in March and April. Apart from the endemic gecko and the sea turtles we also observed Tokkay Gecko and Ornated Garden Lizard.
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| Pulocondore Bow-fingered Gecko (Cyrtodactylus condorenis) |
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| The endemic condorensis subspecies of Black Giant Squirrel (ratufa bicolor) |
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| Northern Tree Shrew (Tupaia belangeri) |
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| Unidentified insectivorous bat |
Con Dao was an awesome place to be and the turtle watching was quite an experience. However birding here is not that exciting as the forest are empty even though they are of good quality and birding is there for rather slow.
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