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Message: <blockquote data-quote="dalat" data-source="post: 3327449" data-attributes="member: 65207">Next morning at dawn, Truong picked me up and we drove 10 km or so to the boat landing. The most interesting bit for migrants are the youngest islands: basically sand banks, covered with a lot of rubbish washed on shore here near the river mouth, and with Casuarina trees planted by the locals. The Casurina are planted to stabilise the island and are used for the wooden huts and fences that dot the bay. People stay there and grow mussles on the shallow bottom of the bay. Quite a surreal experience passing the large bay full of these wierd stilt structures at sunrise. We arrived near the peak of high tide, which meant we could hop on the island without the usual few 100 m of wading through the shallow water.  The dynamics of this landscape always amazes me, every time I was there, the Islands have grown on one side, eroded on the other, the Casuarinas grow extremly fast and it's different every time. The whole island looks much longer now, I guess in a couple of years <a href="https://www.google.ch/maps/place/20%C2%B012'07.5%22N+106%C2%B028'20.0%22E/@20.2000429,106.5046271,6030m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m2!3m1!1s0x0:0x0" target="_blank">the bay will almost be enclosed.</a>The first birds of notice when going ashore were a group of Blue-tailed Bee-eaters passing through ahead. A few steps further I flushed a bunting, it landed not far and I could located it in the dense but short vegetation: a Chestnut-eared Bunting! A lifer for me, what a start, this is why I like Xuan Thuy....We then went towards the southern tip of the Island, the youngest part and also with the youngest Casuarina trees. Migrant birds rest here, they are usually very tired and easy to approach, and when flushed, don't fly far. However, when the Casuarins are too dense, they hide deep inside and are extremly difficult to find. Much more fun when the trees are less dense and you can easily single out the tree where a bird flies in. We went to such a bit of tree stand, and every tree had its tired Dusky and Radde's Warblers, Lanceolated Warbler, Black-browed Reed Warbler, Oriental Reed-Warbler or Thick-billed Warbler. Fun indeed!As in Hanoi, Flycathers seemed already have to passed through, an Asian Paradise Flycatcher (I still have to sort out these ones.... resident birds in Vietnam are either Indian or Blyths, and migrants are Amur?) was the only one I found. One bird cause me quite some hard work, but the reward was when it turned out to be stunning male Siberian Rubythroat.Various Sparrowhawks keep whoosing by and between the dense growth, but I've always trouble to nail them down and views were never good.I almost stepped on a Quail or Crake, which flew just a couple of meters and landed in the grass that was not taller than maybe 20 cm. I saw it walking and managed to get a few shots and then it vanished, despite we being sure in which patch of grass it was. Magic. Luckily I had the photos and piecing the various grainy shots together we found it to be a Yellow-legged Buttonquail. Lifer again, yes!We then went to the outer shore to look for waders, always with the vague hope for a Spoon-billed Sandpiper. But the only ones here were many Kentish Plovers widely dispersed, not even Red-necked Stints, so we didn't even spent much time scoping through the birds...Around 3 pm we called it a day and went back to the boat. On the motorbike back to the park HQ, we stopped at one of the ponds that now was full with waders, herons and the like. Great Knot, otherwise the same species as seen yesterday, but many of them and at quite close range. We enjoyed this for an hour or so and then back to finally some decent food and rest.Next day I headed back to Hanoi, which feels like on another planet when coming from this not so far a way but still so remote piece of land.</blockquote>

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