Birds of Vietnam

For birders, Vietnam is unquestionably one of the key countries in Asia. While its avifauna of just in excess of 900 species is rather overshadowed numerically by some of its near neighbours, especially China and Thailand, ten of these are found nowhere else on Earth and another 27 are almost endemic to the country. Among these are several species new to science discovered at the end of the 20th century, like Chestnut-eared and Golden-winged Laughingthrushes, or species rediscovered after long periods without records, such as the enigmatic Grey-crowned Crocias, all of them the result of a renewed wave of ornithological exploration in the decades since the end of the Vietnam War. This field guide, the first uniquely dedicated to the country’s rich birdlife, describes all recorded species in text and illustrations, with distribution maps for all except vagrants.

By Richard Craik and Lê Quý Minh.