Bang Lang Bird Garden

On an ordinary morning in 1983, something odd happened in the garden of a man named Nguyễn Ngọc Thuyền. The garden was in the Thốt Nốt area of Cần Thơ. Hundreds of birds flew in and settled in his trees. They were cò ma, small birds with black bodies and gray and white wings. There was no clear reason. They simply chose this place.

Thuyền sat and watched. He did not chase them away.

Some time later, the whole flock left, and he thought it was over. But nearly a year on, the birds came back. This time they brought nearly ten other kinds of cò with them, and the count reached a thousand. In the more than forty years since, the cò have stayed for good.

That is how the Bằng Lăng bird garden began.

An old Vietnamese saying goes, good land, and the birds come to rest. For the family, the return of the birds was a good omen, and it had to be protected. Thuyền decided there would be no cutting of trees, no hunting and no traps anywhere in the garden. People nearby knew him as Bảy Thuyền, and his whole life was so bound to the birds that they also called him Bảy Cò. When he died, his children and grandchildren of the Nguyễn family went on looking after the garden, and they still do today.

The name Bằng Lăng comes from two rows of bằng lăng trees along the way in. The bằng lăng has purple flowers and is typical of the western delta. From May to July the trees are in full bloom, and the two purple rows make a path as lovely as a painting. This is also the season when the birds build nests and raise their young.

Today more than twenty kinds of cò live here together. The most numerous is the cò ruồi, whose scientific name is Bubulcus ibis. It makes up 80 percent of the flock. It has a white body, stands about 50 centimeters tall, and follows buffalo and cattle to catch flies and insects. It is very useful to farming. Beside the cò ruồi there are the cò ma and the cò bông. There are the cò cá and the cò sen. The cò quắm has a bill that curves downward, a feature that sets it apart, and it is counted among the rare birds. The rest are the cò rằn, the cò xanh and the cò rán.

In the evening, thousands of birds come in from the fields all around and fly back to their nests together. No word describes it fully. Thousands of white wings cover the tops of the bamboo and the tall trees, and the chatter carries far. In the bằng lăng season, behind the white birds stand the two purple rows and the gold of the setting sun. It is one of the most characteristic sights of the western delta, the water country.

The morning has a scene of its own. The birds scatter out to feed, taking off together like a white rain falling from the treetops, and then they sweep up into the sky. The beating of wings comes with a rush of calls. That too is worth remembering.

What makes the garden unusual is that it is not a state reserve. It is a private conservation effort. One Vietnamese family has protected the wildlife for more than forty years, out of love for nature and belief in a good omen. Anywhere in the world, a model like this is very rare.

Under the trees at dusk, with wings beating and thousands of white birds pouring down from a deep red sky, it is easy to see why, in all his life, Thuyền could not bear to send the birds away.