Where Have All the Birds Gone? (On the Mekong at Least)

In 2006 I travelled down the Mekong River from Houayxay in the North, close to the Golden Triangle, to Louang Phrabang in the centre of Laos, a journey taking two days with an overnight stop at Pak Ben.  For pictures of this journey see Flickr.  I had always wanted to do this journey and it did not disappoint.  We travelled by rice boat which took passengers down river and returned with a cargo of rice from the more fertile rice fields of the South.  

As the miles quietly slipped by it was easy to imagine that you were on a boat a thousand years ago (except for the sound of the diesel engine!) or living out Apocalypse Now without the war.
One of the things that really struck me was the absence of birds on the river. You could be forgiven for anticipating many new species in such an idyllic location but it was not to be.  During the two days we spent on the river I saw only 3 Pacific Swallows (Hirundo tabitica)!  There was absolutely nothing else.
This state of affairs is hard to reconcile with the results of the WWF’s report First Contact in the Greater Mekong which covered the discovery of many new species in this region including the bald songbird which I have mentioned in my previous post Extinction is Forever .
I have puzzled over this disparity for some time and have concluded that it might be because of the proclivity of people in Indochina to eat anything that moves flies or swims.  In those parts of the country that are more heavily populated like the villages along the Mekong it is certainly the case that local markets sell huge quantities of small birds for food.  Could this be the explanation?

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