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‪Through the combined effects of habitat destruction and scientific appropriation, vernacular knowledge about nature has been silenced. My article narrates this silencing process for the case of Vietnamese knowledge about birds that have inhabited and migrated through the southern Indochinese peninsula. It analyzes the fate of bird knowledge in three texts published between 1820 and 1931, Tr‪‪ị‪‪nh Hoài Đ‪‪ứ‪‪c’s ‪‪Gia Đ‪‪ị‪‪nh thành thông chí‪‪, Gilbert Tirant’s ‪‪Les‪ ‪Oiseaux de La Basse-Cochinchine‪‪, and Jean Delacour’s and Pierre Jabouille’s ‪‪Les Oiseaux de l’Indochine française‪‪. This period witnessed both the French conquest of Đ‪‪ạ‪‪i Nam and growing ornithological attention to the region’s birds. Imperial ornithologists, or those dependent on empire for their science, conducted both taxonomic and field studies and appropriated vernacular knowledge. However, due to their textual practices, direct sightings were privileged while vernacular knowledge often went uncredited. With the rapid environmental changes brought about by the twin processes of imperialism and industrial capitalism, many habitats of endemic and migratory birds were destroyed. Without the presence of these birds, ornithologists and vernacular birders could no longer substantiate their past material existence outside of Vietnamese sources. This structural process has led to a dual silencing of past birds in the landscape and texts.‪