Trip Report: Sri Lanka, December 2-17, 2000

I recently spent just over 2 weeks in Sri Lanka. Most of this was work-related, running a conference at the Kandalama Hotel (near Dambulla) which is an excellent birding location (it was someone else's choice of venue!). I also managed a weekend away to go to the highlands and make a half day visit to Sinharaja Forest Reserve.

Endemics highlights: Sri Lanka Whistling Thrush, Green-billed Coucal.

Other birding highlights: (listed mainly for the quality of the views) Brown Fish-Owl, Pied Thrush, Kashmir Flycatcher, Indian Blue Robin, Large-billed Leaf Warbler, Brown-breasted Flycatcher.

The tank and surrounding jungle at Kandalama are excellent birding areas. You can see quite a few species on a short half hour pre-breakfast walk. Sri Lanka Junglefowl are the most obvious endemics, with several males seen well in forest clearings. I also picked up the only two Brown-capped Babblers of the trip on a jungle walk at Kandalama, which are heard often enough but are real skulkers. Grey-headed Fish and White-bellied Sea-eagles were both present at the tank. Indian Pitta seem to be common and I had good views of two along the access road, as well as seeing several more fly across the road.

I spent a day and a half in the Nuwara Elliya and Horton Plains areas. Birding here was a bit hampered by heavy fog and rain. The first morning was fine, however, and an early start in Victoria Gardens produced excellent views of male Pied Thrush and Kashmir Flycatcher. The highlight here was a male Indian Blue Robin which perched at close focus range and repeatedly sang, belying his supposedly shy nature.

Hakgala Gardens themselves were quiet but the river turned out to be productive. There were a couple of mixed feeding flocks which included Sri Lanka White-eyes, Large-billed and Green (more common than former species) Warblers, Bar-winged Flycatcher-Shrikes and Great Tits. Hearing a call similar to other whistling thrushes I scrambled down a short path to the rivers edge where I could get a view up and down stream of c 20 metres. I was distracted by a feeding flock but then looked across the bank and saw a male Sri Lanka Whistling Thrush on the water's edge under overhanging vegetation. He moved up the bank, some fog rolled in, and when it cleared he was gone. I waited but he didn't reappear, and when I left I discovered I had a good sized leach on my neck which I had to wait to burn off until I got back to the car. The area was a little up the road from km 83, where the river is only about 10 feet below the level of the road.

The last birding of the day was in a wooded area half way up the road to the Tea Factory Hotel. I picked up a pair of Dull Blue Flycatchers here, as well as a pair of Nilgiri Blackbirds eating fruit in a tree (they looked different to the European version, and were much more shy, but the quiet "chuck-chuck" call sounded familiar). Yellow-eared Bulbuls and Sri Lanka White-eyes were very common in this area. At around 3:30 PM a very dense fog rolled in, and birding was finished for the day.

Horton Plains, the next morning, was blanketed in fog and when it finally lifted, after a brief period of sun, it began to rain heavily. I didn't see a lot here as a result, although I did hear a Sri Lanka Wood Pigeon.

The final substantial birding was at Sinharaja. I stayed at the Rantnaloka Tour Inn. I set off about 4:40 AM and reached the ticket office at the entrance at about 6:50 AM. They were a little slow in opening the ticket office which turned out to be a real bonus. I started to look for birds around the back of the buildings. First up were Sri Lanka Grey Hornbill and Yellow-fronted Barbet.

I then noticed a movement in a clump of bamboo round a tree that was overhanging the river. Getting my binoculars on this, I could see it was a coucal. It turned its head and showed a beautiful pale green bill, seemingly a little more slender and with more curvature than that of its common relative. Finding a Green-billed Coucal this way may either have been an outrageous piece of good fortune or the result of checking suitable habitat early in the day. Although I got some good views of the bird it managed to disappear without me being sure that it had flown off from the bamboo patch. In the end I was not sure whether it was one or two birds since it seemed to appear in different parts of the bamboo thicket without any obvious movement.

If birders want to find Green-billed Coucal at Sinharaja, they may want to check out the bamboo stands near the river at the ticket office, or a quarter of a mile into the park itself, before heading off into the park itself. This particular spot can be found by going all the way past the main ticket office/bunkhouse to the toilet block, and then turning left and heading to the trees overhanging the river (yet another good bird found in close proximity to a toilet). The area also has a path into the jungle, and moments after finding the Coucal a Spot-winged Thrush appeared and put on a good show.

I headed into the park with a tracker named Gurpal who did seem to know his bird calls and had exceptional eyesight. We spent about six hours along the trails. In the end he seemed rather disappointed and commented that the birds were staying hidden in the jungle, but I had a great time. We came across 3 feeding flocks, the first of which had a couple of close-up Sri Lanka Blue Magpies mixed in. The last feeding flock had Ashy-headed Laughing-thrush, which were surprisingly similar (apart from the head) to Orange-billed Babbler, and gave prolonged close-focus views of Large-billed Leaf Warbler and Brown-breasted Flycatcher. I missed only one endemic I really wanted to see, which was the malkoha, but almost walking into a Brown Fish-owl, nonchalantly preening itself in the open, made up for this. It was genuinely a privilege to have birded at Sinharaja, and I hope to be able to return there to spend longer.

The following weekend I made a trip to Minneriya National Park with my family, mainly to see the elephants. It's a good birding location as well, although seeing birds from the jeeps is not easy, and had the only Indian Peacocks of the trip. The highlights were the large elephant herds - we ended up seeing over 100 of them.

In total I saw 156 species, of which 30 were new birds. Of the endemics, I saw 16 and heard another 2 species.

Species List

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