Happy New Year!

I hope the New Year will bring you peace, happiness and good health!

The endemic Chestnut-backed Owlet above was photographed last November at Kithulgala while guiding Dr. Wilf Powell and his wife Mrs. Julia Powell on a 14-day Absolute Birding tour. I am always careful when typing the name of this bird to avoid the embarrassing misspelling: Chestnut-baked Owlet!

I first heard mobbing calls smaller birds, typically made when a predator has been spotted. Scanning the centre of this commotion, I found this owlet, clearly startled by the abuse. When this species of owl is sighted front on, you often do not get to see its beautiful chestnut back. With its chestnut back to us, it rotated the head to look back at us. A really neat view.

This was our second Chestnut-backed Owlet for the trip. I shot it at 1/250 at ISO 4000 using Canon EOS1D Mark iv and Canon 100-400mm lens. I removed camera noise using Noiseware Professional.

1 Jan., 2011 marks my 34th birthday.
And, as usual, gifts are accepted at 146A, Pahala Bomiriya, Kaduwela, Sri Lanka.

Absolute Birding–April, 2010

My last tour for the 2009/2010 birding season was a 14-day Absolute Birding tour from 17 to 30 April, 2010 with Dr. Gilmer (Gil) Ewing from Calif., U.S.A. Gil works as a specialist Paediatrician at Kaiser Permanente.

He had grown up in a lush, beautiful neighbourhood in Atlanta, where all families fed the birds in their backyards. Seeing such delights as Cardinals, Pileated Woodpeckers, Ruby-throated Hummingbirds, Blue Jays, and Purple Finches, Gil had got hooked on birds by the age four; he had reached a life list of 100 even before getting his first binoculars.

All pictures shared in this post were shot during this tour. They are spread randomly, so they are not always directly linked to what is revealed in bigger text near them. Now, about this picture, as the blue skies reveal, we had great weather during this trip. This Indian Roller we found at Bundala National Park gave frame-filling captures at the 300mm range of my 100–400mm lens. Gil too used a similar lens.

A prolific birder, Gil had seen “way over 4,000 species of birds,” but since his birding comrades had become jealously competitive and secretive, he had rejected the numbers game altogether and stopped counting. And he never reports his numbers to the official lists now. I was told that his ABA list to be somewhere in the region of 800, and a CA list to be over 500, but he wouldn't tell these things, if you don't ask.

Looking all handsome in its cute little bow tie dress, the Common Tailorbird's mountain subspecies fernandornis was found singing its heart out at the Victoria Park, Nuwara Eliya.

Gil frequently joins group birding tours of the “big three” bird tour companies in the U.S.: Bird Guides, VENT, and Wings; and have travelled with them to such birding hotspots as Panama, Venezuela, Galapagos, Peru, Namibia, Bhutan, Brazil, Indonesia, Madagascar, Kazakhstan, New Guinea, Ethiopia, and. Chile. He'd also been to Alaska 13 times. Six of these trips have taken him to the North American rarity hotspot Attu.

Gil and I photographed this Jerdon's Leafbird at Sigiriya where the morning light was great for photography.

During the journeys between birding sites, I probed his birding anecdotes. And weren’t they fantastic! My favourite was his Peruvian birding adventure, when he’d sighted a Jaguar during a daytime vigil in anticipation of a game bird, deep inside a Peruvian rain forest. This doesn’t make to the top because of this extremely rare big cat sighting. Instead, it was made special by of a web of stories to do with the people on that tour: serious birders, and the bird tour leaders. All I can say is it was definitely more intriguing than The Moment of Truth.

We found the best photo opportunities of birds at the Bundala National Park where the light was fabulous. This Painted Stork was perfectly lit and it gave Gil and me some decent exposures.

He had me gasping in shock and awe at some of the incidents that had happened on that trip. I think it would make a spellbinding documentary, in say, Discovery Channel. I asked Gil to write it up one day. Being the busy professional and the modest person he is, I doubt he will ever do it though.

This Grey-headed Fish Eagle too gave us frame-filling captures at the 300mm range at the Bundala National Park. Its got a horrible call that complements its severe appearance deficits.

Touching on the tour period, April was the only month Gil could travel to Sri Lanka.

April, incidentally, is a very special month for nature enthusiasts in Sri Lanka. First, it is the last of the “high-yielding” birding months in the birding season of Sri Lanka that starts in October with the arrival of migrants. Second, it is the best month for spotting Blue Whales off the southern coast of Sri Lanka—with almost 100% success rate of seeing them. (Gil was not keen on this, as off CA, he’s seen Blue Whales a plenty.) Third, it is one of the best months for observing rare and seasonal insects, most notably, butterflies and dragonflies.

Asian Elephants were in force at Yala National Park were we photographed this on the track ahead of us.

On the bird watching front, we did well for late April, seeing 216 species of birds, with all 33 endemic birds currently recognised. I showed 12 out of the 15 resident night birds—equalling my record, set a month earlier. Interestingly, the tally of night birds was identical to that of March. 101–108 species of birds (depending on taxonomy) were life birds for Gil. He wrote to me that “… night birding experience was amazing, especially when compared to the past trip lists …”

Gil’s favourite Sri Lanka bird was the Sri Lanka Blue Magpie, followed by the Serendib Scops Owl that I showed at the endemic hotspot Kithulgala.

The orderly Eurasian Spoonbills at the Bundala National Park.

My top birding highlight was the Oriental Scops Owl that I found at Sigiriya. On the night that I found it, we also heard an Indian Jungle Nightjar, but it was stubbornly uncooperative once again. (I need to work hard to break its "code.") As in March, we saw the Spot-bellied Eagle Owl well. (I could have photographed it well had I got a decent flash.) We also heard it again at Sigiriya. A howling of a terrified dog each time this massive owl gave out its blood-curdling scream was a creepy yet stimulating auditory experience.


Yellow Bittern’s status in Sri Lanka is “Breeding resident and regular migrant.” We had good sightings of it at the Bundala National Park. While birding with Pete Isleib in Attu, Gil had been able to locate an errant Yellow Bittern—a first for North America. This was after Pete had seen an unidentified heron-like bird flying off. After this, Gil and Pete have gone in separate ways to locate this mystery bird. And during that, Gil had managed to find it, and had identified it positively.

Gil had found me through this blog, after trying to identify some dragonflies and insects that he had photographed in a birding trip to Indonesia during last year with VENT. Although he was a serious birder, he certainly didn’t ignore such "other forms of life," and several seasonal delights seen during birding walks were appreciated well.

His top non-birding highlight was a Green Pit Viper that we found at a stake out at Sinharaja. For me it was the rare lycaenid butterfly Aberrant Bushblue. Not many serious butterfly chasers in Sri Lanka have photographed this one, let alone seen it, so it was a big catch.

We cleaned up all the lowland endemics by the third day at Sinharaja, and this gave time to explore Sinharaja's natural history treasures. One of these finds was this lycaenid butterfly Aberrant Bushblue Arhopala abseus. I photographed this with my 100mm f 2.8 lens with Canon MT-24EX Macro Twin Lite Flash.

Gil is also a grammar stickler expert, and I learnt a lot about grammar and usage matters that I either didn’t know or had taken for granted. And with all those selfish benifits extracted also factored in, this trip would rank high in my mind's list of best birding trips that I have guided.


We had two sightings of the one and only tree-climbing fresh water crab in Sri Lanka, Perbrinckia scansor.

Black-backed Dwarf Kingfisher

Happy New Year!

I shot this avian gem today at point-blank range at Kithulgala. How many colours can you detect in its plumage?

Kithulgala

Early this month, I did a 2-day trip to the wet lowlands of Kithulgala with Dr. Chandanie Wanigatunge and her son, Lahiru. This was my second trip with this duo, the first one being a 2-day trip to Sinharaja rain forest, sometime back. We ran into a lot of rainy weather, again. Undaunted, using our vehicle and various wayside shelters available to make hasty retreats, we squeezed in some decent birding during brief breaks we had from the elements.


Some of the noteworthy birds for Lahiru the bird watcher included Chestnut-backed Owlet (a vocal pair), Layard’s Parakeet, (approximately 50 noisy individuals—easily the biggest aggregation that I have seen; also observed their courtship behaviours), Gold-fronted Leafbird (in song), Dollarbird (a boring immature), Green-billed Coucal, (jaw-dropping scope views; old record shot below), Black-headed Cuckooshrike (a pair in a mixed-species flock) and a Lesser Yellownape (long views).

The above Tickell’s Blue Flycatcher was the only bird that I digiscoped on this trip.


Moving on to natural history specials, our most exciting find was a butterfly named Autumn Leaf Doleschallia bisaltide (Family: Nymphalidae), which remarkably takes the shape a decayed leaf when perched (recalling a smaller Blue Oakleaf). A butterfly lifer for all of us, it was spotted by yours truly while having lunch at Rafter’s Retreat’s restaurant. Unfortunately, it was perched too high for my photographic reach.

Our next top butterfly highlight was a male Duffer Discophora lepida, which is a scarce resident in Sri Lanka. It paused long enough to afford a photo opportunity for Chandanie.

Despite not looking for them specifically, we encountered two amphibian species, which were special. The first was Sri Lanka Rock Frog Nannophrys ceylonensis (Family: Ranidae). A record shot of it is below.

And the second one was Kelaart’s Dwarf Toed Adenomus kelaarti (Family: Bufonidae).


Here are 5 random facts about these two amphibian species.

1. Both were named by Albert Günther (1830-1914) whose name is synonymous with a fair number of Natural History in Sri Lanka.
2. Both genera are endemic to Sri Lanka.
3. Both genera comprise of 3 species each.
4. They both comprise of one species each of which the current conservation status reads as "extinct". 
5. One of these extinct species, Kandy Dwarf Toad Adenomus kandianus was described by Günther in 1872.
6. The other extinct species in question, was named in honour of Günther, as Nannophrys guntheri (Gunther’s Rock Frog).

Did you know that Sri Lanka holds the world record for the highest number of global amphibian extinctions?

That’s right, out of 130 cases of amphibian extinctions documented in the world, Sri Lanka accounts for 21 cases, which is not a feat we can be proud of.

The tadpole that I posted for an ID quiz early this month was photographed on this trip. Here's a more revealing shot of it.

It was of the Sri Lanka Rock Frog, which lives on moist rock surfaces, often hiding inside crevices during daytime. For this it is quite well adapted, with a shape recalling more of a regular frog squashed by a wooden a dough roller.

This frog lays eggs in the same habitat it lives and so, the tadpoles when hatched have no free swimming life stage as most tadpoles do. Instead have a terrestrial existence on moist rock surfaces before metamorphosing into adult frogs.

Here’s how I had looked when I shot the above tadpole.


And here’s a crop highlighting the subject, which really proves how small it was.


My APOBPS treatment has got delayed for reasons beyond my control. Hopefully it could be "administered" in this week.

Absolute Birding

My recently concluded 15-day Absolute Birding tour from 31 Jan to 14 Feb., with 4 British birders, was a roaring success. We bagged a whopping 252 species of birds including all thirty-three endemics currently recognised. Additionally, we also bagged forty-two birds endemic to South Asia. And we bagged nine out of the fifteen resident night birds—of which seven were owls. Special birding highlight was seeing a pair of the newly rediscovered breeding resident, Marshall’s Iora at Lunugamwehera. We also had two sightings of Leopard at Yala National Park. Which included a prolonged sighting of a male resting on a rock.

The tour was organised by Peter Nickless from England who was joined by his birding buddies: Roger Dodds, Graham Mant, and Graham Jones. Just before my clients arrived, I visited this garden—just five minutes from the airport—on a scouting mission. During this, I stumbled upon a day roost of two Brown Hawk Owls at a dimly lit thicket. So when picked my four visitors, our first point of call was this day roost. Great start!

Resuming the tour after this great early start, I was determined not to spend too much time over wayside birds, as we would be seeing these often during the course of the tour. Even with such rigorous discipline, our journey to the first accommodation saw us raking in no less than six raptor species, which included Black Eagle, Crested Serpent Eagle and the only Rufous-bellied Hawk Eagle (a rare species in SL) of the trip.


Day-1 at the lush lowlands of Kithulgala got off to a flying start with a daily tally of fifty-six including ten of the thirty-three endemics to give a solid opening stand. Our endemic highlights were Sri Lanka Junglefowl, Sri Lanka Green Pigeon, Sri Lanka Hanging Parrot, Layard’s Parakeet, Chestnut-backed Owlet, Sri Lanka Grey Hornbill, Yellow-fronted Barbet, Sri Lanka Swallow, Black-capped Bulbul and Orange-billed Babbler. Our day-2 brought us more goodies in the form of the South Asian endemic and regular migrant, Indian Pitta, the avian gem, Black-backed Dwarf Kingfisher and more endemics: Spot-winged Thrush, Sri Lanka Spurfowl, Sri Lanka Small Barbet, Sri Lanka Scimitar Babbler, Brown-capped Babbler and Sri Lanka Crested Drongo.

Our day-3 at the endemic hotspot Sinharaja ‘world heritage’ rain forest produced a truly mouth-watering array of specials including endemics: Sri Lanka Scaly Thrush, Ashy-headed Laughingthrush, Legge’s Flowerpecker, Sri Lanka Blue Magpie, Sri Lanka Myna and the avian jewel; Serendib Scops Owl, which evaded bird watchers until 2001. With 2/3 of the endemics bagged at the end of our day-3, we were sitting at a very comfortable position to make a clean sweep of the endemics on this tour.


Our day-4 yielded four more ticks to our tally of endemics: Red-faced Malkoha, Green-billed Coucal, Sri Lanka White-eye and White-faced Starling. A noteworthy highlight today was Malabar Trogon—endemic to South India and Sri Lanka. By the time we ended our day-4, we had bagged twenty-seven endemics! Our day-5 was essentially a back up day in Sinharaja to nab any elusive suspects. A pre-dawn raid saw us getting cracking views of the Sri Lanka Frogmouth, low down, before a noisy Chestnut-winged Crested Cuckoo took wing to limit our views to a flight silhouette, which was followed with our 3rd views of the Sri Lanka Scaly Thrush. Happy with our haul of the specials, a message was passed on to me declaring the rest of the day a holiday—starting as early as at 8.30 a.m.! The fact that it was the Sri Lanka’s Independence Day commemorating 60 years of independence from the colonial rule of the British didn’t have any reason whatsoever for this. The luxuries of the public holiday that ensued saw a sharp increase in the extras bill for some. We bagged a new trip bird in the form of a dark-morph Booted Eagle—while chilling at Martin's balcony with a few Lion beers as observational aids.

To read the full report with the systematic list click here.
To download a PDF version of the same with images (warning: 23 pages) click here.
To read the full report at Surfbirds.com click here
The above is my contribution to I And The Bird#72 Birding Carnival hosted by Ecobirder in Minnesota, USA.

Birding with Yong Ding Li & friends

Yong Ding Li, 23, a Singaporean birder, had seen 1,217 species of birds in Asia by the time he visited Sri Lanka for a birding trip. Ding Li was determined to break the record of Ben King—who has seen the most number of birds in Asia. He was referred to me by Enoka Kudawidanage who is doing a PhD studies at NUS (National University of Singapore), where Ding Li is a student. Although Ding Li first wanted to do a very low budget backpacking style trip, inviting me to join him at a few key birding sites such as Sinharaja rain forest, I was able to lure him to accepting a more structured itinerary. It was good a group tour—to keep costs low.

Chestnut-backed Owlet photographed at point blank range at Kithulgala

The result was a birding trip done between 10-19 Dec 2007 with 5 other Singaporean birders joining in. They included Ding Li’s birding buddy: Albert Low, 21, who had seen 1,107 bird species in Asia and 1,500 species in the world by the time he came to Sri Lanka.

The group from left to right: Willie Foo, Ding Li, Albert Low, Alfred Chia, Pah Liang, and Alan Owyong,

Others were Alan Owyong—a keen videographer, who had visited Sri Lanka a couple of times; Alfred Chia—a serious birder and a keen photographer with a sharp eye and an even sharper wit; Willie Foo—a keen videographer; and Yang Pah Liang—a keen birder who had travelled extensively.

I spotted a pair of Jungle Owlets from a moving vehicle, and this is one of them; it caught a prey item when we were watching it.

We combined several key birding sites: Kithulgala, Sinharaja, Morapitiya, Udawalawe National Park, Tissamaharama, Nuwara Eliya and a host of local patches, and a bit of sight-seeing at Kandy, before heading back to Katunayake for the final night.

Ding Li and Albert Low stayed on for two more days of birding and cultural explorations. During this extension, Albert and I did a "water birds day tour" combining a few wetlands north of the airport: Chilaw sandspits, Annaiwilundawa Ramsar wetland, Palawi saltpans, and the massive Nawadamkulama tank.

Our final bird trip list stood at 221 species—seen. Our top birding highlights were Green-billed Coucal, Chestnut-backed Owlet, Sri Lanka Grey Hornbill, Sri Lanka Green Pigeon, Red-faced Malkoha, Sri Lanka Blue Magpie, White-faced Starling, Sri Lanka Spurfowl, Ashy-headed Laughingthrush, Spot-winged Thrush, Brown-capped Babbler, Sri Lanka Scimitar Babbler, Malabar Trogon, Sri Lanka Frogmouth, Brown-backed Needletail, Besra, Sri Lanka Scaly Thrush, Sri Lanka Whistling Thrush, Sri Lanka Bush Warbler, Sri Lanka Wood Pigeon, Dull-blue Flycatcher, Kashmir Flycatcher, Pied Thrush, Indian Blue Robin, Slaty-legged Crake, Indian Blackbird, Hill Swallow, Blue-faced Malkoha, Osprey, Jungle Owlet, Brown Fish Owl, Jungle Prinia, Yellow-crowned Woodpecker, Indian Nightjar, Blyth’s Pipit, Indian Scops Owl, Malabar Pied Hornbill, Sri Lanka Woodshrike, Spot-billed Pelican, Thick-billed Flowerpecker, Indian Pitta, Lesser Cuckoo, White-naped Woodpecker, Indian Think-knee, Indian Pygmy Woodpecker, and Yellow-wattled Lapwing.

Albert’s water birds tour with me produced Eurasian Oystercatcher, Sanderling, Great Thick-knee, Caspian, White-winged, Little and Lesser Crested Terns, Lesser Sand Plover, Curlew Sandpiper, Little Stint, Grey Plover, Pacific Golden Plover, Kentish Plover, Brown-headed Gull, Garganey, Watercock, and Indian Reed Warbler.

On the main tour, we managed to bag 31 of the 33 endemic birds; plus many of the sought-after migrants and sub-continental specialties. Our notable miss was Serendib Scops Owl. The closest we got for this endemic bird discovered in Janurary, 2001 was when we heard it across a shallow stream at Kithulgala. It was rainy, yet I could have shown it had my visitors been willing to following me in cross that stream. Our second attempt at Morapitiya ended up in failure with heavy rain and greatly swollen streams hampering our movements.

A spread of Sri Lankan rice and curry at Kithulgala.

On account of our missing this rarity, Albert thought it should be named Serendip Scops Owl in our final bird list! The other endemic that eluded was the Crimson-backed Flameback.

As mentioned above, we had to contend with rainy weather—at times rather heavily on certain days because the period of our travel coinciding with a untimely monsoonal peak. Leading to this trip, I was quite surprised as to how many dry and sunny days I enjoyed in November this year, which is usually rainy due to the onset of the North-East monsoon. This monsoon brings rain to the dry zone (3/4 of the island) as well as the wet zone (the balance 1/3). The intensity of rain expected in November was clearly not there this year. (During a trip done in November, I spoke to a farmer in the dry zone, and was concerned by the delayed monsoon.)

A Malabar Trogon at Sinharaja rain forest.

It seemed to me the rain overdue had been delivered with interest December this year!
The heavy monsoonal rain caused extensive floods in some areas in the north-central and eastern districts in the dry zones after a lapse of many years. This was especially due to spill gates in certain tanks (reservoirs) having to be opened due to very high water levels.

Such bad weather encountered on birding tours do not always dampen the spirits completely as some people use that time wisely to follow other more ebullient indoor pursuits. In an evening in which rain called off play, few of us were gathered at Martin’s balcony to drink tea. We enjoyed the rain forest in rain. We kept our binculars with us anyway, lest the rain would ease and bring the birds out again. And then somebody suggested that we played Scrabble. There were a couple of English visitors who were marooned at Martin’s balcony with us. They were to travel to Galle to see the cricket, which was to start in a few days. They joined us too to form three teams. The Englishman and Ding Li were the first one. Albert and the English lady were the second one. And I battling alone.

As usual for a game of Scrabble, there were plenty of disputes. Some resorted to sledging and 'mental disintegration' tactics. Yet, I came from behind to thrash both the combined commonwealth teams just in my last word scored by dropping an 'O' next to 'Z' to make ‘ZO’—earning 26 in the process. And this was challenged straightaway. The final score was Ding Li’s team – 177, Albert’s team – 196 and yours truly 209.

I have never come across an overseas birder who knew all the Sri Lankan birds by their scientific names. That was until I met Ding Li. He constantly dazzled me with his ability to remember scientific names of not only of the Lankan birds we saw on this tour, but also birds across Asia, which I thought was pretty amazing. Ding Li and Albert discussed day’s sightings lengthily, and took extensive notes at the end of the day.

The Scrabble board at the end.

Our non-birding highlights came in the form of Yellow-striped Chevrotain Moschiola kathygre, which we encountered on the trail while driving up to Martin’s at night and Bear Monkey Trachypithecus vetulus monticola in Nuwara Eliya.

Considering rainy weather we ha and us not visiting three national parks usually visited on standard birding tours (Horton Plains, Yala and Bundala), overall we could be happy of what we achieved in such a short span of time.

Sri Lanka White-eye at Nuwara Eliya.

Ding Li left Sri Lanka boosting his Asian tally by 63 ending up at 1,280 seen. Albert Low left Sri Lanka high, raking in 91 lifers to stand at 1,198 Asian birds seen.

Edit: The newly rediscovered Sri Lankan breeding resident Marshall's Iora was seen briefly on this tour at the Lunugamwehera; and made it to the final trip list. After this, I had very convincing views of this bird on my Absolute Birding tour in Feb, 2008. A detailed report of it is here here.


The pair of Jungle Owlets that I spotted from a moving vehicle at Tanamalwila.

Finding lifers for Peter Kaestner

Ranked 4th in the all-time World Listers, Peter Kaestner had seen 8,128 species of birds out of the 10,000 or so species in the world by the time he came to Sri Lanka to bag 8 of his missing Sri Lankan endemics. He came to me through Jon Hornbuckle who is currently the 2nd ranked birder in the world with over 8,400 birds seen. Peter is also the discoverer of a new species of bird in the world—Cundinamarca Antpitta, which he had been fortunate to stumble upon in 1989 while birding in the East Andes in Columbia in South America. This species had been named eponymously in honour of him as Grallaria kaestneri by Gary Stiles, the ornithologist who described the species. By 1986, Peter Kaestner famously became the first birder to see a representative of each bird family in the world—a feat which took his name to the Guinness Book of world Records, although the list of bird families recognized by science has changed considerably since then. Peter had been a birder since childhood and cannot remember not being interested birds in his life. Instead of taking up Ornithology professionally, he had heeded a sagely advice of one of his teachers, and had turned a diplomat instead—a job in which he'd have scope for extensive world travel. This has worked and it has enabled him to amass a great species list of birds over the years.

Peter is currently working in the US embassy in New Delhi in India as consul-general and came here on 21 (Friday) September, 2007 at around 2.00 p.m., and was dropped off at the airport on the 23 (Sunday) Sep at 1.30 p.m., to catch the return flight. During this period, we judiciously combined: Morapitiya Rain forest, Sinharaja Rain forest, Kithulgala, Hakgala, and Bomuru-ella Forest Reserve to bag seven out of his eight target birds. And we achieved that in trying conditions during a monsoonal peak!

The endemics that boosted the burgeoning life bird list of Peter Kaestner, in the order of seen, were Serendib Scops Owl (discovered in 2001) at Morapitiya; Ashy-headed Laughingthrush, Red-faced Malkoha, and Sri Lanka Spurfowl at Sinharaja; Green-billed Coucal at Kithulgala; and Sri Lanka Whistling Thrush and Sri Lanka Bush Warbler at Nuwara Eliya. We tragically dipped out Brown-capped Babbler!

Anyway, considering the adverse weather we had to contend with, and relatively short time we had to combine the lowlands and highlands, and above all rarity of his targets (some of which consumed time),
I was personally happy to have got those ticks for Peter who left Sri Lanka, content, with 8,135 birds.


Our Serendib Scops Owl was seen at around 7.40 p.m. at Morapitiya; on 21 Sept, after intense tracking as it was raining in stops and starts. Which didn’t help our course. When it was finally spotted by me, Peter took a great photograph of it using his Lumix FZ 8, which is shown above (note the wet feathers of its head).

Before this, we had a good look at a Sri Lanka Frogmouth at dusk—not a new bird for Peter.

In Sinharaja, we had Thandula Jayaratne as our local guide who came in the morning to join us. By the time we met him, we had narrowed our list of wants by two: Ashy-headed Laughingthrush and Red-faced Malkoha, the latter which was spotted by Peter in a mixed-species bird flock (at a site in Sinhraja named "Leopard rock"). He also photographed it.

After meeting Thandula, we made a call to go for the tougher endemic, Sri Lanka Spurfowl. We reached a site in which we have previously had success with this elusive forest dweller. Here we remained seated on a boulder, which was covered with leaf litter, looking down a flat area of the forest for a good half an hour amidst constant rain and steady flows of leeches: conditions which would have put most bird watchers off. But not Peter Kaestner!

Our collective team work and perseverance finally paid rich dividends and Peter first had great views of a male followed by a female Sri Lanka Spurfowl, which was extremely satisfactory. These were accompanied by a flock of Ashy-headed Laughingthrushes. Since both these species disturb leaf litter while feeding, they may be mutually extracting foraging benefits in locating prey by flocking together. That's something that occured to us.

While birding in Sinharaja, I was able to make yet another interesting feeding observation involving a couple of regular flock-associated birds. This was when a flock of Ashy-headed Laughing Thrushes was seen feeding on the fruits of the pioneer, Macaranga indica (Boo-kenda in Sinhala), as I did on the trip with Shiromi Lazarus in August. Rather interestingly, during this observation, a Sri Lanka Crested Drongo also joined the laughingthrushes in the feast, which was very special as the latter is deemed to be an insectivorous species. (This was my first observation of this species feeding on fruit.)


It was 11.00 a.m., and the rain was getting heavier at Sinharaja. Rather than attempting to attempt for the two missing lowland targets: Brown-capped Babbler and Green-billed Coucal in this weather, we gambled to drive on to Kithulgala to improve our chances there; and thereafter to hopefully reach Nuwara Eliya in the highlands in time for overnight stay to squeeze in some montane birding on the following morning! And thereafter, heading to the airport for departure.

Soon after arriving in Kithulgala, I was able to hear a Green-billed Coucal, and would you believe, within 5 minutes we were in business, bagging this somewhat elusive endemic!

No Brown-capped Babbler though—not a breath of it as Jon Hornbuckle writes it in his bird trip reports.

Having stayed overnight at a cosy hotel, and started very early on the following morning—day 3, and our last day—with packetted breakfasts. First, we reached a site near Hakgala Botanical Gardens for the Sri Lanka Whistling Thrush. No luck despite a thirty-minute vigil. This site had been good for Sri Lanka Whistling Thrush at dusk, and this was the first time I attempted for it at dawn. (Later on, I have had success in the mornings). Tad disappointed, we reached Bomuru-ella forest soon, hoping for the Sri Lanka Bush Warbler. While I was searching low for this LBJ, Peter lagging back had scanned the water fall below a valley. And he had picked up the elusive Sri Lanka Whistling Thrush—a very fortunate sightings!

Our final montane target Sri Lanka Bush Warbler was threatening to give us some tough time. So I decided to veer off the main trail. Soon, I was able to spot one for Peter at 8.00 a.m. That brightened my day!
This bird was flitting at ground level in a bamboo thicket, and the views we had were very good.

Soon, we set our wheels in motion to reach the airport, as Peter had an afternoon flight to catch. I was hoping to make a stop for Brown-capped Babbler in on the way at Kandy, but the heavy torrential rain we had by the time we passed this area and the traffic in the busy Kandy road in wet weather prompted me to change plans. So we mutually decided to drive on—not risking missing the departure flight.


Peter was kind enough to bring me a wonderful gift in the form of the latest edition of 'The Book of Indian Birds' by the great Indian ornithologist Dr. Salim Ali. What I admired mostly of Peter’s style of birding is he always goes out with a very positive frame mind that he is going to find the bird that he wants. Which I believe, is one of the magical ingredients of his success. He is also tremendously lucky. Which I believe also helps! Peter was a true gentleman and I really enjoyed his company- especially listening to some of his great twitching anecdotes from around the world. My special thanks to Jon Hornbuckle for passing my contacts to him! A special thanks is also due to our driver Nihal Weerasinghe who did an exceptional job in taking us around safely to meet our deadlines.

Kithulgala with Steve & Mary, USA 12 July, 2007

I picked up Steve and Mary Pence from their Guest house in Negombo in the west coast, north of the airport and drove to Kithulgala for day’s birding. They are based in India and had come here on a short holiday. We had plenty of rain while on the road, but were extremely lucky that it stayed dry when we were out birding.

Our first tick in Kithulgala came in the form of the endemic Chestnut-backed Owlet, just 5 minutes after arriving and it afforded great scope views, below eye-level. The view we had of it was front-on with its ‘chestnut back’ not being visible and soon after both had seen it in the scope, we lost it. Steve has the habit of looking for the field diagnostics to get convinced of the identity of the birds he sees. Soon, I was able to whistle it back to clear view to see its diagnostic chestnut back in the scope during which time I also got a quick digi-scoping photo shown above.

Birding in the Kithulgala Forest Reserve we had great views of a female Crimson-backed Flameback, which I quickly scoped for great views. Our other highlights included Sri Lanka Junglefowl, Layard’s Parakeet, Sri Lanka Hanging Parrot, Black-capped Bulbul & Legge’s Flowerpecker. We sadly dipped out on the Green-billed Coucal.