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Yala National Park Malabar Pied Hornbill Kandy Royal Botanic Gardens Kandy’s Royal Botanical Gardens have Babbler – very handsome. Then more peaks over 2,000 metres above sea level. SRI LANKA plants, birds and a mammal spectacle. Hanging Parrots – these are Sri Lanka’s A visit to public toilets yields our next It’s Sunday and the gardens bustle with smallest parrots and they hang to feed endemic. There’s a Wren-like ‘tak’ and Kandy life, but that doesn’t stop the birds as well as sleep. glimpses of a bird – Sri Lanka Bush – about 10 endemics live in the urban By late afternoon we have checked in to Warbler, or should that be Bog Warbler?! botanica. First, Layard’s Parakeet, then, in the luxurious, colonial-style Grand Hotel Later, we bird at a beautiful roadside a tree-top, the bluish chin and throat of a in Nuwara Eliya. Victoria Park is nearby, pond. Our first ‘bush warbler’ here morphs – the Asian Teardrop Yellow-fronted Barbet. and Kashmir Flycatcher is a highlight – into Blyth’s Reed Warbler. The second and Not all the birds are endemic of course. winter visitors to just a small part of the third are the real thing. I glimpse Sri There are Palm Swifts by palms – long island. The chat-like male has dark lines Lanka Whistling Thrush, a Yellow-eared with a swallow-like tail. A White-throated part-framing a rusty throat and breast. His Bulbul bathes and preens, and a Grey Kingfisher perches quietly; a Small setting is a malodourous, rubbish-strewn Wagtail pads on lilies. With 33 endemic bird species and some Minivet sings a tinkly song; a Forest stream, with an urban noise soundscape. By the end of the afternoon, we’re back Wagtail wags its tail; a Greater Coucal But the bird is no less beautiful. in Nuwara Eliya, descending a track beside appetite-whetting mammals, Sri Lanka is well runs; a Black-hooded Oriole sits on a a roadside stall. There’s traffic noise, suspended nest. Then another endemic – Going up rubbish, and a well-vegetated rocky worth a visit. David Chandler tells us more SRI LANKA Sri Lanka Hanging Parrot. There are 30,000 hectares of Horton Plains. stream. Purple-faced Leaf Monkeys move As for the mammals… how do 1,000 or It has endemic lizards and sits in the from tree to tree, and a male Indian Blue his teardrop-shaped island off There are two – big, with a casque on the so flying foxes sound? Like a Starling roost Central Highland World Heritage Site. But Robin, orange under with a black face and India’s south-east coast upper mandible, a status symbol and boom SIGIRIYA that’s how, but with 1.2m wingspans. They the endemics we seek wear feathers not fine white eyebrows, feeds unobtrusively. measures around 270 miles box rolled into one perhaps. Coppersmith are spectacular. Honorary big birds! scales. We stop near Pottipola station and It’s nearly 6pm, and the light is fading. from top to bottom and 150 Barbet came later – a beautiful bird. like buses, three endemics come in quick Farm workers wash their tools in the west to east. Much of it is Then Indian Pitta on the forest floor, succession – a Dull Blue Flycatcher that stream. At 6.25pm we see it. The moon is KANDY Wet, wet, wet lowland but there are mountains in the Tickell’s Blue Flycatcher, Orange-headed We are about 700m above sea level in the seems embarrassed to sing, Sri Lanka full and the bird is close, a hint of blue on COLOMBO Tsouth that peak at higher than 2,500m. Thrush and more endemics… Crimson- HORTON wet zone, near a rocky stream. Light cuts Wood Pigeons, and Sri Lanka White-eye its shoulders. It calls – like no other bird PLAINS It has a wet zone, a dry zone, an fronted Barbet, Lesser Sri-Lanka through forest. Asian Brown Flycatcher, – greener and sharper than Oriental sound I’ve heard – an ear-piercing whistle SINHARJA YALA intermediate zone between them and Flameback (a woodpecker) and a trio of FOREST NATIONAL Copper-rumped Sunbird, Black Bulbul, White-eye and with a glowing white eye that almost hurts to hear – a Sri Lanka about 380 birds listed as regulars. My Grey Hornbills. PARK Dark-fronted Babbler, Yellow-browed ring. We continue upward, through pygmy Whistling Thrush just a few metres away. March visit was my first time in Asia. After a night in an upmarket treehouse, Bulbul, Asian Paradise Flycatcher again. forest and past countless cycads, to reach It’s globally threatened and hard to see – where Asian Elephants stroll by and Toque Another endemic – with white brows and a the national park. I had imagined cloud there may be fewer than 1,000 pairs. It’s Sigiriya and thereabouts Macaques can enter and help themselves Sigiriya, an ancient marvel of civil scimitar for a beak – Sri Lanka Scimitar forest, but it’s more open than that, with one of the rarest birds I’ve seen! This World Heritage Site sits in the dry (they didn’t) we set out at 6.35am to climb engineering. There are birds to be seen zone amid evergreen forests. We are seeing before we begin the climb, including Yellow-eared Bulbul endemics from the first afternoon – Black- more endemics – Sri Lanka Green Pigeon The best-dressed birder capped Bulbuls freshen up in the birdbath, with leech socks and Sri Lanka Woodshrike. Getting to the while we eat lunch; and there are Brown- top and the 5th Century rock fortress is capped Babblers between a parked quite a climb – not for the faint or motorbike and a tuk-tuk. A non-endemic weak-hearted but worth it. male Asian Paradise Flycatcher is more A Shahin, a Peregrine subspecies with spectacular, though – with a crested black orange underparts, flies onto the rock face hood and impractically elongated tail and I look down on Little Swifts, white PHOTOGRAPHY: DAVID CHANDLER DAVID PHOTOGRAPHY: streamers. A White-rumped Shama, glossy, rumps splitting black uppers, the same long-tailed and orange-bellied, responds to species that I’ve seen in southern Spain. my guide’s whistling. A Sri Lanka We descend and drive to breakfast past a Junglefowl calls (it’s an endemic chicken). Blue-faced Malkoha (a sort of non-brood Indian Peafowl adds a touch of pub garden parasitic cuckoo) and a metre of Water (they’re wild and common here), and Monitor bearing little resemblance to the Indian Flying Foxes Malabar Pied Hornbills certainly impress. milk monitor of your school days. 80 September 2020 birdwatching.co.uk 81 BIRD THE WORLD SRI LANKA Kithulgala and Sinharaja Horton Plains After lunch we take in more endemics – Spot-winged Thrush and Chestnut-backed Owlet, with washing hanging nearby. Ferry is too big a word for the boat that crosses the river to Kithulgala, then we are in rainforest with houses, gardens and school children, birding around gardens! We follow a path into dense forest. A Black Bulbul pants on its nest in 90% humidity. A path-side web hosts a Giant Wood Spider – 15cm toe-to-toe. We emerge at a wonderful river, with a big Blue Mormon (a butterfly) and a Spine-tufted Skimmer THE RAIN IS HEAVY SO WE TAKE ADVANTAGE OF A (a dragonfly) for company and head back into forest on a busy path. SIMPLE SHELTER, WHILE CICADAS YELL. A LEECH IS The bird on a stick nest a metre or so REMOVED FROM MY LEECH SOCK... away is another Spot-winged Thrush – amazing. Giant Millipedes catch my eye The owl wasn’t in the pay-to-enter World A Coppersmith Barbet helps fill the wait, and a leech samples the blood of one of my Heritage Site, but our afternoon is. It is gorgeous, with a red chest spot. I see the guides, high on the thigh. The afternoon is rainforest and it really rained! I bought Leopard first. She strolls around the bend disappearing, but the endemics aren’t. leech socks at the entrance. The field guide then sits, completely at ease. She ambles Three Orange-billed Babblers – the bill is cover bird came fairly soon: (endemic) Sri toward us, we move closer and she drifts almost pink – at a stream, two Sri Lanka Lanka Blue Magpie, an adult feeding into the bush. Yes! Swallows and the ‘coo-coo’ of a Green- young. I am taken off-piste, through mud We drive further to Gonagala Wewe and billed Coucal, an endangered cuckoo. into forest, to meet two Sri Lanka the view is good – water, rocks and trees Five noisy Layard’s Parakeets (endemic) Frogmouths, grey male and rufous female! beyond, umbrella-leaved lilies, Water hang out on a tree snag, and a male The rain is heavy, so we take advantage Buffalo, Spotted Deer, Pheasant-tailed Greater Sri Lanka Flameback, an endemic of a simple shelter, while cicadas yell. A Jacana, Open-billed Stork and a Sambur woodpecker, preens. It’s time to leave. We leech is removed from my leech sock. The Deer. My guide points out a White- cross the river on a long, cable suspension rain eases and the birding continues with breasted Kingfisher and I focus beyond it bridge – not everyone’s cup of Ceylon tea. half a dozen or so Sri Lanka Drongos, a to see Asian Elephants in the background. The next day sees us in Sinharaja. We Red-faced Malkoha, Legge’s Flowerpecker, It hadn’t been a bad afternoon... follow a flip-flop-clad guide up a vague two Sri Lanka Hill Mynahs high in a dead path that drifts off the more beaten track.

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