We woke and breakfasted earlier than usual so we could grab an extra half hour when the bird activity is at its peak. Robert ducked out of the day - he has been struggling with a cold and felt that another hard day in the field would make things worse.
First we looked at an area near the Blue Magpie Lodge to try and find a Green-billed Coucal. We had no luck here, but had better views of a few species we had struggled with yesterday, such as Sri Lanka Myna and Black-capped Bulbul, and finally caught up with a Crimson-backed Flameback (a type of woodpecker, though you wouldn't know it from the name).
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| Sri Lanka Myna |
We picked up our park guide and walked up the track we were driven up in the jeep the previous day, and arrived probably just as quickly and picked up a Brown-capped Babbler on the way which is a common and wide-spread species that had eluded us so far. We walked from the park gates up to the research station again and searched in vain for a Sri Lanka Scaly Thrush, although we heard one very clearly from its hiding place in the undergrowth. We also heard White-faced Starling, Green-billed Coucal and a Serendip Scops Owl, all plain to the ear, but not to be seen. The coucal, in particular, has a fantasticly exotic sound. We did catch up with a nice pair of Sri Lanka Scimitar Babblers, which responded well to playback.
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| A brown-capped babbler looking very brown in the depths of the forest |
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| Sri Lanka Junglefowl posing for a photo |
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| Sri Lanka scimitar babbler |
Lower down, near to the park entrance, we caught up with a group from Naturetrek, who were scanning through an energetic feeding flock of birds. It appears to be a feature of these rain forests that your birding success can depend on finding the mixed species feeding flocks, which can contain most of the important bird species. Ours consisted of Orange-billed Babblers, Ashy-headed Laughingthrush, Red-faced Malkoha and Sri Lanka Crested Drongo. We wanted to wait and see if anything else joined the flock, but it started to get dark and the first spots of rain were falling. This rapidly turned to a deluge. I had to put the camera and all other items that could be damaged into my rucksack while I got absolutely soaked, the ran for cover with all the others to the shelter of the park entrance. We waited for about half an hour for the rain to show some sign of easing. Sod it, we covered our bags with all our valuables inside and walked down the track to where our van was parked. I'm sure that what was only a 1km walk up this morning turned into a 2km walk down this afternoon. it didn't take long before the rain penetrated into my socks and my trainers. The track had turned into a stream in places as the rainwater tried to escape into the bulging torrents that were streams this morning. Eventually, we squelched into the shelter of the ticket office, where we enjoyed some rice flour muffins and bottles of 7-up and coke. I have learned one thing - Leica optics are waterproof (and so they should be for the price you have to pay) and so is the pull-over rain protector for my rucksack.
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| Some impressive stats about Sinharaja |
We got back to the hotel to try and dry our clothes and have a late lunch. Eventually, rain stopped play for the afternoon.
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