Butterfly-wise it was mainly about spotting numerous blues and skippers settling on the path and neighbouring bushes. Unfortunately I fell at one point and gashed my wrist which may have reduced my enthusiasm for the process. Suffice it to say that we identified a total of seven blues and six skippers.
I did manage to get good views of the angled pierrot and also our first pansy, the grey pansy. We were to see several more pansies in the following days, but I think this was the only appearance of the grey pansy.
|
|
 |
| Grizzled giant squirrel sleeping |
There was also a first appearance for the common rose, which we got good views of fluttering about on its food plant.
Birds we sighted briefly included the crimson-fronted barbet and the crimson-backed flameback and we got a longer view of this grizzled giant squirrel, which was totally motionless and presumably asleep on the branch of a tree. Apparently it is very rare to see one sleeping in the daytime when it would be vulnerable to predators. We also heard quite a lot of but barely sighted the greater coucal.
On the way to Kandy, we stopped to view a Buddhist temple, which amusingly had a white-crested kingfisher perched on the head of one of the ornamental lions and provided a first sighting for the chestnut-headed bee eater.
It was good that we did the sightings early in the day as we were driving through a tropical downpour a lot of the way to Kandy. Here we had our first cultural outing to visit the Temple of the Tooth, one of the most revered Buddhist relics. The Tooth festivities climax each year in an annual parade of tamed elephants, which is becoming something of an environmental issue as Sri Lanka has now banned the cruel practice of 'taming' elephants for all but existing practitioners.
No comments:
Post a Comment