Sri Lanka Day 6

Our next visit was to the Wasgamuwa National Park, which is nominally in the dry zone and we had been warned to bring scarves to protect ourselves against dust.  However the tracks were all still damp from the continuing rains.  This didn't change the fact that this park contains an immense diversity of wildlife and, unlike those with more obvious big game targets, it is far from overcrowded.

More or less immediately on entering the Reserve, we saw a huge mugger crococile slide into a small lake to a backdrop of spotted dear and cattle egrets while a couple of ducks swam around nonchalantly. It all seemed a bit incongruous.

White-fronted kingfishers

Next we were treated to a display by a group of spotted weavers servicing their inverted nests in the nearby rushes, while various other kingfishers, bee-eaters and others moved around the scene. I looked along to a wee bridge where a white-fronted kingfisher was sitting and in a few minutes there was two, then three of them and a pair of indian robins on the other side.

Crimson rose

Turning a corner where there were a couple of birds of prey, we saw a tree with three parakeets in it and were then treated to several close views of male and female crimson rose butterflies nectaring, and I think it has to be the crimson rose that qualifies as the most beautiful butterfly of the whole trip. It cheapened its value somewhat by appearing somewhat regularly from this point on, but the colouring on the male is frankly startling.

On the move again, we quickly stopped again because we sighted a wild water buffalo on our left. And he sighted us too!  He stood up and gave us a jolly good once over before moving off into the trees.

Water buffalo

In fact it is quite clear that big game of other kinds are present on the reserve.  We saw some elephant paths and one of our party identified a leopard dropping.

And so the thing went on really.  Almost at every turn there was something noteworthy or new.  There were scores of butterflies feeding on fruit and urine bait on the road, several wild peafowl, which apprently eat snakes, every kind of heron, various birds of prey and pretty little birds filtering through the tops of trees.

Ultimately it gets difficult to deal with it all systematically.  Here are a few more of the things I managed to photograph:

Angled coster	Butterflies on jackfruit
Common pierrot	Forget me not
Glassy tiger	Green bee-eater
Peascock	Plain tiger
Streaked weaver	Tawny coster

To which we need to add the various species that interested me, but didn't get captured on film: Pioneer, Dark wanderer, Ceylon lace wing, Black winged kite, shikra, grey-headed fish eagle, Asian koel, Drongo cuckoo, Sri Lanka hanging parrot, White-browed fantail, Tri-coloured munia, Paddyfield pipit.

Quite a day overall!

Sri Lanka Day 5

Fortunately the weather held out much better and we were able to play catch up in the Riverstone area.

Red pierrot

On getting up for breakfast we caught sight of a couple of mongooses crossing the approach road and soon a changeable eagle owl was keeping a careful eye on us until mobbed by crows.
Our departure for the hills was delayed by the arrival of a wedding party but when we finally got there, I was able to catch up on some of the photos I had missed out on the previous day, notably red pierrot, great eggfly and painted sawtooth though the blue mormon again proved very elusive.

One of the group noticed a small yellow, so I made sure to take a quick snap and it was later identified by our leader as a spotless grass yellow, the first time we sighted this species.

This was all while foraging around the same area as yesterday but after lunch we walked up the moorland a startling viewpoint.  We quickly saw an endemic species of frog and soon I had finally got an albeit poorish snap of the leopard butterfly that I missed out on several times in the Sinharajah Forest.

Banded peacock

Around this time a large butterfly was seen flattering around a bush with a strong flash of blue.  I immediately got a bit excited thinking of the bluebottle. It turned out to be a banded peacock and kindly landed for a good while, allowing us to appreciate how spectacular it was. There are not many butterflies that are totally green and the interesting thing is that it wouldn't normally be seen in this area at all as it belongs more to the plains of the dry zone. As we were starting to appreciate, climatic conditions in Sri Lanka are becoming less predictable. Overall, this was thought to be to the top spot of the day.

A new bird turned up, the red-wattled lapwing, though two of us were sure we had seen some sort of pipit instead.  A little later I added a pretty lemon pansy to the chocolate pansy I had seen at the hotel earlier.

Another interesting sighting was a plumbeous silverline, in that there was a long debate at the end of the day as to whether it may instead have been a common sliverline. This was strange in that, after just a quick look in the books, I had no doubt whatsoever that it was the plumbeous version!

Unfortunately we were again caught by a shower after visiting the viewpoint, a sheer drop of several hundred metres over the edge of the rock face.  So we were forced back to the van, at least having had a lengthier spell of time in the area.

Heading to our next destination at Wasgamuwa, we stopped at a bridge over a river where we caught sight of a Sri Lanka keelback watersnake hiding in the bankside as well as a couple of spectacular damselflies. Trying not to embarrass a couple of ladies bathing, we also checked out another bird of prey, which turned out to be another crested serpent eagle (juvenile) so presumably it hadn't spotted the snake.

Just short of Wasgamuwa, we took a walk alongside a watercourse where several birds were visible. Not really sure why I didn't get the camera out but perhaps it was because I was already familiar with the likes of purple heron and the various egrets from my trips to France.  Prominent also were whiskered tern, asian openbill, black-headed ibis and some sunbirds.  Or maybe I had just decided it was the butterflies that made the day.  It can't be emphasised too much that it's nigh impossible to take in everything on a day like this.

Anyway, here is a movie of what I did take in:

Sri Lanka Day 4

From Kandy we struck out to Matale to pick up a packed lunch en route for Riverstone in the Knuckles Mountain Range, a known butterfly spot.  The day started out quite well when a rather polluted looking watercourse produced a snarly congress of large water monitors, plus white-throated and stork-billed kingfishers as well as a selection of egrets.

While travelling we have become increasingly aware of the large number of dogs that hang aroung on the roads, all very placid, as if hoping for a titbit from the passing cars and only evading them at the last second..

From the hotel garden, overseen by a huge Buddha in the rocks, the weather looked promising and we were able to view black-necked stork and Layards parakeet. But once we got up high, the peaks were shrouded in heavy mists and we were lucky when they lifted for a half an hour or so to allow a frenetic period of butterfly spotting in an area of scrub by a building site.

The red pierrot (one of my identified targets) and great orange tip turned up though not inclined to hang around.  Neither was the great eggfly I nearly stood on in pursuit of them.  There were also a number of brown shrikes in the area, so small and inoffensive that you would not have thought of

Female mormon posing as common rose

them as predators.

When the hazy sunlight faded we made the best of it by cresting the mountain and heading down towards a village where we had planned to walk and laying bait for butterflies on the way back,  A brief interlude of reasonable light allowed sightings of common and blue mormon as well as common rose, but perhaps the most interesting was a female common mormon imitating the common rose as she went about laying her eggs.  Our guide Indike explained that they do this to ward off attacks as the common rose is poisonous.

Unfortunately the weather really closed in and we had no option but to hightail it back to the hotel through a horrible combination of thick fog and torrential rain that made me pleased I didn't have to drive the van.

I'm aware this is a rather fragmentary account of a fragmented day that left us wondering what would happen if the repeat visit to Riversone on Day 5 drew a blank.

Large water monitor

White-throated kingfisher

Bedraggled pea blue

Common gull

Sri Lanka Day 3

Mercifully it was a later start today. Sitting around on the balcony before breakfast I got a clear view of a black-hooded oriole flying around.  This made me happy as I narrowly missed the one fleeting chance to see a golden oriole when I was in France a couple of years ago.  There were also quick views of the Common Tailorbird and the Sri Lanka White Eye  (thanks to one of our guides) before boarding another jeep for a quick return to the Singahara Forest outskirts en route for Kandy.

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.

Angled pierrot

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.

Sri Lanka Days 1 and 2

I'd been hoping to take a big nature holiday at the end of the winter and signed up for the Naturetrek Butterfly Tour of Sri Lanka 25th February to 6th March.

Due to works at the airport we only arrived at Colombo at about 16.30 on the 26th, which left little time for any sightings en route to our first destination at Sinharaja Forest, as darkness fell fairly punctually just after 18.00.  However we did manage to see little egret, brahmini kite, crested serpent eagle and indian flying fox and saw our first butterfly while settling down to eat - the evening brown, which apparently only comes out an hour before dusk.

An early 6.30 a.m. start took place the next day and before we had even set out we had seen Sri Lanka hanging parrot, tree swift, drongos and and a preying mantis.  Unfortunately the weather was overcast on reaching the entrance to the Sinharaja Nature Reserve, so we hung around the entrance area bird watching for a while and it was soon apparent what a profusion of wildlife there is in the area. I unashamedly plump for the the more exotic species and found straight away that the Blue Magpie was even more spectacular than I had been expecting.  These birds' feeding patterns seem to have been affected by contact with humans and, until recently, they often turned up in the hotel we stayed at.

Also in the spectacular category came emerald dove, yellow browed bulbul, and the grey hornbill.

After a time, hazy sunshine started to appear and so we set off up into the hills, a jeep ride over rough and bumpy tracks.  It didn't take long for butterflies to appear and we soon saw our first - a common sailor.  We stooped to investigate a meadow area and I was pleased to see good numbers of one of the species I had been keen to see - the common jezebel.  Frustratingly I could not with my relatively downmarket gear get a good photograph, as it refused to settle for long enough to get a decent focus.

Further on up the trail, I was first to spot the Sri Lanka Tree Nymph but had a similar photographic experience as it wavered its way among the trees in an elusive manner, resulting in multiple blurred shots and total misfires.

In between times we also made the acquaintance of the gladeye bushbrown, Sri Lankan Jungle Fowl, lesser yellow-naped woodpecker, asian paradise flycatcher, as well as the first of many fleeting encounters with blue mormon, common rose, blue tiger and Sri Lanka birdwing.

There were also a profusion of blues that needed very careful; identification by our guides and a number of yellows that I personally find difficult to disentangle, particularly the one spot, two spot and three spot grass yellows. Plus we encountered purple-faced leaf monkeys, squirrels, lizards and snakes.

Eventually we ended up at a lodge where there was a large water monitor at a nearby stream, but I was fortunate enough to return in time to see another two of my target butterflies, the spectacular bluebottle and the commander.  Then the sky clouded over and we headed back to the hotel.  In the evening, with camera on charge, I took a brief walk nad got good views of purple-faced leaf monkeys, the oriental magpie robin, and the red-vented bulbul.

Here's a video of what I did manage to capture on camera.  I hope the captions are correct.

Overall, I think the most exciting part of the day was to see the sudden flash of the bluebottle flying around at speed.

Tuesday 21st February

Took advantage of some briefly favourable weather to take a trip to Mersehead RSPB Reserve on Sunday morning, although the sun had pretty much disappeared by the time I got there.

The volunteer at reception spoke of some twites having been seen in the treetops near Meida Hide, which immediately caught my attention.  But first I took a quick look at the feeders and bird table behind the office to see what was going on.

On the bird table - greenfinch, sparrow, yellowhammer, chaffinch

There were a few greenfinches around and a female yellowhammer that had me thinking how hard she would be to distinguish from other species on a fleeting sighting. No sign of a tree sparrow though.

So I decided to head for the narrow wooded area near Meida Hide.  However, scanning the trees revealed nothing but tits and chaffinches apart from one single treecreeper quietly going about his business.  Nearer the hide there was a rookery that was far from quiet as the occupants circled around the place. The only other thing to catch my attention was a greyish roe deer casually wandering along the woodland edge thirty yards away but it must have picked my scent and moved off more sharply.

There wasn't much to see from the hide either.  I did pick out a couple of tufted duck (a few of those around just now) and someone else saw a pintail.

Then, heading towards the shoreline, I thought I might have seen what I was looking for as there was a dead tree to the left of the path that had several finch-like birds sitting in its bald crown. The only thing was that they looked to me more like linnets.  It wasn't too easy to tell as it was becoming misty but I was fairly confident I had got it right. One or two birds had some slight reddish colouration and all the ones i checked had grey beaks and grey heads.

The wind was also getting up so I decided against a walk along the beach in the hope of spotting a little egret and doubled back.  The tide was out anyway, which I always think diminishes the number of birds about. I couldn't contact the linnets again but did see a song thrush on the edge of the wood and a couple of reed buntings in the hedgerow.

And of course there was loads of barnacle geese.

16th February

Signs of spring approaching already on yesterday's bike ride.  Heading for Crocketford via Troston, there was some definite warmth in the hazy sunshine, so much so I nearly took my gloves off. A nice run to Troston itself with some lovely scenery but, on a tight schedule, I held off taking photos until the murk resumed. Mistake!

Still a lovely day and a couple of blue tits were showing a bit of interest in each other, plus quite a few tits and finches playing around the trees and the odd meadow pipit on the moorland.

But the best sighting was a resplendent male stonechat on a hedgerow near Drumcoltran Tower, already looking his best and almost as bright as a bullfinch.  I was hoping to see a few yellowhammer in the area, but no joy - just a few tufted ducks on Loch Milton.

Tufted Ducks (male and female)

Then today I actually did see a bullfinch quite close up in the trees on the brae near home.  I went home for my camera but of course he moved on before I got back.