April 24: Hortons Plains

Morning visit Horton Plains National Park to see Cloud Forests and rare montane fauna, which include the endemic Rhino-horned Lizard, which was featured in Charles Darwin's monumental work on evolution, Bear Monkey, Giant Squirrel and Sambhur. Walk though the grasslands and Cloud Forests to a popular viewpoint know as World's end, which is an escapement with a 870 m drop. We also look for endemic birds Yellow-eared Bulbul and Sri Lanka Hill White-eye and Dull blue Flycatcher. Afternoon visit Hakgala Botanical Gardens. Here we look for the highland races of Purple-faced Leaf Monkey and Toque Macaque. The Toques brim with self-confidence and may approach the visitors!

A very early start to get into Hortons Plains NP. Hettie and I were to do birding, while the others would go a little further in the van and then do a walk (9km round trip) to the World's End look down and some Falls. The road up was rather steep and twisty (and rough, so we didn't use the Jetwing van but a rented one).

The first wildlife spotted by Hettie and myself was a Giant Squirrel (these are big suckers: about the size of a Brush-tailed Possum not little cuties like the Palm and Dusky species).. The walkers also saw one some kms further on.

On the subject of Dusky Squirrels they were also plentiful:

 The key bird was the Sri Lanks Whistling Thrush. After about 30 minutes a fine male flew across the road in front of us, landed, and hammered a snail. Absolutely perfect views, lasting until 0.1 picoseconds before I had my camera set up!  After hanging about for a while longer trying for various other species (and scoring several including Crimson-backed Flameback and Yellow-eared Bulbul) we headed off to meet up with the van. The vegetation at this point was rather dense and rainforest like (possibly because it was rainforest albeit approaching the elfin forest in the higher parts of Peru).  Many epiphytes were available.!

When we got out into the plains proper there were many Pied Bushchats

around and fans of Sean Dooley will be pleased to know that the Zitting Cisticola was common.  In this area the only interruptions to the grass were occasional Rhodedendrons, with the first flowers starting to emerge.

At times the Plains are home to many Sambur deer.  We saw one cross the road and then came across this one sat beside the road.  It is a rather sad case who has earnt that it is easier too bum unhealthy food off visitors than to forage for itself.

We got to the van before the walkers returned so I wandered out to meet them. They had had some good views of "Worlds End" itself (these images by Frances)

 and on the track to Bakers Falls

as well as excitements including seeing a leopard pawprint followed by hearing a close coughing roar. It is interesting that in Yala the jeeps have to have a roof because of leopards but here people walk around!   Another sighting - of a Slow Worm pictured by Rob -

  has entered official mythology! There are of course a few signs around.

On the drive down I thought the Sri Lankan design of crash barrier was worth presenting.  In case you are wondering the drop on the other side is not sheer: no more than a 60% slope, possibly less than 100m vertical drop and no really big vehicles could use the road.

In the afternoon We went to some Botanic Gardens - rather more like an English municipal park than the ANBG – to have a final squizz for migrants (none) Bear-monkeys (we saw a large troupe of this race of the Purple-faced Leaf Monkey) and the Rhinoceros-lizard (2 were seen).

An unusual sight was what appeared to be dark concrete pipes enncasing some tree fern stems.  The whole thing may have been concrete: we never found out.

 As we entered we had noticed that some local youth were playing cricket, with the pitch running across the main road into town!   They had finished by the time left allowing me to concentrate on the more traditional, but probably less interesting, vegetable terraces

and surrounding mountains.

On the subject of mountains Nuwara Eliya is at about 2,000m and on the way out to Hortons Plains we passed the highest railway station with a sign citing 2,200m: the road went up considerably after that!  (As an aside, on the climb up to Nuwara Eliya I  had noticed a sign for one village quoting its elevation to the nearest millimetre.  This really baffled me, until Carol suggested that its height had probably been originally taken in feet and then converted, using a detailed factor, to metres: having got the answer to 3 decimal places why not use it?)

Our evening meal was a buffet and rated as best so far. The trifle was excellent and took me back to Sunday tea in my childhood! Equally the bread and butter pudding was fully authentic taking me back to one of the few diishes that was cooked to be edible at my school. Some dishes were done to order, including banana fritters (possibly not too healthy due to them being deep fried as you wait).

Bird of the day: Orange minivet

Other vertebrate of the Day: Giant squirrel (the Committee agreed – a little reluctantly that as all had seen the species – albeit different beasts – it was eligible).

Pattern of the day: a concrete design in the Gardens that encased some swirly things.

Bad taste of the day: Muzak in the Hotel bar.

 

Read on