April 17 Recovery and acclimatisation

Morning, relaxation. Afternoon, visit Talangama Tank to look for birds.

We met our guide (who we call, at his request, Hettie – rather than use his family name Suchithra as advised by Jetwing) after getting the money and joined the chaos in the pick up area while he got the Jetwing van. We then had an hour of touring from 35km N of Colombo through the city and then 15 km east. On route we noticed:

• Many statues of Buddha, many with flashing blue and red LEDs forming a halo around the head;
• Lots of turf accountant premises. The first three had police stations opposite which we thought might be a pattern, but then the bookies continued and the copshops disappeared;
• it was raining and most people carried brollies (even the cops in uniform).
• There were lots of cattle wandering around and at one point a dozen of them loomed up like the zombies in a Living Dead movie.

Then we got to Villa Talangama. Caesar Augustus would be jealous of a villa as great as this. It is a huge place with just us in it. The staff had stayed up until 2am to greet us, give us a juice and cart our kit around. Excellent. We agreed that breakfast would be at 10 am if we were up by then which we were. This was a huge meal of very healthy stuff served by the excellent staff. It was served under an umbrella beside the pool giving a view over thee Tank. We had a conversation with Hamish - the owner of the Villa - and made arrangements for tea at 7pm (we're going birding with Hettie at 3:30).  Here are a few images of the villa and its fittings (mainly taken by Frances).

 Hamish pointed out that we were lucky to have arrived at 2am as the traditional song festival 50m away had only finished at 1:30am. This was part of the New Years Festivities (which seem to last 5 days at least with New Years Day itself in the middle). Possibly lucky to find we could get rooms etc at this time.

Frances and I arose about 9:30 and were greeted with this view.

We all went for a prowl together (repeating more or less one which Rob and Carol had already done).  A good collection of reptiles were seen:

Land Monitor

 Water Monitor

Garden Lizard

Rob good an excellent image of a Dragonfly, which annoyed me for several minutes by refusing to pose!

Many birds seen, of which several were additions to my life list. My favourites of this stage were initially the White-bellied waterhens

with little fluffball black chicks (which didn't hang around to be photographed), but were overtaken by the Flamebacks- very lurid woodpeckers.  The Tank was a bit low on water, but high on birds as shown in this Rob image.

I then decided to go for a run to the wall of the Tank and perhaps a bit further. When I got about 1km from the Villa there was a lot of interesting stuff happening so I went back and got my camera.

The tractor driver wasn't real happy about having his photo taken even at 50m away. Then I saw the Pheasant-tailed jacanas

and I was a very happy chappy.  A cooling and cleansing dunk in the pool completed the business.

In the afternoon we went for a slightly longer walk with Hettie, where we saw very many birds and generally had an excellent time. Highlights were the whistling ducks and cinnamon bittern. As we had not used the car at all this was all able to be counted as Green Birding.  While relaxing from all this exercise a monkey

ran across the lawn, getting a very steely gaze from Hamish's dog.  (I cannot imagine the battles that would ensue between our small dog an monkeys!)

The evening meal was enlivened with a bottle of Merlot and was generally excellent. The main dish was fish (rated by Hamish as better than chicken - note from later in the trip: this opinion is strongly endorsed) and was accompanied by many tasty vegetables. Definitely a great meal.

Bird of the Day:  Black-rumped Flameback

Other vertebrate of the Day:  Garden lizard

Pattern of the day:  Wrought-iron Gates

Bad taste of the day: none.

Read on

 

April 18 To Sinharaja

After breakfast leave for Martin’s Simple Lodge, Sinharaja for two nights. Afternoon, birding at Sinharaja Rainforest. A UNESCO World Heritage Site for lowland endemics and mixed species bird flocks. According to a study of the mixed species bird on average 42 individual birds occur in the flocks, which makes this world's largest mixed species bird flock. The mixed species Bird flock study of Sinharaja forest has been continuing since 1981 and is considered as the World's longest studied bird flock study. Birding highlights include Red-faced Malkoha, Sri Lanka Blue Magpie, White-faced Starling and Scaly Thrush.

Up early as we had a 5 hour drive to get to Sinharaja and to do some birding in the afternoon.  The shower at the Villa was itself a work of art (yes, part of the room is open to the sky)

 On the first morning Frances had been having a shower when a Palm Squirrel ran across the top of the wall!

While having another huge breakfast our attention was drawn to a family of pigs trotting through the adjacent, vacant, block.  At a more delicate level we spotted this butterfly having its breakfast.

In fact the drive was going to be slow, as there was much traffic on the roads due to everyone going to visit their families for New Years. This seemed to particularly infest the roads with 

• tuk-tuks (here called 3 wheelers) on the one hand, driven surprisingly slowly – but then it is difficult for something powered by 150cc (basically a lawn mower motor) to drag a family of four and a few sacks of rice along at a great speed – and 
• buses driven at great speed and no respect for sanity - let alone traaffic laws.

Travelling at a fair speed (faster than tuk-tuks but slower than buses) were competitors in bike race led out by a series of cars full of people screaming at the traffic to get out of the way. Most of the bikes were more like M Poppins than C Evans but plenty of sweat was flying.

We went through a number of towns

including stopping to try to get some bread and also beer. Here we made a BAD decision and only got 12 cans of Three Coins (at Rs 100 ~ $A0.80 per can). An interesting aspect of the shop was a sign prohibiting photos. Why was this so- we thought the shops interesting but who would object?  This is a smaller shop featuring among its products references to another movie franchise

There were many adverts for TAFE type colleges, quite a few of which mentioned studying to work in Australia.  Frances noted one for the "Academy of Sugar Craft"

Back on the road with a few stops for interesting birds including Honey Buzzard and Crested Serpent Eagle.  Then we got to the place where we swapped vehicles from our van to a Jeep to cart us up a rather basic road to Martin's Simple Lodge. Some commentators on this Lodge had expressed concern about the road,

but I think I would have taken the Subaru up it with little problem and no damage. Whatever, we made it - included a stop to gawp at a Black Eagle out in the valley - and after settling in went out for a birding session with Hettie and our Forest Dept guide Chandra.

This went pretty well and a number of species were recorded. I reckoned that from 3pm we were entitled to regard it as no-carbon birding so this becomes another green day.
 I didn't take any bird images but this orchid was very spiffy:

There were a few "home comforts" out in the forest including well designed shelters

 and a well designed, but leech infested, dunny.

When we got 2km out it started to rain. In fact it poured down and we all got thoroughly wet except Frances who was wearing rain pants. The road effectively transformed from a dusty track to several modest streams within about 10 minutes.
We were also all, except Chandra, wearing Leech Socks which are supposed to keep the little suckers at bay (or at least visible so they could be flicked). This seemed to work for most of us although Rob got well sucked and bled for about 4 hours. (Chandra was not fussed by the leeches: she seemed to feel them creeping around and flicked them off wioth a handy twig.)

Evening meal was enhanced by some of the beer purchased earlier and was quite good although the food was a little blander than we were expecting.

Bird of the Day: Black Eagle

Other Vertebrate of the Day: Ruddy Mongoose

Pattern of the day:  the table top at Martins.

Bad taste of the day:  leeches (The leeches probably rated the leech socks as bad taste of the day!)

Read on

April 19 Sinharaja

Full day birding at Sinharaja Rainforest.  This may be green birding day in Sri Lanka.

I had a fairly ordinary nights sleep, possibly being a little dehydrated and not having a big enough pillow.  Of course at dawn I was solidly asleep and as a result I was not up early enough to see the Sri Lankan Blue Magpies come to feed on moths in the breakfast area. I did get a good look at the rainforest however ....

... and a Junglefowl came to visit.

The place is quite well set up as an eco lodge with solar hot water and his own mini hydro-electric scheme.  It is certainly 'simple' but is also very close to the forest and wildlife (which is the reason for coming here) and all other accommodation is at the foot of the hill about 40 - 60 minutes jeep drive away.  Surprisingly for such a remote place there was good cellphone coverage. Perhaps Telstra should send a mission to Sri Lanka to work out how to do it?  (See below more significant comment on this!)

As no-one had been able to acquire bread yesterday our breakfast included coconut roti: while it looked a bit like dwarf bread (which is inherited not baked) it tasted excellent. It was enhanced by application of Woodapple jam.

The aim of the day was to walk up and down the road to the Research Centre and visit a couple of other places of interest. The first of these was to try to locate the Serendib Scops Owl. We failed, but did find a beautiful green pit viper under a bank.

The other snake species seen on this day was a Keelback.  Nowhere near as attractive or venomous.

As we walked out to the Centre we found some Malabar Trogons. I really like this genus: like parrots but "softer".  Unfortunately they stayed out of camera range. Several of the other endemics were located until we found a gang/family of Sri Lanka Blue Magpies.

It seems that several of the guides feed them at this point, including one bloke who turned up with two German clients. He had the Magpies feeding off the top of his telescope.

This group ended up at the Centre at the same time we did. Then their equivalent of Chandra turned up to say he had found the Sri Lanka Frogmouths. The guide counselled his female client that it would be muddy getting there and that if a leech got her she wasn't to scream as it would scare the froggies. She immediately found a leech on her and screamed which scared the pants off all of us and caused her spectacles to crash to the ground. It was a bit of a struggle getting to the Frogmouth position and very muddy.

Note the white 'spats': they are in fact leech socks which seem to deter the little beasts from going up your leg.  They have other ways in however so constant vigilance is required.
The Frogmouths (an endemic species) were a lot smaller than our home crew and very cute.

At least the Germans were interested in Nature. We saw a Pommie couple who looked very miserable (and totally inappropriately dressed). This was not improved by the large patch of blood on the female's backside where a leech had obviously had a good feed. Two other large groups charged through – one set of Pom blokes wearing shorts and a group of Russian females, some of whom at least were wearing jewel enhanced thongs – in a rain forest!!!
 There were a lot of orchids around.  One species (unidentified) was called 'ground orchid' ...

... while the other, shown in close up yesterday, was Arundina graminifolia was rather tall!

Eat your heart out, Little Dumpies!
Also of interest in the plant department were some Pitcher Plants.  We could distinguish two species, the first of which was quite tall ...

 ... while the second was low, almost on the ground.

We had also enjoyed the masses of butterflies around of which two of the smaller species seemed to take a liking to my shoes. 

Three-spot Grass-yellow

 Angled Pierrot

They were easy to photograph while some of others were impossible. We particularly liked the Tree Nymphs - large, back and white beasts that floated like something out of Avatar! Butterflies will have a separate summary page.
I enjoyed this monster snail

 ...  and this attractive spider species popped up at various points throughout the trip.

A few other arthropods were also of interest, especially the millipedes. These were a contender for pattern of the day.  Rob took the snap, and marvelled that anyone - in this case Frances obliged - would put their hand in that close for scale.

 I also liked the shapes made by the vicious thorns on this rattan palm.

We had walked halfway back to the Lodge when a flock came through so beetled off to look at it. A Red-faced Malkoha was found as part of theflock: very pleasing as our trip was based on a Jetwing standard “Malkohas and Leopards” outing. We then went back to the Research Centre. While there we noticed the cloud building up again and sure enough got wet again. Taking off my leech socks and checking my clothes and body I found I had carted 10 leeches back to the Lodge. Yecccch!
Bird of the Day:  Malabar Trogon (the Magpies were semi tame)
Other Vertebrate of the Day:  Green Pit viper
Pattern of the Day:  Can't remember!!
Bad taste of the Day:  Bejewelled thongs on Russian tourists.

Read on

April 22: Leopards yes, some other cat-names no.

Morning and afternoon safaris at Yala National Park. The park is also good for dry zone specialties like Indian and Great Thick-knees, Sirkeer and Blue-faced Malkohas and Malabar Pied Hornbill. The park is probably the best place to see the rare Black-necked Stork. A day's birding in the park, during the northern winter, can yield a 100 species. The biggest draws in Yala are Elephants, Leopards and Sloth Bears. A recent study has shown that Yala has one of the highest densities of Leopards in the world.

This day involved another early start as it was important to get into the Park early. Unlike other places we had been there are many jeeps in the park with many coming from Yala Village on the main road. This reflects groming recognition of the high density of leopards in the Park. As Rob and Carol commented, in Africa leopard is the hardest of the Big 5 to nail (in all the visits we have made to Parks in Tanzania and South Africa, the best we did was a bit of spotted rope hanging from a tree).

Our first departure from the resort was marred by a major vicious stoush amongst the dogs that hang around. As Sri Lankan dogs are usually very mellow like this lot at the main entrance to the park

this must be engendered by the behaviour of the tourists.

The first task of the day was to arrive at a collective noun for the jeeps. As they all sped off in a cloud of dust I liked the term “Jeremiad” but now agree that Frances offering of a “Jig of Jeeps” is more appropriate as it gets across the bouncy motion on the rough roads.

One point to note is that all the jeeps in Yala (as with Bundala but not Udawawele) have to have covered backs. This is to stop the leopards jumping in from trees.

We turned off onto a side road to escape the chaos and to see if we could find a leopard on some rocks.  A Ruddy Mongoose was found very quickly.

Suddenly we heard a loud cough, which was identified as a leopard mating call, and the spotty chap was picked up on top of a rock.

 Here it is zoomed a bit!

 He headed off, and us and the other two jeeps in the area headed back to where it was thought likely he would cross the road. Sure enough he did, but unfortunately was spooked by a private (ie not professional) jeep driver and headed into the scrub.

We meandered about a bit, writing down quite a few birds and me failing many times to get a decent photograph of a Little Green Bee-eater.   Frances did a better job with this species.

I did get a few other snaps:

Spotted Deer

 Lesser Adjudant and friends

 We came across a family of elephants notable for:

• the bull being in must; and
  

  
• one of the females (closest in this image) being heavily in calf. It was thought at one point that the baby could be seen to kick.
  

  

A new species of bird - Egretta pachydermis the Elephant Egret - was also present.

 Eventually we stopped for breakfast at the tsunami memorial, along with many other jeeps. The behaviour of many of the tourists was a little ordinary since they seemed to feel it necessary to drape themselves over their guides and drivers for photographs. One couple added to this with clothing that was an assault on most senses.

 No more major excitements during the morning session but I feel these images are worth sharing with you.

 Rocks at the end of the beach

 A huge beetle dining on purple flowers

 A Grey Mongoose (note lack of black in the tail)

 A mass of pretty water lilies

 They also nice when a single flower is reflected!

We returned to the resort for lunch. We noted a buffalo calf – with its mother getting very closely checked over by a croc. The mother was missing a front hoof, suggesting she had already had a battle with a croc.

After lunch – livened up by a family of wild boar coming through past our chalet

– we went to the beach to see if it had changed since the previous day. It hadn't.  Returning to our chalet the dog which had adopted us was in residence.

We then returned to the Park for a second go at leopards. Hetti had received information about a mother and three cubs being seen near the breafkfast spot. So the idea as to head off tothat area.

One of the small lakes we passed was well endowed with waterbirds which occupied us for a while before we got to a “rough road”. A t another lake (really a pond) we got close looks at a Painted Stork, seeing the pink 'flush' on the wings for the first time.

Also well decorated was this butterfly, which from its resemblance to Australian species I decided was a Jezabel.

The rough road was a bit bumpy for a while but didn't seem too tough until we got to a drop off a rock ledge which was very dodgy. It appeared at one point we had got jammed or the car was at such a precarious angle it couldn't move forwards or backwards (sideways rotation was an option). However we got out of it, with possible modifications to the tailpipe.

After getting back to the main road monkeys were giving an alarm call so some minutes were invested in trying to spot the leopard which had disturbed them. We failed and as it was getting towards Park closing time headed for the gate. After a few km we came across a Jam of Jeeps. This is the stationary version of a Jig.

 A leopard was sitting up in a tree about 100m from the road.

(This is the traditional African view of a leopard.)
 Eventually most of the jeeps nicked off and we got some reasonable views. Frances was watching when it stood up and descended. Hetti established that it was coming towards the road and after a couple of minutes it emerged and walked up the road with 3 jeeps following it. It was a young female so definitely a different animal to the full adult male we seen in the morning. (I apologise for invading her privacy.)

Eventually she moved into the bushes and we moved on, but not far, as another leopard was seen in the bushes. It didn't emerge but we did get fleeting looks. Off to the gate - only a few minutes after official closing time. A very satisfactory expedition.

Evening meal was a similar deal to the previous one, even to the extent of getting the same table. The highlight for me was the Cuttlefish black curry which had certainly not been toned down for European tastes.

Bird of the Day: Painted Stork

Other vertebrate of the day: Leopard (hardly a surprise I suggest)

Pattern of the day: Peacock

Bad taste of the day: Daggy couple at the breakfast spot
Read on.