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!)

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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 26: Back to the High country

Morning birding at Kelani Valley Forest Reserve. which is a lowland tropical rainforest rich in endemic fauna and flora. The Kelani Valley Forest Reserve is ideal for any missed lowland endemics such as Sri Lanka Myna, Green-billed Coucal, Spot-winged Thrush, Sri Lanka Blue Magpie, Sri Lanka Spurfowl, Brown-capped Babbler and Red-faced Malkoha. Afternoon, leave for Chaaya Citadel, Kandy for two nights. 

We revised our schedule a bit so that we revisited the place near the nick again.  Before departing on that we got excellent views of a flock of Sri Lankan Grey Hornbills around the Guest House.  On getting to the police station area we again failed to find the Owlet. 

So back to the Guest House to try for the Serendib Scops Owl in the rain forest fragment on the opposite side of the river.  This involved a ride in a dugout Canoe,

 in which Hettie – like most Sri Lankans that we saw – stood up while I at least squatted down to get better balance and Rob took photos.  We then did a very brisk walk, pausing only to look at another Green Forest lizard

and some Mimosa flowers (plus play a little with their sensitive leaves)

then on up through a picturesque village

and into the rain forest.

 After a very pleasant walk we came to a stream which was flowing a lot more strongly than usually encountered, due to the recent rains.  Frances and Carol decided to wait while Hettie Rob and myself got our feet wet.  After a few more metres we came to a paddy field and observed some hawk eagles but nothing else.  Hettie looked under a little farmers shelter into the forest (after checking the shelter for snakes) but no owl,  so along the edge of the field and back into the rainforest on a track.  After about 2 minutes Hettie decided that we should return but he would dive into the forest on a very narrow track to do one more playback.  We were to wait in the shelter.

As he disappeared Rob said “Should we have asked him to leave the car keys?”.  We heard a bit of playback and shortly after Hettie emerged moving reasonably swiftly but not looking overjoyed so we guessed the owl was AWOL.  His first words were “I have been bitten by a snake.”.  The immediate question from us was “Is it poisonous?” to which the unwished-for positive answer, was given.

Hettie was firm that despite Australian practise he would walk back – probably good as he is a big lad and we couldn't carry him - so set off using his mobile phone.  (NOTE to TELSTRA and OPTUS:  the mobile phone got coverage in a bloody jungle some distance from a village, let alone a Provincial capital: why can't you do the same?)  The idea seemed to be to take some analgesics; wash the wound; apply some leaves; and get to hospital asap.  As he was allergic to aspirin it was good that Frances had some paracetamol.  By the time we got across the river his brother had contacted the Guest House and he was met by 8 concerned staff and taken off to hospital. 

The manager assured us that the species was not very venomous and that if your time was managed well “you'll be in Heaven.”  I said something to the effect that Heaven was not where we wanted him to be, and after a pause the manager understood my joke and roared with laughter.  The next step was Hettie calling the manager to say that he would be in the hospital for 4 hours but Jetwing were sending another chauffeur as he might not be able to drive.

We basically hung out in the Guest House.  This was aided by having a beer (surprisingly they still had some) and taking a few images.  Some of them are in the Birds page and here are a few others.

The red stems on some palms were attractive.

 A red stain on my shirt was less so: here is the culprit (one of two)

 A view from further back

This White-throated Kingfisher gave a beetle a thorough hammering on the railings before finally swallowing it.  (By this stage we were feeling a tad hammered ourselves.)

After a few hours Hettie rang again to say he was being kept in for 12 hours, the new driver would be with us in 20 minutes and another guide would join us in the morning.  He hoped to join up before we left the country.

So the new driver Bundulu arrived, we loaded up the kit and took off.  Giving due credit, the staff of the Guest House had been very considerate, both to Hettie and ourselves - although we were hours late checking out they made no fuss and produced a cellphone whenever Hettie rang.

Bundulu was not a slow driver like Hettie (he wasn't paid to look for birds we passed etc, but to get clients from Point A to somewhere else, such as Point B) but didn't do daft things.  As we left Kitulgala I noticed a sign on the road pointing to the site where the Bridge on the River Kwai was filmed, but in the circumstances didn't request a stop!

We dodged some potential points of congestion such as a rainy village market

and our first Sri Lankan accident scene where a ute and a bus appeared to have had a misunderstanding.  As there where a few cops on the scene, and we crossed a few ambulances headed to the scene, it may have been nasty.

Gampola Railway Station was straight out of the Raj and/or Bollywood! We got to Kandy in 90 minutes rather than 150 and checked into the Citadel.  Very, very plush and an excellent view across the river.

The place was well endowed with tour groups, some of whom were very noisy.  When we went down for tea there was music from the bar echoing up and competing with the foul musak in the restaurant.  The food however was good.

Bird of the day:  Grey Hornbill

Other vertebrate of the day:  Palm squirrel (the most obvious candidate was seen by none of us)

Pattern of the day:  Elephant designs

Bad taste of the day:  Quebecois tourists  who let their brats sit on the counter of the food service area.

Big Positive  of the day:  Behaviour of the Guest House staff and Jetwing office folk to get us out of the doo-doo!

Addendum from the future: I was at a COG Meeting in mid-June and chatted with another member who visited Sri Lanka a couple of years ago.  They used the Bird and Wildlife mob and it seemed a very intense trip.  They got all the endemics, including the Serendib Scops Owl  This was at Kithulgala and in the jungle, so only 2 people were allowed in to look at once.  Thus I suspect it was the infamous area behind the small hut. One couple went to look from a different angle and were startled - at least - to find a cobra dangling off a branch about a foot from their faces!

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