In search of a Drongo

I visited Sinharaja rain forest on a solo trip over 7-10 Jan to photograph the Sri Lanka Crested Drongo for an article that I am working with Dr. Eben Goodale. I had several ulterior motives too, I must admit. These included checking some sites for certain sought-after specialties ahead of a couple of birding tours and to enjoy the forest at my own pace. After crashing in a friend’s place in Ratnapura in the previous night, I travelled to Sinharaja early on the 7th with Ranji; a local jeep driver who was bound to Sinharaja.

Overall I was able to accomplish most of my missions of this trip. This was despite inclement weather with overcast conditions lasting almost throughout the day on the first two days and heavy afternoon rain on all days; conditions which the locals in Sinharaja including my host Martin termed ‘quite unusual’ for January, which is traditionally a nice dry month. This was probably due to the North East monsoonal rains getting somewhat delayed as observed by me before.

Dec-March is a period when most birds in Sinharaja start nesting following the rains. Confirming this, on the way to the forest Ranji paused in a home garden of one of the local guides to show me a male Sri Lanka Frogmouth in a nest. Sex roles of this avian specialty is reversed with the male attending to the usually feminine chores (poor bird!). It looks more cryptically coloured of the two sexes too with lichen like white patches of its body offering the protective resemblance it requires to disguise itself as a broken branch when engaged in brooding activity, which it does single-handedly during the daylight hours. I managed to get a record shot of the male in the nest.

The compulsory local guide who accompanied me on my first walk; Thandula mentioned that he had failed to see any bird flock along the main track of the forest over the past week or so. Was the bad weather to be blamed? Or was this due to somewhat noisy construction work going on in three spots along the main track of which two are shelters termed in local English as ‘summer huts’ and the other the first visitor toilet inside the forest; all good work except that they should have done this avoiding the peak visitor season. I was also thinking; would the nesting duties of the birds be keeping them off from flocking, which account for this apparent lull in flock activity?

Anyway I was quite lucky to have accomplished my main goal of the trip just minutes into my first walk. This was while walking up to the barrier gate to meet Thandula when a Sri Lanka Crested Drongo appeared below eye-level to sit just long enough to give my first photograph of it of the trip, which turned out to be the best one of the trip. It was found inside a small flock which seemed to be slowly coming together.

Meeting Thandula, I walked up to the research camp. Along the way he showed me a nest of a Black-naped Monarch, containing a brooding parent bird. We also had a pair of courting Tree Nymphs, being quite oblivious to what is happening around them. Around the Research camp we had several obliging Sri Lanka Blue Magpies and Sri Lanka Junglefowls coming to feed on rice thrown out of its kitchen. Thandula mentioned that the Blue Magpie never feeds its nestlings with rice despite showing a great liking to it. We had no bird flocks inside the forest. We broke for lunch with the skies above us looking ominous. Heavy rain called off play in the post lunch session, which was bad. More disappointing was being the only visitor in Martin’s and having nobody to thrash at Scrabble!

Joining me on my walk on the day 02 was Waruna. After receiving a tip off of a nest site of the shy endemic Sri Lanka Scaly Thrush from a local tracker, I climbed up about 800 m along the Mulawella trail to find a Thrush nest in the location described. It was an untidy aggregation of sticks & decayed leafy matter from the outside probably to prevent detection. Its interior was neatly lined up with rootlets into a shape of a cup, which held one newly hatched nestling and a single whitish egg. It looked very much like that of a Spot-winged Thrush being even built on a Pini-baru tree (Lijndenia capitellata, Family: Melastomaceae), which is often used by it for nesting. We retreated to wait the arrival of parent birds but despite our waiting quite a distance away and trying to remain unobtrusive, we were not graced by its arrival and soon we left the site to minimize disturbance. Back in the main track, a Yellow-fronted Barbet posed for a quick set of photos low-down. It rained post lunch session again and I enjoyed a good sleep.

A new local guide named Dharshana joined me on Day 03 and we had clear blue skies greeting us for the first time during this trip. The day turned out great for birding and amply made up to all those lost hours of the first two days. We climbed up today to the ‘Scaly Thrush nest’ site to see that it was indeed a Spot-winged Thrush nest as one of the parent birds briefly visited it to confirm this. As I have photographed this species in the nest earlier, I left the site soon after establishing this to leave the birds at peace. Close by we had a good bird flock inside the virgin interiors of the rain forest. Here, I managed to photograph the Drongo once again. This flock contained usual species including the two migrants that join the flock; Asian Paradise Flycatcher and Chestnut-winged Crested Cuckoo. The latter was vocal at dawn and I was able to identify its call straightaway as I had heard and sound recorded it in the last season. This call sounds like a certain car alarm that I've heard.

On the way to the research camp, following another tip off I visited a site in a virgin section of the forest for the good-looking agamid Hump-nosed Lizard (Lyriocephalus scutatus). It’s the only representative of its genus which is endemic to Sri Lanka and it refers to its Lyre-shaped head. Before checking the precise location given, I stumbled upon a cracking male of the same nearby, which was followed by its mate in the place described. I got some good pictures of this rare forest lizard, which is a flagship species in Sri Lankan herpetology, with the country's leading herp. journal being named in after its genus.

Soon after, I saw a Sri Lanka Blue Magpie being given a chase by a dark coloured bird in the under storey of the forest. The chaser settled on a branch at eye-level and proved to be the elusive endemic Sri Lanka Scaly Thrush, which afforded jaw-dropping views! It seemed like this one may be nesting close by and had given chase to the Magpie, which may have attempted to predate on its nest contents for which Magpies are notorious the world over. My first photographs of this rarity was also made just at this very site sometime ago and I was quite thrilled about this sighting, which was the top highlight of the trip.

After it took wing waiting for 10 minutes of portraits, I looked around to locate it to see whether it would lead me to a nest. I had three more great sightings of it in the process and soon was able to locate a nest which I suspected to be of it. This was however, empty. Has the Blue Magpie removed the eggs/hatchlings? Or was the chasing behaviour just a pre-emptive form of aggression to keep it away from its nest site before egg laying? I don’t know. What I know is I will keep looking for it next time pass that way!

Dharshana also showed me a nest of a Sri Lanka Blue Magpie moments later in a different spot. We also had a good looking butterfly Glad-eye Bushbrown and a very special creepy crawly in the form of a Giant Earth Worm (Megascoles coeruleus) spanning over a metre in length – a filling McWorm Meal enough for a tidings of hungry Magpies!

Our walk back to Martin’s for lunch was delayed considerably by two bird flocks. One of these was found low-down near a stream by the side of the track between the 1ts and 2nd bends from the main entrance at 2.40 p.m. I have often encountered flocks pausing in for bathing at this site during the midday and it was great to see it again. The bathing party consisted of Sri Lanka Crested Drongo, Malabar Trogon, Red-faced Malkoha, Ashy-headed Laughingthrush and Orange-billed Babbler all of which afforded below eye level views. Here, I was able to photograph the Drongo once more. Late lunch marked the end of a fine field day and it soon started to rain to give time to rest our weary legs.

Brief look around in the following morning didn’t produce anything noteworthy and leaving Martin’s at 9.05 a.m. some power-trekking was required to catch the 9.30 a.m. bus to Kalawana, which was the 1st of the three sectors of my return journey. It was pouring down when I reached home at 3.30 p.m.