Fines at Sinharaja

Joan and Martin Fine from Selby, England undertook a 2-day birding and photography tour to Sinharaja rain forest with me from 11-12 March. They were on the beach leg of their Sri Lankan holiday booked through a British tour operator and were based in the cosy Club Palm Bay Hotel in Marawila when I picked them up. Joan had been a pretty active twitcher and claims over 400 species of birds in her British list. She now has moulted into a ‘go-slow birder’; a formally active twicther now taking the middle path of birding, which is essentially characterised by slow approach to things in general & very importantly not getting too hurt over dipping out on special target birds! Martin is a serious photographer and enjoys birds.Having birded in Goa in South India and having done a round tour in Sri Lanka a few days before, Joan was familiar with most of the Indian sub-continent bird species, which made things sort of easier for me. Our first special highlight at Sinharaja was a nest of a Sri Lanka Frogmouth with a brooding male parent bird as mentioned in the previous post. This nest was built in a branch, which stood right above the gently sloping track and advancing a few metres up; we were able to get an angle at almost eye-level; perfect for photography with less backlighting. Martin was able to get some good photos and I too was able to get my best shots of this sub-continental endemic taken at a nest. Observing it in the scope, Joan picked up a fledgling when it wriggled out of the nest to relieve itself outside the nest, demonstrating sound nest sanitation practices. We were able to photograph this reasonably well as documented previously. Soon, we reached our overnight rain forest accommodation; Martin’s Simple Lodge to enjoy a good rice and curry lunch. This March has turned out to be unusually rainy early on. For much of the wet zone, it had taken the shape of conventional nature (at least in the first two weeks) with clear skies in the first half of the day, which gradually gets cloudy by midday resulting it heavy downpours accompanied by thunder starting from round 3.00/3.30 p.m. lasting until about 4.30/5.00 p.m.; conditions usually typical between late March & early April. Expecting things to be no different this afternoon too, our birding was limited to the bird rich patches around our rain forest accommodation, which overlooks a ridge enveloped by primary rain forest. This produced a few usual suspects including Black-capped Bulbul, Square-tailed Black Bulbul, Yellow-browed Bulbul, Orange Minivet, Yellow-fronted Barbet, Legge’s Flowerpecker & Sri Lanka Hanging Parrot.The heavens opened at 3.30 p.m., turning the verdant forest view into a blurry one offering little hope for doing anything else but play Scrabble. The Fines were looking forward for this having heard enough of my boasts. The rainstorm stopped at around 4.45 p.m. We were nearly done with our absorbing game of scrabble too and I paused it in order to squeeze in a good hour’s birding. This brief session was productive with good bird activity and it gave us excellent views of a few specials including White-faced Starling, Sri Lanka Myna, Sri Lanka Green Pigeon, Velvet-fronted Nuthatch, Brown-breasted Flycatcher, Gold-fronted Leafbird, Sri Lanka Junglefowl, Sri Lanka Crested Drongo, Brown-backed Needletail & Spot-winged Thrush. The streams were gushing making the forest noisier than normal and we discovered that marsh near the entrance had turned into veritable lake! We returned to our rain forest accommodation for a hot water shower, daily log and dinner. Oh! and getting that unfinished business finished saw me thrashing the two Brits; 211-148-138, continuing my golden run!As expected, we had great weather the following morning. However, the Sri Lanka Blue Magpies didn’t arrive at early morning to lay siege around Martin’s restaurant & viewing area as they usually do to feed on the insects found under lamps, which would have given Joan an early tick on her birthday. This is the breeding season for this rain forest Corvid. During this time, the two parent birds are assisted by helpers for their nesting/parental chores as discovered by my birding colleague from schooling days; Chaminda Ratnayake who is studying Sri Lanka Blue Magpie for his PhD. Their collective absence may be due to them being burdened with young.

After breakfast, we undertook our first walk along the former logging tracts, which provide prime access to this forest. We didn’t walk all the way up to the research camp as usually done but returned after reaching the second hut; a couple of hundred metres short of it. A pair of Sri Lanka Blue Magpies were seen early in our walk with begging young giving Joan her the birthday bird promised . We weren’t lucky to get a full-blown mixed species bird flock, which would have produced most of our mouth-watering specials in a matter of a few minutes. However, this didn’t matter for us as we had scope views of two usually flock-associated specials in the form of a male Malabar Trogon and a single Red-faced Malkoha in the canopy foliage about 40 metres up a tree when we encountered what looked like a disintegrated bird flock. A couple of Lesser Yellownapes were also bagged here, which weren’t new to Joan, the birder. Soon, the scarce endemic; Green-billed Coucal flew towards us responding to my renditions of its sonorous call giving great views over our heads. It was joined by another bird and soon I was able to scope one of these inside a thicket to offer excellent views for us as well as a couple of other birders who arrived at the scene, which included a Polish Ornithologist with a PhD on bird nest architecture! Other noteworthy new birds found in the walk were Sri Lanka White-eye, Brown-capped Babbler, Dark-fronted Babbler, Black-naped Monarch, Tickell’s Blue Flycatcher, Black Eagle, Asian Paradise Flycatcher & Large-billed Leaf Warbler.Lack of a proper mixed species bird flock meant that we missed out on one of the two nuclear species of Sinharaja’s mixed species bird flock; Orange-billed Babbler, which shows a 92 % presence according to a long running study done since 1981 spearheaded by the FOGSL. This doesn’t happen too often as this gregarious bird is also the most numerically present member of the flock with an average of 16 individual birds in Sinharaja’s bird flocks. We also dipped out on another flock-associated gregarious species; Ashy-headed Laughingthrush. In her enlightened state of middle-path birding, these misses didn’t matter much to Joan. Then again, this is exactly why it is recommended to visit this forest over 3 days to do some justice to this site.

The two guides also found plenty of Natural History highlights, which kept Martin busy and these included Giant Squirrel, Layard’s Squirrel, Dusky-striped Squirrel, Purple-faced Leaf Monkey, Toque Macaque, Green Forest Lizard, Kangaroo Lizard and butterflies, which included Great Eggfly, Blue Glassy Tiger, Tailed Jay, Plum Judy, Three-spot Grass Yellow, Tree Nymph & Great Crow. The striking red dragonfly; Spine-tufted Skimmer (aka Red S) obliged for good close ups as did Pied Parasol (aka Black Velvet-wing).Returning to the beach hotel after lunch, I bailed out at my home range half way through and our driver; Sameera drove Joan and Martin to Marawila to finish the tour. We would meet them again in a few days for a water birds day tour.

The above article is my contribution to I And The Bird #74 hosted by Consworld