Birding with Max Berlijn

Early this month, I guided Max Berlijn from the Netherlands.

Max came to me for an eight-day birding tour through Pieter van der Luit of Inezia Tours—one of the winners of a blog quiz done by me.

Of the numerous birders that I have guided over the years, Max was special in that he was my first hardcore Holarctic Lister: a passionate birder who likes to see birds found in the Holarctic region, and proceeds to travel the world for that objective while meticulously maintaining a list of such birds seen.

According to Max, one of the reasons for narrowing down his birding focus to Holarctic region was because the Holarctic birds are more likely to turn up as vagrants in his country, the Netherlands. And to slice the world into a more “manageable chunk” for birding.

Although Sri Lanka does not fall within the Holarctic region, some birds found in this region could be seen in here. Therefore, the purpose of Max's visit to Sri Lanka was to see those Holarctic birds, still missing in his list. These, informed to me before the commencement of the tour, included six species: Slaty-legged Crake, Brown Fish Owl, Small Pratincole, Great Thick-knee, Pied Thrush, and Kashmir Flycatcher.

I showed them all.

The Slaty-legged Crake, as expected, proved tough using up a lot of our time budget at the Sinharaja rain forest, which is where I chose to look for it. After four hours of tracking, Max was rewarded with a preening individual in a thicket for a good five minutes!

Five additional Holarctic species, which were not on Max's original target list was bagged, taking the total Holarctict ticks on this tour to 11. These were Indian Blue Robin, Tickell’s Blue Flycatcher, Black Bittern, Jacobin Cuckoo, Grey-bellied Cuckoo and Besra. All of these obliged without much drama.

With all that Max's total Holarctic Life List now stands at 1741 species of birds. He is currently the No.2 in the Holarctic Life List page as per Surfbirds.com.

I am more used to guiding birders whose main focus is to see 33 or so endemics. This tour was different in that Max did not want to see the endemics; he considered them as “non-migrating rubbish!”

However, in a bid to transform Max into a world birder, I secretly was determined to show him all our 33 endemics! With a Green-billed Coucal shown at Kithulgala on the day 7, I achieved just that. This was done while not compromising on any of Max's Holarctic wants. And he quite liked some of those "non-migrating rubbish," especailly the Serendib Scops Owl, which was showed at Sinharaja and Kithulgala—the latter at a daytime roost. In the end, we managed to rake in 230 species of birds during this 8-day tour, which was a pretty neat tally for such a short tour.

Some of the noteworthy “other” birds included (sites in the order of visited) Legge’s Hawk Eagle, Brown-throated Needletail, and Plum-headed Parakeet at Sinharaja; White Wagtail ( local rarity), Pallid Harrier, and Little Indian Nightjar (at a day roost) at Udawalawe; Chestnut-winged Crested Cuckoo, Sirkeer Malkoha, Eurasian Oystercatcher (a southern SL rarity), and Temminck’s Stint at Bundala National Park; Watercock at Tissa; Marshall’s Iora, Jungle Owlet, Rufous Woodpecker, Indian Pygmy Woodpecker, and Large Cuckooshirke at Tanamalwila; Sykes' Warbler at Nuwara Eliya (An LBJ that got Max really interested!); and Lesser Yellownape at Kithulgala.

Max was a very sharp birder, and very pleasant person to go birding with. So we got on quite well—so much so that I even introduced to him the Modern Family! We watched it on my laptop during our non-birding breaks! His favourite star of the cast was Gloria, allegedly because of her unique accent. :)

Some of our trip pictures are below.

At Bundala, Max spotted this Temminck's Stint, which was chased by a Little Stint.


Here's Max observing some Small Pratincoles at Bundala.

A "non-migrating rubbish" Chestnut-backed Owlet at Kithulgala. We also saw this species at Sinharaja. Asked whether he would see such a pretty owl instead of a drab Holarctic Warbler which he'd not seen , Max at once said he would rather see the latter. Dah!

A Tickell's Blue Flycatcher at Kithulgala.

 A Jacobin Cuckoo at Bundala National Park.

A grumpy looking Sri Lanka Hanging Parotat Sinharaja.

A male Kashmir Flycatcher at Nuwara Eliya.

Chasing Shaheen

My last tour for 2010 was in late December with Mike Pope, who came here with his non-birding wife Gill, and their eight-year old thumb war champion son, Jaden. Our first base on this tour was the Hunas Falls Hotel, which is situated in the lush foothills of Hunasgririya mountain. About 10 years ago I researched and named two nature trails around this hotel: Simpson's Trail, and Shaheen Trail. The latter leads to "Shaheen Peak" (1,043m), which I named after a particular bird found on top of it named Shaheen, which is the local race of the Peregrine—the fastest member of animal kingdom reaching speeds upto 320km/h.

Hiking nonstop from the hotel, the trek up to Shaheen Peak takes 40 minutes for people like us. That's to say with the odd birding stop or two. The first half of this hike winds through an uphill, narrow, and leechy trail. The second half of the hike falls through an open grassy terrain interspersed with the odd pioneer tree. The trail is good for most parts; some sections are slippery, so it is better to take the off trail grassy approach.

Mike and I weren't initially going to do it—not just for one bird, and because sometimes it proves elusive.

But, our plans took a swift change.

This was when I scoped a Shaheen from the hotel gardens while it was perched at the eerie precipice of the Shaheen Peak, a good kilometre or so away. A snap decision was made to extend our pre-breaklfast birding session to hike to the top of the Shaheen Peak to see this impressive raptor at close quarters while the family was still enjoying a lie-in.

Reaching the top, as expected, we were rewarded with absolute cracking views of our quarry when this  handsome Shaheen was found perched on the Pines on the peak.


Shaheen Falco peregrinus peregrinator

And here's Mike perched on top of the Shaheen Peak.

The bird soon took wing on a foraging mission. Mike with his Canon 50D and 400 f5.6 L lens got a pretty good flight shot. I wasn't so lucky though. Let's say it was a good learning curve for me, as I found that tracking such a small (because of the distance) and fast subject with Spot Metering Mode wasn't easy. I'll know better next time, thanks to Mike.

Here's a cross section of the habitat of the Shaheen, where it had nested several times.

Here's a close up of the above picture.

The eerie view of the world below. Look how lilliputian the coconut trees look!

And the snaking road that leads to Elkaduwa and Ukuwela holds very good birds such as Chestnut-backed Owlet, Brown Fish Owl, and Black-backed Dwarf Kingfisher.
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At the top, I also found a bonus bird for Mike in the form of a male Kashmir Flycatcher—a Himalayan delight that winters in the highlands of Sri Lanka. 

Mike's account of the first leg of the trip involving birding around the Hunas Falls Hotel can be seen here.

Have a great weekend all!

Announcing a Name Change of a Planthopper

When I last blogged about this planthopper, it was known as Centromeria viridistigma.

Not anymore.

According to a recent revision done by Dr. Zhi-Shun Song and Al-Ping Liang at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, it now goes as Truncatomeria viridistigma. The new genus is endemic to Sri Lanka and is a monotypic one, which means there is only a single species that belong to it, which is T. viridistigma.

This revision appeared in Zootaxa 2740 in 2011 (in pages 24-34), under the title, "Two new genera and two new species of Oriental dictyopharid planthoppers (Hemiptera: Fulgoromorpha: Dictyopharidae) from Sri Lanka and southern India." Here's a preview of this paper.

The above photograph is published in it with due credit to yours truly.

According to this paper, the new genus name is a combination of latin “truncat” plus the suffix “meria”, which means the head is more or less truncate at apex.

I photographed this planthopper in December, 2008 at the Sinharaja rain forest while guiding Dr. Richard Bishop and his wife Anne Bishop from Kenya. Its identity was narrowed down with a question mark as Centromeria viridistigma with the help of Dr. Priyantha Wijesinghe and Jerome Constant of the Department of Entomology, Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, Brussels, an expert on Hemiptera: Fulgoromorpha. This helped Dr. Song to find my image in the web. He then sought my permission to use this image for his article announcing this revision.

It is my first photograph to be published in this top zoological journal.

(Edited on 5 January, 2012.)

Happy New Year!

I hope the New Year will bring you peace, happiness and good health!

The endemic Chestnut-backed Owlet above was photographed last November at Kithulgala while guiding Dr. Wilf Powell and his wife Mrs. Julia Powell on a 14-day Absolute Birding tour. I am always careful when typing the name of this bird to avoid the embarrassing misspelling: Chestnut-baked Owlet!

I first heard mobbing calls smaller birds, typically made when a predator has been spotted. Scanning the centre of this commotion, I found this owlet, clearly startled by the abuse. When this species of owl is sighted front on, you often do not get to see its beautiful chestnut back. With its chestnut back to us, it rotated the head to look back at us. A really neat view.

This was our second Chestnut-backed Owlet for the trip. I shot it at 1/250 at ISO 4000 using Canon EOS1D Mark iv and Canon 100-400mm lens. I removed camera noise using Noiseware Professional.

1 Jan., 2011 marks my 34th birthday.
And, as usual, gifts are accepted at 146A, Pahala Bomiriya, Kaduwela, Sri Lanka.

Absolute Birding—November, 2010

Two days after hatching, the chicks of the Blue-throated Bee-eater, several feet down in their dingy nest burrows, begin to develop a hook in the tip of the upper mandible. It turns needle-sharp by day four, before disappearing altogether by around day thirteen. During this time, the sharpness of this hook is such that if you unearth a chick from its subterranean confines, and rub the beak on human skin, it could actually tear it.

So, why such a hook?

Well, it is a weapon that the older chicks have got it to stab younger siblings to death; thus, ensuring it gets all the food delivered by the parents. Fatally stabbed, the younger siblings are unceremoniously cornered few inches away from their cradle, never to see the light of the day.

This developmentally temporary siblicidal weapon of the chicks of the Blue-throated Bee-eater, and their macabre siblicidal behaviour were discovered and documented to science by a British Ornithologist named David M. Bryant and a colleague of his, following a study carried out in Malaysia.

I was extremely glad to have guided David M. Bryant and his ecologist wife Vicki Bryant on a 14-day Absolute Birding tour from 20 Nov. to 3 Dec., 2010. This turned out to be the first guided birding tour he’d undertaken lasting multiple days. Except for an a couple of day-trips; in all his other world birding trips, he’d not sought services of a local guide, preferring to find birds under his own steam.

A professor in ornithology, David had been the supervisor for more than 50 Ph.D students. Listening to his scientific research work, and birding anecdotes was an amazingly enlightening experience. David was a very sharp birder; I could see why he’d not wanted guides all this time!

We were able to rake in a whopping 252 species of birds. We found all 33 endemic birds currently recognised. Our tally included 10 out of the 15 resident night birds. The Black-capped Kingfisher and the Whimbrel found pre-tour by David at Waikkal were not reported on the main birding tour he did with me. David has done a brief trip report and posted it at the Travellingbirder.com. Please have a look to see his views and our complete bird list.

Coming back to birding specifics, my top 10 birds of the trip were Serendib Scops Owl, Slaty-breasted Rail, Sri Lanka Frogmouth, Greater Sand Plover, Great Knot, Cinnamon Bittern, Sri Lanka Whistling Thrush, Rufous-bellied Hawk Eagle, Plum-headed Parakeet, and Sri Lanka Spurfowl.

I am sharing a few specials that cooperated.

Orange-billed Babbler Turdoides rufescens
The mixed-species bird flocks of low to mid-elevation rain forests of the wet south-west Sri Lanka are centred around this gregarious species. According to a research carried out by the Field Ornithology Group of Sri Lanka in the 80s and 90s in the Sinharaja "world heritage" rain forest, Orange-billed Babbler is present in c.90% of the flocks.  These flocks average 41 individual birds (comrpised of several bird species), and in them, this babbler averages little more than 16 individuals per flock. Therefore, it is regarded as one of the "nuclear species" of the flock.

Sri Lanka Spurfowl Galloperdix bicalcarata
This is easily my best shot of this ultra-secretive forest dweller. It was captured at the Sinharaja rain forest. Not living upto its reputation as an elusive ground bird, this vocal, male Sri Lanka Spurfowl gave us exceptional views for nearly a half a minute. I photographed it with manual focussing, as the scene was too leafty and twiggy. A friend of mine finds it difficult to pronounce the English name of this birds, saying, Sri Lanka Superfowl!! Well, it's a super bird; I'll give him that!

Sri Lanka Bush Warbler Elaphrornis palliseri
This scarce montane endemic is very difficult to photograph because of its skulky habits at times. I am very happy about this. It is a treatened species because of habitat loss, habitat fragmentation, high pesticide use  and pollution. Like most endemics, its ecology is poorly known.



Moving on to non-birding subjects, we also saw over 40 species of butterflies, which the Bryants appreciated. This Centaur Oakblue Arhopala pseudocentaurus that we found at Kithulgala was my top highlight, as it was a lifer for me. It had an amazingly beautiful blue on the upperside.



Red Helan Papilio helenus This large swallowtail was spotted by Vicki, who had an eye for prettier things. (No, she certainly didn't do pipits and other LBJs.)

Common Jazebel Delias eucharis
Another butterfly that Vicki liked. The flower that is nectaring on goes as Wal idda in Sinhala. Its botanical name curiously is Walidda antidysenterica.

p.s. On a recent visit to Sinharaja, I discovered that the Forest Department had done postcards using two of my bird images without seeking my permission! And they were selling them! I protested, and they stopped selling them. Because of such severe copyright violations, I am reluctantly forced to include a watermark touching the subjects.

The Backpacker

"... When the nesting time arrives, a hollow tree or branch is chosen—preferably one with a long, narrow, nearly vertical cavity, and a narrow entrance at the top. Then the female builds her nest, which consists of strips nibbled from the edges of green leaves. Having cut a strip, she inserts one end of it under her scarlet rump-feathers, apparently digging it well into the skin; this does not however, prevent a large proportion of the strips from falling out. When a rumpful of strips is collected, she flies off to her nest-hole and deposits them, accumulating a large mass, on top of which the eggs, two or three in number, are laid."

—G.M. Henry about Sri Lanka Hanging Parrot in A Guide to the Birds of Sri Lanka, first published in 1955.

Friday, 10 December, 2011. A respite at last after days of deluge. I came out of my house to enjoy the first rays of sunlight after days of gloom. Well, actually, to put my towel out to dry. Soon, a familiar call drew my attention to the Cinnamon tree in front. It was a Sri Lanka Hanging Parrot—an endemic bird that is more than an occasional visitor to my yard. In all honesty, I wouldn't have noticed it had it not betrayed its presence, for it was merged into the foliage like a traffic policeman in a dark roadside corner.

I ran back to my house get my camera to photograph it, after noticing what it was doing—tearing leaf strips, and tucking them inside its lower back, which is also known as the rump. Knowing that I do not have a lot of time to adjust the settings, I fired some record shots, and the above was the best out of the lot. This was the first time observed this "backpacking" behaviour described so well by the late G.M. Henry, whose book mentioned above was my first guide to birds.