Owls, Leopards, Blue Whales, and Rapacious Flangetails

I am back after leading several exciting bird and wildlife tours.

My last tour for the season ended was a 15-day Natural History tour from 9 to 23 April, 2011 with Barry Barnacal, Gary Bellingham, Katrina Hay, and Andrew Vinson from the UK. The three gentlemen of this group were very keen photographers, and they carried serious photo gear, including Canon EOS 1D Mark 4s and lenses that ranged from 100mm macro to 500mm telephoto.

They came to me through a referral by Barry’s pal David Clugston—an avid birder and a worldlister with nearly half the world birds in his tally; he did an Absolute Birding tour with me in November, 2009. David was a pure birder, and did not do any photography while in Sri Lanka, opting just to watch birds and finding more of them. This explains why were able to rake in a massive 14-day tally of 252 species of birds, including all endemics.

The Brown Wood Owl Strix leptogrammica that I discovered thanks to a mobbing party of birds at Welimada.

Coming back to this tour, it was designed to focus on four aspects: birds, Leopards, Blue Whales, and other natural history.

After arriving in Sri Lanka, Barry, a former wildlife tour leader, wasted no time in briefing me that he and his group were not like their good friend back home! And that they certainly did not need to end up with a huge triplist. So, for them the success of the trip did not depend on making a clean sweep of special birds that most birders come here to see.

One of the main reasons why my visitors chose to visit Sri Lanka in April was to improve their chances of seeing the Blue Whale, as it is arguably the best month to see it, with almost a 100% success rate reported by whale watching operators. April also happens to be one of the best months for observing dragonflies and butterflies in Sri Lanka, as it sees most seasonal specials taking
wing. Being the tail end of the migratory season, April is not bad for birds either. And April is certainly not bad Leopards, which can be seen year round at Yala. So, the timing of the visit fitted perfectly with the broader requirements of the group.

So, with this rambling preamble, you may want to know how we fared.

Not too badly.

We ended up seeing 223 species of birds.
These included all 33 endemics and 10 out of the 15 resident night birds. And we bagged four Leopards at Yala, and four Blue Whales in the big pond 12 nautical miles off Mirissa.

Yes, it was real bagful!

As it is usual for April, we had good “viewing and photographic weather” in the first half of the day, with rains experienced during most afternoons. Which gave a lot of siesta time. This provided a nice balance because we found ourselves getting up early to take advantage of the conditions. And chill indoors during afternoon rains. Daylight was early, with the dawn chorus begining roundabout 5.30 a.m. At Sinharaja, the Blue Magpies coming to clean up the moths under lights at our lodge were punctual at 5.45 a.m. on both mornings we were there.

Gary wrote to me after the trip to say that he downloaded some 80GB of photos! I am sure others were not too far behind.
I too clicked a few here and there. Some of them are shared below.

Serendib Scops Owl Otus thilohoffmanni

I found a single bird in a day roost on day 1. Which, needless to say, got the tour to a terrific start. On day-2, there were two birds in the same roost, presumably male and female, and the picture above shows that.

The iris colour of the males of this owl is orangey, and yellowy in the females. After studying a picture taken by Andy, which he shot when the birds had briefly revealed a bit more of their eyes, I came to the conclusion that the top bird was probably a male, and the other, probably a female. The latter, as captured in this picture, was a bit more darker than the top one in real life too. Other than the eye colour, and differences in vocalisations of the two sexes, published literature on Serendib Scops Owl do not reveal of any diagnosable morphological features proving sexual dimorphism in this species.

Leopard ("Sri Lanka Leopard") Panthera pardus kotiya

Our first sighting was of two adults guarding over a Sambar Rusa unicolor carcass. By the time we visited the park, news of these two Leopards seem to have spread fast, judging by the traffic of safari jeeps. The Leopards were very much hidden in the vegetation and were not too photogenic. Shown above is one of the two Leopards taking us in amidst all the commotion created by the jeeps muscling for better viewing positions.

Soon, we wisely left the big traffic jam to look for other things.

With no local guide available because of new year holidays, I moved to the vacant front seat of our jeep. After finding Brown Fish Owl in a day roost, we arrived at a spot named Gonalabbe Kalapuwa, where Gary spotted a distant Black-necked Stork. After that we drove around for a while stopping frequently for various subjects.

And about an hour later, we found ourselves back at the site we saw the big stork.

Pausing there, we hit gold between 5.19 to 5.21 p.m. This was when Garry expertly spotted a Leopard ambling through the low vegetation towards the road where we were parked.

We backed off a little to get a clearer view of it. There was not a single jeep nearby, and we had this Leopard all to ourselves in the first minute or so.

It was our Leopard!

When it looked as if it was just about to cross the road behind our vehicle, a jeep came rushing behind us, apparently unaware of the big cat. The team wisely signaled to that jeep and brought it to halt just in the nick of time, before it could get too close to disturb the animal.

Everything seemed to work really, really well.
Seconds later, as expected, the Leopard nochanatly crossed the road between the two jeeps.

A moment of magic!

Had our four Mark 4s fired live GPMG rounds, this Leopard would have ended up in a pretty bad shape!

That’s why I like photography; it is such a bloodless sport.

Blue Whale Balaenoptera musculus

Travelling 12 nautical miles into the deep blue seas off Mirissa in beautiful weather, first signs of a Blue Whale were detected when we saw their diagnostic vertical blows. (On the whale watching trip done in April, 2009 with Peter Kaestner, as blogged by me before, we had first signs after travelling just 5.5 nautical miles.) After approaching this sighting, we detected two individuals moving together. Only one of them was noted by to lift tail fluke in its diving sequence. 

The above shows the two individuals seen closely. Two more were found farther away at the same time.

Compared to their massive body size, the Blue Whales are endowed with puny dorsal fins, which can be seen above. They are located roughly about three-quarters along the length of the body, and are visible when they are diving to reach deeper waters after breathing near the surface.

Indian Fritillary Argynnis hyperbius

We encountered this thirsty highland butterfly at Hakgala. It was very pretty in the underside.

Rapacious Flangetail Ictinigomphus rapax

I spotted this large dragonfly at the Bundala National Park in a patch quite far from freshwater. It was very much distracted by its large prey. Taking advantage of that, we photograpjed it from our safari jeep.

Sri Lanka Tree-climbing Crab Perbrinckia scansor

Katrina spotted this one and only tree-climbing freshwater crab at Sinharaja in a spot not too far from where we found the same species in the Absolute Birding tour that I guided in April, 2010 with Dr. Gil Ewing from the USA.

More posts of this tour will follow.

Sri Lanka Bird Tour Report—March, 2010

The pair of Sri Lanka Frogmouths above were one of the 12 species of resident night birds seen out of 15 in a successful Absolute Birding tour that I guided in March, 2010 with Chris Holtby and David Thrussel from the UK.

Keeping their promise, Chris and Dave have done a detailed tour report of this birding tour, which saw us bagging 230 species of birds including all 33 endemics. The report weighs 26MB! (Please drop me a line if you cannot open it, so that I can e-mail it to you. My e-mail is gallicissa AT gmail DOT com )

Photographically speaking, this tour was a big learning curve for me, as thanks to Chris and Dave, I got introduced to the art of low-light bird photography.

On other matters, I am really looking forward for the Cricket World Cup Finals tomorrow between India and Sri Lanka. Although I earnestly want Sri Lanka to win, my prediction is Indians, with blessings of 1.21 billion people—17% of the world population—will score a hard-fought victory over the Lankans. I shall be happy to be proven wrong!

Endemics Clean Up

Last month, I guided a 7-day Endemics Clean Up Tour with four super-hardcore Dutch birders: Erik Ernens, Robert Keizer, Eric Lam, and Marius Bolck. It was a mega success with us bagging 220 species of birds, including all 33 endemic birds. Our overnight locations were Nuwara Eliya, Udawalawe, Sinharaja and Kithulgala. After raking in montane specials on the first two days, I did a “big day” on day 3, by squeezing in a few patches around Tissa, which were not on the original itinerary. This was before reaching Udawalawe for overnight stay. This yielded 130 species in just one day—nearly 60% of the birds of the total trip list!

Of the endemics, only the Sri Lanka Scaly Thrush made us work hard.

Really hard.

This was particularly true for one of the visitors—the 2-metre-tall Robert Keizer, whose towering height proved a real handicap, when everybody else saw this cryptic thrush, when it first materialised through the undergrowth! This “miss” resulted in a massive search operation to find this elusive bird for Robert, and very importantly, to bring him in sync with others. During this a pair responded to my high-pitched rendition by calling agonizingly close. However, the birds stubbornly dodged our detection, prolonging our misery. During this I had several fleeting glimpses of it, and every time I tried to get Robert on it, I think some bad spell prevented him from locking his eyes on this bird!

After many attempts, finally, a Sri Lanka Scaly Thrush obliged by perching on a dead stump about 10m away; Robert’s eyes were very much on ground level that time. And glowing as in this Black-backed Dwarf Kingfisher that we found at Kithulgala.

I found the Serendib Scops Owl—the most sought-after endemic—on two locations. The last sighting was at a day-roost, which yielded absolutely jaw-dropping views like this.

Erik delivered some gifts sent to me by fellow countryman Max Berlijn whom I guided before his tour. These included a spankingly new copy of the Owls of the World by Claus Konig and Friedhelm Weick. Would you believe, the Serendib Scops Owl in it is described as an 'earless' scops owl!

Our other noteworthy specials were Pied Thrush, Kashmir Flycatcher, Slaty-legged Crake, Sykes’s Warbler, Indian Blue Robin, Indian Pitta, Black-backed Dwarf Kingfisher, Sirkeer Malkoha, Marshall’s Iora, Rufous-bellied Hawk Eagle, Rufous Woodpecker, Sri Lanka Frogmouth (three sightings including one of a brooding male), Temminck’s Stint, Jungle Owlet, Brown Wood Owl (a pair at a day roost), Brown Hawk Owl, and Shaheen.

Here are some of these in vivid detail. 

Sri Lanka Frogmouth.

We saw this female at a day roost at Sinharaja, where before this, we also had a brooding male in a nest. And I found another male at Kithulgala.

Sykes's Warbler

I am extremely pleased to have photographed this LBJ.

Here's another one of the same individual.

Pied Thrush

The best site to see this Himlayan delight in Sri Lanka, the Victoria Park in Nuwara Eliya, is full of garbage.

A Tour Report has been promised by Eric and co., and I shall update this post when it is posted online.

In the meantime, Mike Pope whom I guided in last December has posted a report of the trips he did with me with his superb photographs. You can see it here.

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.
.

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.)