A pre-dawn start to ensure that we were back near the Sinharaja Education Centre at 6am. There was plenty of activity including a noisy flock of Sri Lanka Blue Magpies looking for moths around the building but it took until c.7.30am when Dilu picked-out a pair of White-faced Starlings sat high in a tree. Dilu was understandably very pleased that all his hard work in ensuring that the logistics had run smoothly and that we had seen all the currently-recognised endemic species of birds of Sri Lanka - so we enjoyed a short celebration. We then spent the remainder of the morning walking the Martin's Lodge entrance track as Paul Bishop and Nadi had seen a another pair of Sri Lanka Scaly Thrushes there the day before. A white-morph male Indian Paradise Flycatcher was nice but we failed to find the Thrushes - we were missing Nadi! It was raining by midday and with the journey to Colombo ahead of us we decided to leave Sinharaja. We encountered heavy rain for much of the journey, torrential at times, so felt very fortunate that effectively we hadn't lost any birding time due to the weather during our 8 day visit. We arrived back at the Goodwood Hotel just after dark and enjoyed our final dinner with Dilu who had been good company throughout our stay.
Spot-billed Pelican 5
Indian Cormorant 5
Great Egret 200
Eastern Cattle Egret 200
Indian Pond Heron 2
Asian Openbill 2
Painted Stork 2
Black Eagle 1
Sri Lanka Junglefowl h
White-breasted Waterhen 4
Red-wattled Lapwing 2
Rock Dove 6
Green Imperial Pigeon 4
Spotted Dove 4
Emerald Dove 2
Sri Lanka Hanging-Parrot 2
Crested Treeswift 1
Asian Palm Swift 2
Indian Swiftlet 6
Indian Roller 2
White-throated Kingfisher 2
Blue-tailed Bee-eater 2
Sri Lanka Grey Hornbill 2
Yellow-fronted Barbet 3
Lesser Yellownape 1
Sri Lanka Swallow 1
Orange Minivet 3
Red-vented Bulbul 2
Square-tailed Black Bulbul 4
Black-capped Bulbul 2
Yellow-browed Bulbul 10
Gold-fronted Leafbird 2
Brown Shrike 1
Indian Paradise Flycatcher 2
Spot-winged Ground-Thrush 4
Brown-breasted Flycatcher 2
Asian Brown Flycatcher 1
Dark-fronted Babbler 4
Green Warbler 1
Large-billed Leaf-Warbler h
Purple-rumped Sunbird 1
Tricoloured Munia 2
Black-throated Munia 3
White-bellied Drongo 1
WHITE-FACED STARLING 2
Sri Lanka Hill Myna 4
House Crow 50
Sri Lanka Blue Magpie 5
Sinharaja Education Centre
Birdlife considers this species Vulnerable because it has a small, severely fragmented population and range, which are undergoing a continuing decline as a result of degradation and clearance of humid forest.
Our personal 'bird of the Sri Lanka trip' Paul very kindly sent me his image to use as my camera wouldn't fire whilst watching it! Birdlife considers this species Near Threatened.
