TRANSFER FROM COLOMBO TO KANDY – AFTERNOON VISIT TO ROYAL FORSET RESERVE.
WEATHER: hot, dry and sunny. Humid. Temp 27C
We made a well organised and early departure from our hotel, we had the bus packed with luggage, had had breakfast and had boarded the bus, all by 8am.
Most the morning was spent travelling to Kandy, we did a couple of stops along the in areas of rice production. From the bus we saw White-breasted Kingfisher, Cattle, Little & Intermediate Egrets, Indian Pond Heron, Black-headed Ibis, Indian Cormorants, Asian Openbills, Crested Serpent Eagle, Brahminy Kite and Shikra.
One stop was made to look especially for Ashy Woodswallow which was successful, we found only 2 of them.
Before we dropped down into Kandy we made a stop at a Museum of Gems. We spent a couple of hours there, discovery a wealth of information about the mining of gems, the production of jewellery etc .
We got to our hotel just in time for checking inn and eating alight lunch. From the restaurant we had good views over the gardens where we found several other species. Oriental White-eye, Red-vented Bulbul, Tailorbird, White-rumped Munia and Peter saw a Sri Lanka Swallow.
After lunch we spent the afternoon walking the excellent tracks in the Royal Forest Reserve which was a twenty drive around the lake at Kandy. What a thriving, bustling and very busy city Kandy is! It was manic and the roads were crowded, but we made it through.
The forest was a delight we saw many species and most of them were new to us. It was typical forest birding, we saw the odd species and then nothing for twenty minutes before bumping into a mixed flock.
The lake around the entrance held a few species, we saw Little Cormorant, White-breasted and Common Kingfisher and heard Brown-headed Barbet. Saman found a Large-billed Leaf Warbler. We then walked a fair way up the hill into the forest seeing several species. Asian Brown Flycatcher showed well as did Brown-capped Babbler.
We bumped into a bunch of Flycatchers feeding in the same area: the endemic Dull-Blue Flycatcher was fighting a Tickell’s Flycatcher! An Asian Paradise Flycatcher came into the same tree as well as a Yellow-browed Bulbul.
Saman our guide tracked down an Indian Blue Robin, which showed reasonably well and an Asian Tit (formerly Great Tit) also showed up with another Oriental White-eye.
As the light began to fade we spent some time looking for a few specific species. An Indian Pitta was calling but we failed to track it down. We then spent quite a time tracking down a Sri Lankan Shama, it was great seeing this species it is one of favourite Sri Lankan Birds.
We looked for Owls, especially the Forest Eagle Owl and Brown Wood Owl, but we dipped on both. However, as a consolation we found a Greater Flameback Woodpecker, which is another endemic species for our list.
We ended the day just before dark and drove back down the hill into town to our hotel in readiness for dinner.