TRANSFER FROM KITHULAGA TO NUWARA ELIYA WITH A STOP AT THE CASTLE TEA PLANTATION
WEATHER; dry and sunny to start - rain later, lots of it!
Before breakfast we spent some time in the gardens, not too long but enough to discover a few new birds. The Greater Coucal showed very well and sat out 'singing' for a while. We had excellent views of Golden-fronted Leafbird, Purple-rumped Sunbirds, Sri Lanka Hanging Parrot and Ring-necked parakeets.
Greater Coucal
Saman concentrated his efforts on showing us the Legg's Flowerpecker, had had brief glimpses of it, but it was the Pale-billed Flowerpecker that showed the best.
record shot of the Golden-fronted Leafbird
At 8:45am we set off for the mountains, a 3 hour journey through some fascinating terrain and sculpchered landscapes, shaped by the uniform rows and terraces of the tea plantation. We stopped around 11am for a cuppa, we sat on the terrace drinking tea and eating cake. The views over the valley were stunning, we overlooked Devon Falls and we watched quite a few birds too.
Tea Party near Devon Falls
An Oriental Honey Buzzard drifted over and later a Brahminy Kite did the same, it wasn't a particulary good raptor day, thick cloud threatened rain. In the bushes around the Tea Plantation buildings we saw: Orange Minivet, Common Iora, Great Tit, Red-vented Bulbul and Saman went around to the rear gardens and came up with a couple of Sri Lanka Scimitar Babblers.
Sri Lanka Scimitar - don't ask about the clump of feathers on its back?
The rest of the day was abit of a wash out! We sttled into our new hotel in Nuwara Eliya and took lunch in the spacious, modern dining room. We saw House Sparrows dashing about outside, Hill Swallows swooped over the tea fields (in the rain), we saw Cattle Egrets, an Indian Pond Heron, House Crows, Oriental Magpie-Robin, White-breasted Waterhen and Peter found a Warbler which he could not identify.
the view from our hotel room in Nuwara Eliya
After lunch we made a brave effort to go birding, but the rain was incessant and finally drove us back onto the bus. We saw a Great and a Grey Wagtail, Both Saman and I saw a Whistling Thrush very briefly but none of the remaining group saw it. We abandoned our efforts at 4pm and called it a day.