MORNING LOCAL BIRDING THEN A TRANSFER TO TISSAMAHARAMA WITH STOPS AT SURREY BIRD SANCTURY - LATE AFTERNOON BIRDING LAKE YODA
WEATHER: a pleasant warm day, humid at the coastal area later.
It was a day of three parts and all parts produced some good sightings and target species. Our early morning walk at 6am was to a track local to Nuwara Eliya. Our main target species was the Sri Lanka Scaly Thrush, other birds also appeared and were gladly accept.
Another birding group was on the same mission as ourselves, they hadn't seen the Thrush but it had been calling. We turned our attention to finding the Bush Warbler, another endemic and one that we had missed on Horton Plains yesterday. We found the warbler, it showed relatively well, whoopee!!
an archive picture of the Bush Warbler taken by Phil Naylor in 2025
Other birds seen along the track were Velvet-fronted Nuthatch, this tiny gem of a bird showed well, two of them. We also had good views of the Grey-headed Canary-Flycatcher and Sri Lanka White-eye and a few other species. The top bird was the Legg's Mountain Eagle, this bird flew into a tree and sat for a while, we never had views of thew complete bird, but enough.
We ate breakfast at 8am and set out on the road at 9am, we had a long journey to the coastal area around Tissamaharama and planned to break it up with a few stops. After an hour we stopped at Surrey Bird Sanctuary where the main attraction was the Brown Wood Owl. After a walk along a muddy path through a woodland we found the owl, it performed with flying colours (mainly brown!!).
The Brown Wood Owl ignoring our attention
We also saw a few other species including Hanging Parrot, Brown Shrike, Purple and Purple-rumped Sunbirds, White-bellied Drongo, White-browed Bulbul and a few others.
Hanging Parrot
Back on the road we made to the spectacular Ella Falls where we stopped for tea/coffee before moving on. It wasn't until after 2pm that we arrived at our hotel in Tissamaharama. After settling in and some birding we had lunch and then a rest-break. Some bird sightings in the lush gardens included Pale-billed Flowerpecker, Jerdon's Leafbird, Junglefowl, White-breasted Waterhen, Asian Koel and a few others.
you can't capture the full splendour of the falls in a two dimensional picture - Ella Falls
Our afternoon excursion was to the shore of Lake Yoda, just a couple of kilometers from the hotel. The whole place was absolutely covered in birds.
Coppersmith Barbet - our fourth and final species of Barbet for this trip.
The walk along the approach track produced some exciting finds, our first Green bee-eaters, a Grey-bellied Cuckoo, Blue-faced Malkoha, Sri Lanka Woodshrike, Grey-breasted Prinia, Indian Thick-knee, Ashy-crowned Sparrow-Lark and lots of other species. We saw a couple of dozen species before we started scanning the lake and shoreline.
A bunch of Garganey with an Intermediate Egret and a Lesser Sandplover
A huge tern roost held several species ranging from the monster Caspain Tern to the diminutive Little Tern, with the terns wer Brown-headed Gulls, Eurasian Spoonbills and some Spot-billed Pelicans. Scanning the lake produced a plethora of egrets, herons, storks and waterfowl. Stand out species were: Painted Storks, Asian Openbills, Purple Herons, Black-headed Ibis, Glossy Ibis, all four species of white egrets. We saw Comb Ducks, Garganey (in small flocks), Darters, Cormorants and waders, lots of waders.
Green Bee-eater
We never had time to sift through all of the wader flocks, we added several species: Redshank, Little Stint, Lesser Sandplover, Marsh Sandpiper, Black-tailed Godwit, we found Oriental Pratincole, a Great Thick-knee, Black-winged Stilts and Red-wattled Plovers.
Indian Thick-knee
As the light faded we move to a scrubby area and waited for nightjars to come out to play. Before dark we had superb views of an Indian Nightjar and in the dark as we neared the bus we found a Jerdon's Nighjar, two different species in ever-so slightly different habitats.
That concluded our day, we drove back to the hotel and enjoyed a superb dinner at 7:30pm.