Never Enough Birding: Sri Lanka 26th July to 10th August 2023. Part One: animals!

Finally, a year later than initially planned, we set-off to Colombo. Five of us (Karen, Tom, Amy and Callum) boarded an Emirates flight in Manchester at 2pm on 26th July bound for Dubai then on to Colombo, where we were met by our driver Nalaka who shepherded us for the entire trip and was endlessly helpful and cheerful. The next two weeks were action packed. Sri Lanka may be my new favourite place. It's simply stunning, and breaks the score scale for people, culture, food and wildlife. Absolutely loved it.

I'd organised the trip with a local tour company (Best of Lanka) and they were excellent in the planning and on the ground too. The full itinerary is here - https://srilankanroadtrip.com/itrip/tour.php?tour=1992.

Of course it wasn't a birding / wildlife trip (honest). We also 'trekked' in the forest with a guide, swam in a waterfall, ate at local villages, visited a tea plantation and multiple incredible temples, scaled the amazing rock fortress at Sigiriya, toured markets, jet-ski'd, snorkelled, ate spectacularly and laughed a whole lot. Good for the soul and it has created a special memory that stretches way beyond birds and wildlife.

Of course this is a birding blog and I've lots to add on birds, but before them other wildlife. It's joyous to be in a place that is full of wildlife, not just the big and obvious things, but the abundance of wildlife of all sizes.

I'll come to mammals momentarily, but snorkelling at Pigeon Island is worthy of a special mention. Swimming right alongside a Hawksbill Turtle as it took air then fed was a humbling experience, then moments later a Black-tipped Reef Shark passed close-by. Parts of the reef here looked healthy, other parts sadly far from it. But that's been my experience everywhere with snorkelling and I could definitely do more of this.

There was a clear mammal highlight. Despite having seen Leopard twice before, spending an hour or so with a large male as it watched and hunted deer in Wilpattu National Park was special. A good part of the choice of Sri Lanka was the opportunity for Karen to see leopard, so it was a relief when we did. Whilst it wasn't as close as I may have liked, the 'bins views were still stunning. This was a territorial male, comfortable on his patch and he looked relaxed. He made a couple of attempts to creep up on Spotted Deer but was called out with loud alarms from a stag. It had taken three safari drives and a lot of bumping around, but was worth it. Happily I picked the leopard up first and that made it a little more special, as did being away from any phone signal and therefore we had him to ourselves for the most part. Wonderful stuff and makes me want to do more mammal safaris.

Safari girl

We really did see him as the sign features the same leopard we watched; the locally dominant male who is in his prime at around 4 years old.

On the same day as the leopard we encountered two separate Sloth Bears, the first of which was on the road and very unconcerned of our presence. My first bears of any kind.

We first saw an Asian Elephant at the roadside as we headed towards the town of Habarana. Then on arrival at our hotel, Karen and I walked out to the adjacent reservoir and there was another quietly feeding not 100m away and several more on the far shore. The next day we did our first safari, to Minneriya NP where we were treated to two herds, one of which fed right by the jeep. Apparently less than 10% of Sri Lankan elephants have tusks, but this might be a result of selective historical removal of tuskers in the days when elephants were war machines. At both Habarana and Wilpattu, we saw the challenges of living with large animals; people have to spend the night guarding crops from foraging animals, sat up all night (often in a tree house for safety), and using bangers and fireworks to scare off intruders. It's a tough life and you can only imagine how many people on a subsitence living really feel about them.

The mammal list was quite impressive in the end; Grey Langur and Toque Macaques were common, but I only had a brief look at Purple-faced Langur. We also saw two Slow Loris on a night walk at Habarana, along with a spectacular Trevancore Flying Squirrel which glided right over us - probably the rarest animal we saw on the trip. Tame Grizzled Giant Squirrels at the beach hotel provided meal time entertainment.

Grey Langur. Lovely animals.

Sri Lankan Jackal, Wild Boar, Sambar and Barking Deer were all seen in Wilpattu, along with a single Sri Lankan Spotted Chevrotain (mouse deer), and we also saw a few of the latter around our beach hotel in Trincomalee. On a night drive we also saw a couple of Small Indian Civets and a Golden Palm Civet, and on our whale watch trip we saw lots of Spinner Dolphins, but alas no whales.