Dermot Breen's Blog: blyth's reed warbler

Showing posts with label blyth's reed warbler. Show all posts

Sunday, 16 April 2017

Sri Lanka 22 & 23.2.2017

I've combined Wednesday 22nd and Thursday 23rd February together as they were both relatively quiet days. This was also the end of the official trip. The next five or so days were to be an extension mainly to look for Blue Whales and to visit Yala and Bundala National Parks. For four of our tour group, this was the end of their trip to Sri Lanka.

Black Bittern

Yellow Bittern

Intermediate Egret

Little Cormorant

Juvenile Crest Hawk-Eagle

Juvenile Brahrimy Kite

Whiskered Tern

Crimson-fronted Barbet

Indian Robin

Blyth's Reed Warbler

Rose-coloured Starling

Plain Prinia

Sri Lanka and Barn Swallows

Sri Lanka Swllows

Wednesday, 12 April 2017

Sri Lanka 21.2.2017

Today was one of the quieter days of the trip. With all the endemics in the bag at this stage the pressure was off. We did an hour or two of birding in the morning with a visit to a nearby rubbish dump on the outskirts of Nuwara Eliya. You can't beat visiting the local dump on foreign birding trips. Not surprisingly unlike Horton Plains this wasn't quite the attraction for your ordinary tourist!
Thanks to all of the rubbish there was an abundance of flies in the environs which in turn attracted a nice selection of flycatchers with at least three Kashmir Flycatchers, Dull Blue Flycatcher, Brown-breasted Flycatcher and Grey-headed Canary-Flycatcher, the latter being my only lifer of the day. It was also strange to see several Blyth's Reed Warblers hopping around in rubbish piles where they seemed to be finding plenty of food.
We then spent most of the day travelling to Kandy our next destination. We spent a few hours in Udawawtakale Forest Park that evening but saw little of note and an evening stakeout for Spot-bellied Eagle Owl proved unsuccessful.

Male Kashmir Flycatcher

Grey-headed Canary-Flycatcher

Dull Blue Flycatcher

Forest Wagtail

Grey Wagtail

Lesser Hill Myna

Common Tailorbird

Blyth's Reed Warbler

Crested Serpent Eagle

Indian Muntjac

Saturday, 1 April 2017

Sri Lanka 19.2.2017 Part Two

Second part of the Udawalawa National Park. While we didn't see any new endemics during the day there was an excellent list of birds recorded during the day. Some of my own lifers seen during the day were Painted Stork, Great Thick-knee, Indian Thick-knee, Grey-headed Fish Eagle, Rain Quail, Sikeer Malkoha, Blyth's Pipit (great to get some experience of at least one individual), Jerdon's Bushlark, Grey-bellied Cuckoo, Jungle Prinia and Marshall's Iora.

Large-billed Crow

Blyth's Reed Warbler

Adult lucionensis Brown Shrike

Second-calendar Rose-coloured Starling

Adult and second-calendar Rose-coloured Starling

Little Bee-eater

Blue-cheecked Bee-eater

Yellow Wagtail, beema, lutea, fledegg and thunbergi are the four race recorded to winter in Sri Lanka. This bird and the one below which seemed to be the most common type we encountered don't seem to match any of those four however..