A week in Sri Lanka - part 5

This actually isn't the final post, as I looked at my pics and decided that there were too many to cover all the non-bird fauna of Sri Lanka from my recent trip in one go. So here's the invertebrates, and I'll do one more for the non-bird vertebrates. Be warned, this post contains a BIG spider, proceed with caution if spiders aren't your thing...

This one just blew me away with its iridescent beauty. It's a Shining Gossamerwing, one of several that we saw displaying, demoiselle-style, over a stream in Kanneliya rainforest.

A large, common dragon, which my sources tell me is Asian Tigertail - great name. This one was right outside my hotel room in Negombe.

A marshland butterfly, Neptis hylas aka Common Sailor, seen on an early-morning walk. In the heat of the day, butterflies were almost impossible to photograph as they just didn't stop.

This gorgeous mantis was in my hotel room (the bathroom, which is open to the elements) one night. I was a little tipsy from one too many Lion beers and had quite a long conversation with it. The next morning it was still there so we took it outside for some photos before placing it in a palm tree.

I guess this is a bumblebee species, albeit a gigantic, dark blue one. ID to follow if I get round to it...

This lovely little damsel is apparently a Coromandel Marsh Dart. Closely related to our own Small Red Damselfly.

Lots of these flying together near the top of Sigiriya. Fantastic-looking things. I guess I have a male and female here. They are Common Picturewings.

Three marshland dragonflies. This is a female Pied Paddy Skimmer...

 ... and this is a male Pied Paddy Skimmer. I am loving these names. And I am indebted to RoyW from the RSPB forums for providing the IDs.

This one is Slender Skimmer. An Orthetrum species, so closely related to our own skimmer dragonflies.

Three unidentified butterflies from the marsh now. Seen through a haze of leaves, a lovely butterfly which I can narrow down to Satyrinae but no further. Again, ID to (possibly) follow.

This is clearly a skipper species, but again I don't know which one.

Now this, I feel reasonably sure, is either a Long-tailed Blue or a very closely related species. I saw several of these but only this one had its tiny 'tails' intact.

A Scarlet Basker, not currently basking. Seen by a lake where we stopped for a short roadside break on the way from Dambulla to Galle.

 On Negombe beach there were loads of these small crabs, skittering along and nipping into their burrows in the sand.

This dragon is an Indigo Dropwing. Photographed at Kanneliya.

Any arachnophobes still reading? I did warn you... this beauty, from Kanneliya again, is a Giant Wood Spider. And giant she was, those legs would comfortably span the average human face :)

A week in Sri Lanka part 4

One last post covering the reamining Sri Lanka birdlife we saw, mostly near-passerines. Then I'll take a break, and later I'll post up the mammals, reptiles and invertebrates.

Malabar Pied Hornbill. What a bird! Huge, bizarre, spectacular. But sadly also rather shy and rare, and I only managed rubbish photos of the two that visited woodland near our hotel.

If Sri Lanka's birdlife could be said to be lacking in any way, it would be the seabirds that let the side down. There just aren't that many. From the coast we only saw Whiskered and Great Crested Terns, and from the boat trip we did on our last day (more about that later) we only added Bridled Tern, a lone Red-billed Tropicbird, and some of these - Flesh-footed Shearwater.

Gorgeous creature - the Indian Roller. We saw a few, including this one on day one in Negombo.

I saw this lone Little Green Bee-eater two days in a row on the same overhead wire, near farmland.

A real stunner, the Orange-breasted Green Pigeon. Seen in a wooded area near farmland.

The pretty Spotted Dove is very common in all kinds of habitats.

A distant circling 'raptor' turned out on closer inspection to be this - a Spot-billed Pelican.

A Coppersmith Barbet, showing off its 'beard' of bristles.

Another, less striking barbet, this one is Brown-headed. Both barbets were seen in farmland near Dambulla.

Not my finest hour photography-wise but I'm including this anyway because it shows (just about) one of the best birds of the trip - an Indian Pitta. Saw this just outside my hotel room at dawn, too dark for more than 1/4 sec shutter speed. If you want to see what an Indian Pitta is supposed to look like, there's a lovely photo of one here.

A week in Sri Lanka part 3

This post is for the passerines (apart from the swallows of part 2), of which there were lots, and lots.


A Black-headed Munia seen in the highlands. Very small, sturdy little finch. I also saw Scaly-breasted Munia.

House Crows. The commonest bird in towns, where they seem to fill the niches of pigeons and gulls (as well as crows). In more rural areas there were also Jungle Crows.

This is a Rufous-winged Bushlark. Only saw this one, on the roadside in a quiet farmland area.

White-browed Fantail. What a great bird, constantly bouncing around and showing off that tail. This one was in the garden at Sigiriya - we saw one other on a roadside near the rainforest.

Yellow-billed Babbler, seen near marshland. They go around in small flocks and seem very devoted to each other.

Indian Robin. A lively character, common around villages, very approachable.

 This is a Thick-billed Flowerpecker, very small bird, superficially finch-like. We also saw Pale-billed Flowerpecker.

These are my favourites - wish I'd seen more of them (and managed better photos). They're White-bellied Drongos.

This shy stunner, seen in the marshes, is a Golden-fronted Leafbird.

 Another babbler, but it's not closely related to the Yellow-billed. This one is Yellow-eyed Babbler.

White-browed Bulbul, a rather shy woodland bird.

This is a Jungle Prinia, seen in the hotel grounds and also out in the fields. Also saw Ashy Prinia. EDIT - no, it's not. The guide told us it was, but I had my doubts, and just checked. It's actually a Common Tailorbird.

The Common Myna is very common indeed, in both town and country, and is a great singer and mimic.

A hastily grabbed shot of the only Oriental White-eye that we saw.

The Purple-rumped Sunbird is one of the commonest small birds on the island, including in towns. This is a male, the female is less colourful but still a very pretty little thing.

Terrible photo of an Oriental Magpie Robin, singing at dusk in the hotel grounds.

This is a male Common Iora, with the female in the photo above. Seen in a semi-wooded rural area.

Another very common bird, the Red-vented Bulbul is a confiding, show-offy sort of character.

Also common but much less in-your-face is the dazzling Black-headed Oriole.

Finally, one for the UK twitchers - Blyth's Reed Warbler. Another marshland denizen.

A week in Sri Lanka part 2

This post is for photos of the birds of prey and the 'aerial' species.

This and the pic below show the local subspecies of Peregrine, also known as 'Shaheen'. There were a pair of these around Sigiriya, a great big rock that used to house an ancient palace.

A Crested Serpent-Eagle. These were quite common in both lowlands and uplands, very distinctive both in flight and perched.

This is a Black Eagle, quite a rarity so we were lucky to get even these rubbish views.

 Little Swift, quite a common bird and distinctive with its House Martin-like white rump.

Indian Swiftlet. This was the default swift, present at most of the sites we visited including in towns. A small, blunt-ended, murky brown swift.

A trio of Ceylon Swallows. They look like a red-bellied version of Red-rumped Swallow, and in fact have only recently been split as a separate species, endemic to Sri Lanka.

The only owl we saw was this one, a Brown Fish Owl by marshland.

Brahminy Kite, a really beautiful medium-sized bird of prey which was common in the lowland, marshy areas in particular.

I also saw White-bellied Sea Eagle, Grey-headed Fish Eagle and Shikra.