YOUNG BIRDER'S NOTES: BIRDING SRI LANKA: Bandarawela

During the school holidays, my family and I visited Sri Lanka for 9 days. 3 of those were spent at my father's home in Bandarawela. The forest around the house held a wide variety of birds, including one lifer.

Fruiting trees attracted rose-ringed parakeets, yellow-fronted barbets, brown-headed barbets and red-backed flamebacks. A small, flowering shrub at the front of the garden was often visited by Loten's sunbirds, purple-rumped sunbirds and pale-billed flowerpeckers. The forest itself held many Sri Lanka scimitar babblers, velvet-fronted nuthatches, cinereous tits, Tickell's blue flycatchers, grey-headed canary flycatchers, emerald doves, and both small and orange minuets. Sri Lanka junglefowl, along with an extremely shy Indian pitta, roamed the forest floor, while crested serpent eagles soared overhead. Late in the evening of my second day, my life lesser hill myna flew into a tree in front of the veranda.

ROSE-RINGED PARAKEET

Psittacula krameri

YELLOW-FRONTED BARBET

Psilopogon flavifrons

BROWN-HEADED BARBET

Psilopogon zeylanicus

VELVET-FRONTED NUTHATCH

Sitta frontalis

ORANGE MINIVET

Pericrocotus flammeus

EMERALD DOVE

Chalcophaps indica

RED-BACKED FLAMEBACK

Dinopium psarodes

SRI LANKA JUNGLEFOWL

Gallus lafayettii

TICKELL'S BLUE FLYCATCHER

Cyornis tickelliae

LESSER HILL MYNA

Gracula religiosa

SRI LANKA SCIMITAR BABBLER

Pomatorhinus melanus

LOTEN'S SUNBIRD

Cinnyris lotenius

CINEREOUS TIT

Parus cinereus

GREY-HEADED CANARY FLYCATCHER

Culicicapa ceylonensis

Some of Sri Lanka's commoner birds, such as jungle crows, white-vented drongos, red-vented bulbuls, yellow-billed babblers, Indian mynas and spotted turtledoves, were also present. The tea estate just above the house held many chestnut-headed bee-eaters, along with a single distant brown shrike.