Day11-12: 21-22/02/2024 – Sinharaja NP
On Day 11 we took a packed breakfast and a packed lunch into the forest. The track into the forest was a very rough jeep ride (we had some fear that Sylvia would be ejected from the vehicle on some of the steeper rougher sections). After some pre-breakfast birding around the headquarters building we had breakfast and then took our lunch for a walk, returning to the jeep at the end of the morning to eat it. We did really well catching up with nearly all the remaining endemic bird species (but leaving 2 for the next day). After lunch we returned into the forest for some more successful birding - particularly targetting Red-faced Malkoha that had eluded us in the morning. Some images from this our time in the forest are in the gallery below.
After our return to the Rain Forest Edge hotel and a short break we birded the minor road from the hotel.
On Day 12 we repeated the jeep ride to the headquarters building with our packed breakfast. This time we stayed in the shade of the building waiting for a Sri Lanka Spurfowl to put in its regular appearance - as it had done the previous day when we were looking at other things, and every other day in the recent past - but not today! After several hours waiting we eventually went to look at a pair of roosting Sri Lanka Frogmouths and then on to another site, where we were able to see Sri Lanka Spurfowl in the forest, coming to playback of its call.
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After returning to the hotel for lunch and a short break we again birded the road from the hotel from which Deepal was able to find us a Chestnut-backed Owlet.