Surfbirds News

Uda Walawe better known for elephants, has suddenly become a birding hot spot for rare migrants. Adding to the list of rarities are Citrine Wagtail and White Wagtail recorded at the Uda Walawe Causeway, a few meters from the end of the embankment en route to the park office. Inside the national park, the scarce but regular migrants Blyth's Pipit and Indian Red-rumped Swallows have also been observed.

Citrine Wagtail from the Surfbirds Galleries by Tom Shevlin

The story of the Buntings began with Deepal Warakagoda (Eco Holidays Master Naturalist) who was on tour with clients from KingBird Tours. The discoverer of the Serendib Scops Owl, had been having a successful tour with sightings of both the Serendib Scops Owl and the Ceylon Bay Owl. The latter had been observed less than handful of times in the wild. This was the first time that it has been seen on a birding tour. At Wirawila, Deepal met Susantha Weerappulige, a tracker from Uda Walawe National Park. Susantha drew Deepal's attention to an unidentified sparrow like bird he had seen. Deepal made note of the presence of the bird's location at the Hulankapolla Junction. When he arrived at Uda Walawe National Park, for a morning game drive with his clients, he searched the area around Hulankapolla Junction. To his delight, he found a Red-headed Bunting, a species not recorded from Sri Lanka before. The Red-headed Bunting flew away and joined another bird. To his astonishment, Deepal found that the other bird was a Black-headed Bunting, yet another species which had no been recorded from Sri Lanka. The presence of the Buntings means another family of birds, the Embezeridae are added to Sri Lanka. The last time this happened was in December 2003 when Uditha Hettige (Eco Holidays Master Naturalist) found a Common Rosefinch in Horton Plains from the bird family Fringillidae.

On 9 February 2005, I arrived with three members of my team. Chandrika Maelge (Manager) and Tour Executives Ayanthi Samarajewa and Aruni Hewage of Jetwing Eco Holidays on a regular field visit cum public relations visit to meet a group of British FIT clients on tour with Master Naturalist Uditha Hettige. Inside the park, Uditha and his clients, Mike, Jenny, John & Jane located the Buntings and we were able to photograph the two species.

Salim Ali and Dillon Ripley in their ten volume Birds of India and Pakistan gives the breeding ranges of birds recorded in the Indian Sub-continent. The Red-headed Bunting (Emberiza bruniceps) breeds in Baluchistan. The Black-headed Bunting (Emberiza melanocephala) breeds in Iran, the Middle-East, Caucasus, Southern Russia and the Balkans. A ringing record shows that a Black-headed Bunting traveled 7,000 km to its winter grounds. Both species are known to winter regularly in India. Eco Holidays Master Naturalist Lester Perera leading clients on a tour in India in 2004 observed several hundred Red-headed Buntings in India.

Inside the park, Deepal had observed up to 30 Blyth's Pipits (Anthus godlewskii) and Indian Red-rumped Swallows (Hirundo daurica) near the entrance. We were able to photograph both species inside the park. Previously, Sri Lanka was considered to have a resident race of the Red-rumped Swallow. But now it has been 'split' by Ornithologist Pamela Rasmussen into a new species endemic to Sri Lanka, the Ceylon Swallow (Hirundo hyperythra). The Sri Lanka list therefore now has two migrant races, the Indian Red-rumped Swallow (Hirundo daurica erythropygia) and the
much scarcer Nepali Red-rumped Swallow (Hirundo daurica nipalensis).

At the Uda Walawe causeway, a few meters away from the end of the reservoir embankment, towards the park office, is a small area of pasture with an ephemeral pond. Eco Holidays Master Naturalist Lester Perera had reported a rare but annual migrant from it, the White Wagtail (Motacilla alba dukhunensis). He was on tour in the second week of January with a Finnish group of birdwatchers on an Alula Magazine reader offer handled by KonTiki. The group had chosen to stay on despite arriving the day after the Tsunami. Whilst searching for another look at the White Wagtail, we found an even rarer migrant, a Citrine Wagtail (Motacilla citreola). The species has only been recorded on four occasions in Sri Lanka. The bird we observed was an adult in winter plumage. The Yellow Wagtail, a regular migrant was also present. But the lack of black on the face, the yellow area curving around and behind the ear coverts, the white under-tail coverts and the extensive area of grey on the mantle, helped to easily separate the Citrine Wagtail from the Yellow Wagtails.

Deepal Warakagoda and I are working on a revised checklist of the Birds of Sri Lanka. According to our records, the total number of species of birds reliably recorded in Sri Lanka now stands at 440 species. Pictures of these rarities will in due course be displayed on http://www.jetwingeco.com

Gehan de Silva Wijeyeratne
CEO
Jetwing Eco Holidays
Wildlife & Luxury Travel
Jetwing House, 46/26, Nawam Mawatha, Colombo 02 , Sri Lanka

Tel: ++94-11-2345700 or ++94-11-2381201 Fax:++94-11-2441289.
eco@jetwing.lk, www.jetwingeco.com