Birding in my garden

We decided to build our house a little away from the turmoil of city-life. The place we found in 1985, on

west slope of Hantana was the perfect place for our hideaway. We moved to this place in 1988, two years after I left school and even after 26 years, ours is the only place where the wildlife gathers. This is because ours is the only plot of land that has a lot of shade, many trees to feed on and no barriers for them to enter. A few Barking Deer, Wild Boar, Fishing Cat [not to mention a Leopard that took two of my dogs, one in 2000 and the other in 2001.] lizards, snakes whom I found refuge to release when people around the area caught them and brought to me, and many birds.

On the 16th February 2014, I was just out early in the morning with a cup of tea in my hand I heard a few bird calls, some tailor birds and a Scimitar Babbler. I called my younger daughter who is full of enthusiasm towards birds and refers to Prof. Sarath Kotagama's Bird-guide,

she came running with my pair of binoculars.

Within about 15 minutes, we were in a middle of hovering, chirping, feeding and fighting Feeding-Flock of oriental birds. We listed the birds down and here's the list. I thought of taking a few photos too and here are some of the photos for your pleasure.

1.      Spotted Dove

2.      Common Tailorbird

3.      Black Bulbul

4.      Black-rumped Flameback

5.      Yellow-fronted Barbet

6.      Small minivet (Little Minivet)

7.      Flame minivet (Orange Minivet)

8.      Pale-billed Flower pecker

9.      Indian Pitta

10.   Velvet-fronted Nuthatch

11.   Oriental White-eye

12.   Tickell's Blue Flycatcher

13.   Yellow-billed Babbler

14.   Yellow-eyed Babbler

15.   Sri Lanka Scimitar Babbler

16.   Oriental Magpie Robin

17.   Brown-headed Barbet

18.   White-throated Kingfisher

19.   Common Myna

20.   White-bellied Drongo

21.   Black-headed Munia

22.   Scaly-breasted Munia

23.   Purple Sunbird

24.   White-browed Fantail

Nayana Wickramasinghe - WildWorldWatch