DOF-Travel, Birdlife Denmark, has this year two trips to Sri Lanka. One in January and one in February. As tourleader for trip 1, 16 days in January 2019, I hereby give our agency in Sri Lanka – Walk-With-Jith – our greatest recommendations.
After my solo Panama trip (which was rather rough - with me getting 2 diseases and missing the main target bird by a shave), it was a nice change to have hired a private guide to organize everything for us and do all the driving, and to sleep in actual hotels without risking exposure to parasitic diseases, etc. Ramata found us a great outfit called "walk with Jith" and superstar guide Thilina Karunanayaka for this laid back yet somewhat hardcore birding and cultural tour.
Hi Jith and Hetti. You may have thought I have forgotten about you but I haven’t. Since we were with you last year in March and April we have been traveling extensively. That has resulted in being very backlogged in processing photos from our trips. You may recall that even before our visit to Sri Lanka we were in Ethiopia, Egypt, U.A.E., Maldives, and Kerala and Tamil Nadu in Southern India. On the total trip I took about 80,000 photos of which about 15,000 were in Sri Lanka alone...
Sri Lanka birding and Wildlife Trip from Dec 26’2015 to Jan 09’2016
Gary Yang and Loretta Kao
From Taipei, Taiwan
Day 1: 12/26:因為原本規劃行程被取消,在最短時間內改變去了從沒想過會去的地方-斯里蘭卡.第一天行程輕鬆行主要拜訪佛牙寺，無奈我們一早從可倫坡機場附近酒店開來康堤就花了六小時（按正常約3小時），其實實際上距離只有116公里是因爲遇上連續假期共四天（斯里蘭卡是沒有任何高速公路）大家都出來玩了。中間我們停車在路邊看到樹上吊滿了水果蝙蝠fruit bat，遠遠望去會誤認為大片樹葉。後來到達康堤更發現原來這些蝙蝠是非常普遍在一般平原，甚至市區都易見。祂真的很大隻，飛起來展翅可達3英尺，除了停棲在樹上，也有不少掛在電線上。好不容易到達飯店，鳥導給我們兩小時休息時間，我們當然不會錯過任何可以拼鳥的機會，短短兩小時就已經入袋：長嘴吸蜜鳥，紫腰吸蜜鳥，白胸翡翠，白腰紋鳥，紅胸紋鳥，黑頭黃鸝，小PT,小鸕鶿、印度池鷺，黃頭鷺，小白鷺，白腹秧雞，珠頸斑鳩，小金背三趾啄木，金額葉鵯，白腹卷尾，烏鴉，家八哥，印度白頭鶇鶥，下午四點下午四點離開民宿看5；30的民族舞蹈，那些舞者演出出的力與美真是賞心悅目。之後的fire walk 就與我們的乩童有異曲同工之趣。今天的壓軸就是去參觀佛牙寺真是人山人海，裝佛牙的佛龕ㄧ天只開放兩小時，早上與傍晚的各6:30-7:30，而佛龕真正打開是7點整，我們鳥導太厲害了，我們擠到佛龕前看到打開真是太感動了。而那短短幾分鐘就已經讓信眾瘋狂了，但也看見相當多的人默默坐在地上虔誠膜拜。雖然塞車花了大半時間，但還真是豐收的ㄧ天。計：19種
Sheau Torng Lim and Carine Nah visited Sri Lanka in 2014 with Walk With Jith. His photos were uploaded to Facebook with comments. This report is created from that information.
You can see all his photos with species name, location, EXIF info, etc here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/wavethree/
... Fra den 10. - 25. januar 2015 afholdt DOF Travel sin første tur til Sri Lanka siden 1985.
Turen, der blev gennemført i samarbejde med fugle- og naturguider fra det lokale firma WalkWithJith, blev en ubetinget succes. Ejeren af firmaet Jith blev sekunderet af den ligeledes rutinerede guide Upali, så vi var godt dækket ind. De to guider, ofte hjulpet af andre lokale guider, gjorde et stort arbejde, og det lykkedes da også for dem at vise os samtlige 33 endemiske fuglearter, som findes på øen.
Fly fra Qatar Air med fremragende service om bord stod Viatravel for.
Rundturen i bus foregik i strålende sol med dagtemperaturer på op over de +30gr.C. Kun oppe i regnskoven fik vi nogle kraftige aftenbyger, og morgentemperaturen i højlandet kunne snige sig ned på små +10grC. ...
Sri Lanka is recognized as an easy birding destination as the island is quite small and easy to navigate. Roads are fairly good and the birding sites are quite accessible. There are still quite large areas of forest and the current 33 endemics and many regional (southern India and Sri Lanka) make a trip here quite appealing. Sri Lanka also has quite a rich cultural history and many historical sites are well worth visiting. With that in mind my wife and I spent twelve days touring the country.
