Thursday 20 March 2014

Yala National Park - 6th March

We left the hotel early, birding on the way, we picked up a couple of ticks with a two Painted Stork and a Black Bittern. The hotel was good not up to the standard of last nights but more than adequate, however like everywhere – the food was excellent.

We arrived at Yala again transferring to an open jeep. It would be had to say that it was disappointing but there were not as many birds as yesterday. But we were on the coast and we saw the Indian Ocean for the first time. We still managed to get a few ticks with Grey-headed Fish-eagle, Greater Thick-knee and a Black-necked Stork. It was my turn this time to make some noise when Ron got really excited about a Pin-tailed Snipe and stood on my bare foot!

Asian Paradise Flycatcher (White morph)

Greater Thick-knee
The only bird we missed was Oriental Skylark and Barred Buttonquail. We saw a good number of species including our only Besra of the holiday.

Malabar Pied Hornbill

Yellow-wattled Lapwing

As we left the park Chami asked if we wanted to wait until dark to search for Nighjars, he didn’t have to ask twice. As dusk approached we had two Indian Nightjar fly past and although we heard Jerdon’s Nightjar we struggled, eventually we had to move on, but fortunately one flew across the track and we managed to get flight views of one of them.

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