14th March Mirissa to Colombo

After missing out on Blue Whale yesterday, today was our last chance. On the plus side we had the Captain of choice. Purely speculation but I think tourist numbers had dropped for a number of reasons besides the impending Pandemic, so I think the boats were rationed to spread out the tourists available.

In the harbour we had the prime seats on the top deck at the front (as we had yesterday) whilst we were waiting Greater Crested, Whiskered and Gull-billed Terns fed in the harbour as well as numbers House Crow.

Greater Crested Tern

House Crow

Soon we were out to sea this time heading along the coast in a westerly direction, we were seeing most of what we had seen before Pilot Whales and Spinner Dolphins, but there were many more terns with good numbers of Whiskered Tern and Bridled Terns. We also saw Lesser Crested Tern which was new for the holiday. We travelled miles, but at least we seemed to have a plan, this Captain seemed to be a leader, yesterday's was a follower. One of the fishing boats reported a Blue Whale so we and the other boats headed that way but without success. Our Captain having sailed a good way past turned and slowly made his way back to the area. Twenty minutes past and then one of the crew let out a shout and the boat sped up, in the distance we could see a Spout of water shooting into the air.

What followed for the next hour consisted of watching the Blue Whale dive, then we hung around waiting for it to resurface before chasing after it. I have to say that they have introduced a code of conduct to stop boats getting too close. Six years ago it was a free for all, so todays is a big improvement. Eventually most of the other boats headed back to harbour, but our Captain wanted one last look, eventually the beast got up not far from us and we had great views, before returning to harbour ourselves.

Dolphins

Distant Blue Whales, tail-up as they say

Blue Whale

Soon we were packed and off to Colombo where we had a hotel room booked for a few hours before our flight at 2.00am back to Heathrow.

The trip was good,  for my part there was only two new species, but the mammals were impressive, Our guide Saman was excellent, knowledgable and friendly, he was proud of his country and its wildlife and clearly enjoyed sharing it with us. He even managed to get Andy excited over Forest Eagle Owl and the Serendib Scops. I would heartily recommend Sri Lanka Birding Adventures, I after all have now used them twice – and I wouldn’t rule out a third trip, Sri Lanka is that good!