Elephants, Owls and Nightjars

5am was our start time this morning to go to the tree house on the elephant corridor and survey any activity.  The ride there was a bone rattling one for around 30 minutes in the troop carrier.  Bianca from Hastings, UK is my fellow volunteer here.

The climb up into the tree house is good fun and sitting there for the 2 hours survey duration, although pretty uncomfortable for the bum gave me ample opportunity for some birding. I got Blyth’s Reed Warbler, Jerdon’s Bushlarks, Black-headed Munias and Little Green Bee-eaters this morning.  The landscape is grassy, often head high interspersed with trees and a huge lake which draws the elephants.

We got one single bull elephant that just seemed to appear as if by magic – his coming was so silent through the long grass.  The elephant corridor is located in the same area as 2 villages and dissected with their main thoroughfare for going to and from town and school etc and these 2 villages are yet to be ‘fenced in’ by electric fencing. The concept here is that the villagers are fenced in for their protection rather than the elephants being fenced out.  It has been a hugely successful strategy for 2 villages in the area that have done so.   Conflict most often occurs when elephants and people clash and the project offers villagers advice and education around growing crops that aren’t so elephant attractive, raising chickens rather than poaching from the jungle which invites conflict situations.   The elephant groups consisting of mothers and youngsters aren’t so much the problems as they prefer to avoid trouble but the bull elephants are a totally different kettle of fish and will knock down fencing and raid crops etc.   The one we viewed was thrilling to see, but brought home to me how nervous their presence would make villagers since within 10 mins of us seeing it from the tree house 4 school girls were walking along the same path to school and a guy riding a push bike followed closely after them so having a bull elephant can’t be very settling.

Back to the base camp for breakfast and a rest and then we set off again at 9.30am for fence inspection which involved a two hour walk along the fence line checking for any damage or fallen trees.  The track was pretty rough involving knee high grass, and up and over gully lines and at one point a river crossing that had the water coming up to my thighs so my wellie boots were more of a hindrance this time as they’d filled up with water and needed to be emptied out before I could walk on when I reach the other river bank.  I was more than compensated when we flushed a pair of Brown Fish Owls and had lengthy views of one of them after it settled in another tree.  Then we all picked up our bags and gear again to move on and found ourselves attacked by huge red ants!

By the end of the walk I was exhausted as it was hot and the sun was high in the sky but by this time the thermals were great and we got a Black Eagle, Serpent Eagle and a Shikra soaring above us.  After that we took a dip in the huge lake despite seeing a freshwater croc  in it that morning, I was so hot and the lake was so inviting I took Nerina and Bianca’s word for it that they didn’t harm people.

After a lengthy break for lunch we set off again for a final afternoon’s elephant survey from the treehouse and got lots more birds still with the highlights being a Barred Buttonquail as we left at dusk and on the drive home we flushed a Jerdon’s Nightjar and had great views of that in the headlight.

It just so happens that tomorrow is a festival day here and nobody works.  Bianca is leaving after being here for 2 weeks and Chinthaka our supervisor has talked me into going to Kandy to overnight as he has to go to the uni there himself for a lecture.  I’ve booked in a hotel and will visit the famous Temple of the Tooth and the Udawatta Kele Sanctuary for birding.  We’ll get back on Sunday night ready for the working week again.

This is 'Useless' the base camp cat - she's pretty sweet.........