The dry-zone forest around Habarana is one of the richest birding areas in Sri Lanka, and the best of it starts at the end of our garden before the sun is properly up.
Sri Lanka has thirty-four endemic bird species — birds found nowhere else on earth — and a good number of them live in exactly this kind of habitat: dry evergreen forest broken up by ancient tanks and scrub. You do not have to go far to find them.
A walk usually begins in the garden itself, where the resident birds are used to people and consequently easy to watch. Green bee-eaters work from the fence wires, orioles move through the canopy, and the babblers make an enormous amount of noise for their size. From there the route follows the tank edge and forest margins, where the interesting things are: kingfishers, painted storks, serpent eagles, and if you are patient and quiet, hornbills.
The endemics worth hoping for around here include the Sri Lanka grey hornbill, brown-capped babbler, black-capped bulbul and the crimson-fronted barbet. Sightings are never promised. Between about six and eight in the morning, though, the odds are good and the light is beautiful.
We can walk with you ourselves, or bring in a specialist guide with a scope for anyone keeping a serious list. Either way it is a slow, quiet couple of hours, and it is easily the best thing to do before breakfast.
