It's migrating season - the birds return
by K.G.H. Munidasa
 The migrant birds not only return to the same restricted locality,
year after year, but also to the identical site in their wintering
quarters. The amazing regularity and punctuality, almost to the precise
day, of the arrival of winter birds in Sri Lanka is seen from the
records maintained over the years by observers residing in different
parts of the country.
In the Low-Country Wet Zone, for example, Brown Shrike, Brown
Flycatcher and Indian Paradise Flycatcher, believed to be the same
birds, have returned to a particular home garden, year after year, for
five years running.
It has been recorded that forerunners of the Kashmir Red-breasted
Flycatcher and Indian Bluechat, arrived in their customary winter
habitats in the Central Hill Zone regularly in the second and third week
of October, each year.
The Common Swallow, perhaps the most familiar of our winter visitors
begins to appear in the sky over the south-east coast from the third
week of September and so are some of the wading and shore birds.
Many regular roosting places of the Common Swallow have been recorded
in the island, over the years; especially in the Low-Country Wet Zone.
An observation recorded by the Ceylon Bird Club in its monthly notes
for January 1992 goes as follows:- Passing Pelmadulla town at 1715 hrs.
I observed a large congregation of Common Swallow getting ready to roost
for the night on telephone and electric cables along the main Street,
and in the bus stand. Flock after flock of twittering birds settled down
on the wires. Which seemed to sag with their weight. There could have
been many hundred-thousands of birds in the place."
In the final week of 1992 a similar roosting places have been
discovered in the Ratnapura and Eheliyagoda towns, which received much
publicity in the news media.
In September 2002 a roosting place was discovered by this writer in
the Avissawella town, and promptly photographed. This roost is
continually of used by the birds, during every migrating season, to the
enjoyment for the townsfolk and passers-by.
An observer in Dik-Oya (elevation 6,000 feet) has recorded that the
first few individuals of the Common Sandpiper appeared in water causes
there every year in the first week of August.
In Hambantota (southeast coast) the Common Sandpiper generally
arrived sometime in the second week of August or a little later.
In the Gal Oya valley and the adjacent areas of the Eastern Province
it has been found that scattered flocks of the Forest Wagtail started
arriving in their customary roosting places from mid-September.
 It is on record that a Forest Wagtail, which was ringed by the Ceylon
Bird Club in 1963, returned the next season to the same roosting place
in the Gal Oya valley and was once again caught in a mist net.
Similarly, a Forest Wagtail picked up dead in the Gal Oya valley in 1966
was found to carry a ring attached to its leg the previous year at a
ringing camp just half mile from the spot.
A female Blue-Chat ringed in 1964 at Deltota came back the following
migrating season to occupy the same patch of garden. This follows the
case of the Grey Wagtail which returned to the identical winter habitat
two winters later it was ringed and released at Deltota.
1. Dates of arrival of some winter migrants in Sri Lanka.
2. Migration chart of some wintering birds in Sri Lanka
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