Glimpses of Hill Birds

by K.G.H. Munidasa

A previous weekend, during a visit to the lower Hill Zone, I found myself at a small village, tucked among forested foot-hills, close to the western boundary of the Peak Wilderness.

It was almost dusk when I arrived at a friend's house that was in a fold of the steep hillside, overlooking a green valley studded with chena clearings.

Rufous Babbler

Incidentally, my host was a bird student of some standing, hence among other matters of interest discussed at dinner that night, was the subject of hill birds which were to be found around the place.

We dwelt on this topic at length until it was time to retire for the night.The following morning, in spite of the prevailing inclement weather, there were many birds about, and I heard many a strange call in the forest bordering the village.

Bulbuls

The first birds which I notice were the yellow-browed Bulbuls. A pair of these arrived in a cinnamon tree in the compound to look for their breakfast of purple berries while the sun was still a long way below the crest of the Sacred Mountain.

They uttered a series of loud and musical whistling notes, some of which were very reminiscent of the forest or Black Bulbul, the most typical of the hill country. Throughout my brief stay there, I was to hear these mellow notes over and above the calls of the other birds in the neighbouring countryside.

An endemic species likely to be met with in that terrain is the Ceylon Yellow-eared Bulbul, a typical highland bird. I observed parties of the Black Bulbul flying across from one hill top to another, incessantly calling to one another in a raucous but pleasant voice.

Pre-tee Dear

The brown-capped Babbler was another endemic species I noticed during my sojourn in the foothills. This shy jungle bird, known to the ordinary villager as Redhi-Diyan and identified in bird circles by the name "Pre-tee Dear" (both onomatopoeic renderings of its call) is found in all three climatic tracts of the island, in three separate races.

During the two days I spent there, I heard this babbler regularly in the early morning and then around five o'clock in the evening, calling monotonously for long periods from the same patch of forest. Although I did not attempt to flush one out of its damp, shady retreat for a closer view, I was certain it was the dark form which inhabited the wet zone forests.

To be judged by the sundry squeaks and chatterings heard beside tracks through the shrubbery the place was well represented by the babbler family Timalinae. I could make out the churring notes of the white-throated and Black-fronted Babblers, foraging under cover.

Further I had a passing glimpse of the Ceylon Scimitar Babbler Pomatorhinus horsfieldii melanurus, one of the wariest in the family. This could be the wet zone race one often met at the foot-hills.

In one of my previous visits to the place, couple of years ago, I had come across a solitary Rufous Babbler-(believe it or not) in a flock of the common Ceylon Babbler or "Seven Sisters". I could not but speculate as to how this alliance was brought about.

Hunting party

The shrikes (Campephagidae) cuckoo shrikes and minivets were birds of the forest canopy. In one mixed hunting party I came upon in precipitous slopes, I observed family groups of the Orange Minivet, Small Minivet, Velvet-fronted Blue Nuthatch, Pied Shrike and a pair each of the gold-fronted Chloropsis and the pigmy woodpecker, with one or two crested Drongos in attendance. The whistling of black-headed Cuckoo-Shrike was heard in a cluster of trees, beyond.

Wood Pigeon

As was usual in well-wooded areas of both the wet and the dry zones, pairs of the rarer large cuckoo-shrike passed overhead uttering their "kur-eech" call.

The Ceylon Lorikeet, I noticed, was commoner there than in the lowland proper, while wild chattering of the blossom-headed parakeet was heard at every hour in daytime.

The white bellied race of the common Ceylon Drongo paused on branches of dead trees beside the track, on the lookout for insect prey. A large pigeon-like bird up in a high forest tree on being studied with my binoculars, was tentatively identified as the Ceylon wood pigeon or lady Torrington's pigeon, an endemic species peculiar to the mountain zone.

This wood pigeon might be overlooked by the average bird-watcher, owing to its close resemblance to the Green Imperial Pigeon of the lowlands, but the chessboard mark on the back of its neck should dispel any doubts about its identity.

There could have been other fruit pigeons in the thick foliage but I failed to spot any.

The Emerald Dove, however, was there, single or in pairs, walking the lonely stretches of the track under the shade of the forest.

Endemic birds

Yet another endemic species I noted was the Ceylon yellow-fronted Barbet. Its call started in a long drawn cruuuuuu and then changed to kruik, kruik, kruik was one of the most prominent bird-calls heard in the hill slopes, as several barbets begin to call in unison. Though the larger brown-headed Barbet was there I did not spot the other two species.

I could have mistaken the Ceylon white-eye for a female Common Iora had I not noticed the white ring round the formers eyes. This, after all is a resident of the higher elevations, apparently come down to the lower level in response to the prevailing weather.

I was certain I spotted a yellow-naped Green Woodpecker in a standing tree trunk, and subsequently heard its unmistakable queer call in the heart of the forest.

The black-headed Orioles had nested lately at the edge of the garden and the family with a single young were pointed out to me by my fried, sitting on the branches of a Jak tree, opposite the compound.On bare dead branches of trees leaning out from the forest margins perched crested Tree-Swifts and Ashy Swallow-Shrikes.