The Whimsical Whimbrel

Sunday, 2nd of August 2020

A long-awaited birdwatching excursion to Sinharaja Rainforest — washed away in torrential thunderstorms that battered us as we drove down the Southern Expressway. Our hope to explore our alternative destination, the Hiyare Forest Reserve — quashed by a guy who informed the adults (*cough* the ones with authority *cough*) that there were no guides and there were gun-traps in the jungle. A visit, immediately afterwards, to the tiny, leech-infested Kottawa Rainforest, way past birding hours — literal headache intensifies.

My sister’s documented the journey in full here — it was alright despite the headaches, and I wish we’d stayed in Hiyare just to skirt the nearby forested paths and wooded gardens and the reservoir. I even thought I glimpsed Sri Lanka’s flagship endemic, the Sri Lanka Blue Magpie. Nope, I don’t want to add that to my life list yet. I’m not too sure.

But anyway — we eventually stopped for lunch at a beachfront restaurant run by the Air Force in Koggala, Galle. It’s a pretty interesting spot, and on its front yard there’s an observation platform where one can see the five “’ways” — the sea-way (literally the Indian Ocean); the lake-way (Koggala Lake); the runway (of the SLAF Koggala airbase, which used to be an RAF seaplane base during World War II; the highway (the A2, running all the way along the southern coast of the island); and finally, the railway (the coastal line). 

For some reason, the meal service was delayed almost an hour, leaving us bored and me frustrated with the lack of birding opportunity. My sisters and I, along with a few of our travel companions, came out to take a look at the beach.

It was a sunny scene, with waves merrily crashing onto the sandy shore, which was mostly clean and stretched out on either side into the distance, misted over with salt spray.

Skimming my eyes over the sands, I noticed a solitary bird pacing near the waterline, in the middle distance. It seemed brown, mid-sized — but something about its gait and form told me it wasn’t just an Indian Pond Heron poking around.

I zoomed in with the camera — and found a Whimbrel (Numenius phaeopus).

A regular winter migrant that should’ve appeared around mid-October, at the very earliest. 

What on earth was it doing here in sunny Sri Lanka, in the northern summer, when it should’ve been up north, making a family?

Among migrant birds, there sometimes are stragglers and loiterers that “oversummer” in their usual wintering grounds instead of returning to their breeding grounds up north. Most species known for loitering are the commoner ones — Black-tailed Godwit (Limosa limosa), Common Sandpiper (Actitis hypoleucos) and Whiskered Tern (Chlidonias hybridus), to name a few. It’s probably a statistical thing. I’ve never seen Whimbrels particularly noted as loiterers — then again, they aren’t as commonplace as the ones that are. 

After doing a little bit more digging on the internet, I did eventually find a few records in eBird.org, of Whimbrel sightings in Sri Lanka in August and early October. There even was one recorded on the previous day (1st August 2020) — could it be the same bird, I wonder?

We stalked the Whimbrel a little way down the beach, sticking close to the pandanus groves which grew along the tide line over carpets of ipomoea, and watched it hurriedly pace the shore, skirting the waterline and jumping back from particularly rough waves — until we were called back for lunch.

Seeing the rare summer Whimbrel lifted my spirits (a hearty lunch helped!), as did a pair of loudly calling Pied Kingfishers that flew overhead as we left the restaurant. It was an okay day — in spite of everything, we did have a few good sightings, and a welcome step outside the Western Province in months. Hopefully, the weather will be kinder next time.