I got an opportunity to go to Jaffna after a hiatus of over 10 years with 5 others on the first Friday of August. One of my friends got a bungalow booking done after trying for months and though we knew it was the off season for birding, and as we heard that a flock of Greater flamingos are in Vallai for a few weeks and a rare migrant (spotted redshank ) had been spotted in Sarasalai, we went along after getting hold of a few more photographers and managed to organise a 7 seater vehicle as well. We started around 9 in the night and arrived in Jaffna at 5.15 on Saturday morning and after refreshing a little , had breakfast and went towards Vallai.
We saw a few birds in Vallai but couldn't photograph flamingos as they were far away and after a few minutes saw they fly away.
We did another trip in the afternoon and managed to see a small flock .
Although the bungalow booking was from Saturday to Monday morning , we decided to return after a morning bird watching session on Sunday .After breakfast, we started the return journey and proceeded to Sarasalai on the lookout for the spotted redshank.
The spotted redshank was at a distance with some common redshanks and could e distinguished from its long beak and the dark plumage.
Striate heron
these grey francolins were not that shy
We were quite surprised to see a very large flock of flamingos in a water body close to where we saw the redshank. This was the single largest flock I have seen ever and there could have been around 3,000
This was comparatively a very small flock we saw in Vallai and many had got to know about these and not the massive flock in Sarasalai
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