Birding Kalpitiya - Part 1 Seabirds

Lesser Crested Tern, photo by Saranga

The morning of November 5^th, shortly after I woke up, my husband surprised me that he wanted to take me to the beach when he got home from work, and to plan for 2 nights away. We had talked about visiting Kalpitiya, a western coastal town in Sri Lanka, later this month, but some recent reports of Orcas showing up inspired an impromptu vacation. We first arrived in Norochcholai and visited the Department of Wildlife Conservation office. Staff shared recent accounts of Spinner Dolphins and Orcas. They treated us to a delicious lunch while playing locally filmed videos of the dolphins and whales. I was definitely getting excited to be on the water!

We were the only two people on the beach!

We stayed at Ocean Wind Beach Resort, and across the road, another property managed by the same people offered a private beach for us to use! We spent the evening walking the beach, collecting shells, watching crabs, wading, and building a sandcastle under the moonlight.

There were dozens of these crabs running along the waves. Photo by Saranga.

We only saw one of this type of crab. Photo by Saranga.

The boat we had for the morning.

Early the next morning, we woke up to meet our boat at the beach property, which also offers dolphin watching tours. The small 6-seat boat was by far the smallest watercraft I’d ever been on in the ocean, and with the wind, I was a little nervous. Being the off-season for tourism and just the beginning of whale and dolphin season, we ended up with a private boat for the morning. 

The water wasn’t as smooth as it had been the previous days, and the wind direction had changed so there was a chance we wouldn’t get to see the dolphins. This became a reality as we spent more time at sea. After a while, we began to see small groups of 3-10 terns flying by or circling low over the water. We finally told the boat drivers that we’d be happy to stop and look at the birds the next time we found a group, since the dolphins didn’t seem to be around.

Small groups of birds turned into a feeding flock of roughly 150 terns! As we waited in the middle of the group, and circled back through the flock several times, we were able to identify 8 species of terns, two being life birds for both Saranga and myself! Then, we noticed a dark bird fly low over the water and land… we quickly got binoculars and our camera on the bird and identified it as a Wedge-tailed Shearwater! Another life bird for us both! Then another… and another! Altogether, 4 Wedge-tailed Shearwaters sat on the water and flew low to the water below the higher-flying terns.

Saranga's photo of one of the Wedge-tailed Shearwaters

Another Wedge-tailed Shearwater. Photo by Saranga.

Terns dove into the water all around our boat, performing incredible aerial displays. It was really a fun experience and we were quite happy ending the trip with 3 life birds and no dolphins. We may try to go back again on a day with better sea conditions, but who knows… we may not see any good birds that way!

 

Omeesha Beach Resort, where we enjoyed breakfast after the dolphin tour.

Here’s are list of the birds we saw at sea:

1 - Wedge-tailed Shearwater

2 - Sooty Tern

3 - Bridled Tern

4 - Gull-billed Tern

5 - Sandwich Tern

6 - Common Tern

7 - Whiskered Tern

8 - Great Crested Tern

9 - Lesser Crested Tern

10 - Blue-tailed Bee-eater (I know they migrate, but I was surprised to see a group of 6 bee-eaters at sea!)

Ready for Part 2 of our vacation!