Your Itinerary For Sri Lanka

There are enough birds in Colombo’s wetlands to whip out those binoculars

- Ian Lockwood

Colombo sleeps in late on the weekend, resting after a night of revelry the city’s many clubs and casinos afford. When I wake at dawn, the air is still sticky from the previous night’s pre-monsoon showers. Venus still glows in the azure eastern horizon but all too soon the tropical sun will burn away the darkness. Such mornings are when Sri Lanka’s renowned protected areas, the likes of Yala, Wilpattu and Sinharaja, beckon people like myself, people who are drawn to the island’s biodiversity. Of them, a fair chunk comprises twitchers, or individuals who travel long distances in search of rare birds, and Sri Lanka is indeed a haven for them. There are 33 endemics species and a host of difficult-to-see others that make a birding holiday truly rewarding. What a few people also appreciate is that some of the best birding sites on the island are not in remote jungles but are hidden away in a series of urban wetlands, nestled amongst Colombo’s dense neighbourhoods and commercial zones.

This spring morning, in a leafy suburb in Colombo, I am itching to go birdwatching and I am taking a counter-intuitive approach and heading, not away but, into the urban heart of the city. Gathering up my gear and rousing my teenage son Lenny from slumber, I set out in search of enigmatic water birds. Bitterns, uncommon winter visitors, have been recently sighted; three of them. They are our holy grail species. I have been trying in vain to photograph them in outer Colombo for the last few years but I have been rather frustrated with fleeting views and no decent photographs thus far.