Wow! Many birds are still around Attidiya Bellanwila sanctuary.

As you may aware our new house and ECO-V office is at Boralesgamuwa, 15km south to heart of Colombo. Even you can see the tall buildings in Colombo from our balcony. We are facing a part of Bellanwila Attidiya bird sanctuary which is a marsh and situated next to Ratmalana domestic airport. It has become a controversial habitat as many private lands within the sanctuary being developed and by filling them damaging the wildlife . This is the place where I started my career as a bird watcher and I did my first ever research project for my Bsc. degree 15 years ago.

We have been living in this new house for past one year and every day we enjoy the green environment and the water front from our balcony (picture with Boo looking at the lake). I conducted few bird watching sessions for ECO-V members during last year but I hardly had time to watch quietly as my attention was always taken by the two Purple faced langur troops who live in my neighborhood. I usually watch their behavior whenever I look through my windows. I never had the opportunity to get a checklist of birds recently. I was watching birds with John Pilgrim when he visited us and it triggered my enthusiasm again for bird watching which I could not do systematically for a long time. I used my binoculars, note book and guide books and sat in my balcony for one for few hours yesterday and day before.

Believe me, I managed to watch them only for 45 minutes in the morning from 7.30am to 8.15am and another 45 minutes in the evening from 5 pm. I recorded 42 bird species, 2 troops (11 individuals) of Purple faced langurs, thousands of fruit bats and few micro bats. Bird list includes 7 migrants and our dear Spot-billed pelicans (I managed to take a photo when they were flying above my roof).

Isn’t it still a bird paradise? My dear bird loving friends...you have to plan your next holiday with us at ECO-V. You can see them all by just sitting comfortably in our balcony having a good breeze and sun shine. I am sure our dear friends, Sarah Hawkins, Ramesh Kannan, Paul Herbatson, Mark Chappell, John Pilgrim who already visited us will agree with me. You all are welcome!

Happy New Year – 2010

A new year has begun. When we look back at 2009 we can be very happy as we were able to achieve almost all the goals we had for 2009. We will be celebrating our 10th anniversary on the 7th of February 2011,therefore we will set the targets for this year and they will continue up to next year.

Training 20 youth as “Friends of Mother Earth” and completing basic work for habitat conservation in Udawalawa area for Conservation leadership Programme (CLP) award were the main highlights of year 2009. Personally getting training on wetland management from Netherlands, Invasive species management from Durrell; Jersey zoo and scientific writing from India were great opportunities to get developed skills. Also those ave me opportunities to meet new friends from all over the world and had the time to meet my old friends from UK and India.

At the beginning of 2010, John Pilgrim who works for BirdLife Vietnam, an old friend of mine visited us during his bird watching tour in Sri Lanka. It was really nice to have him with us share our experience. I think he really enjoyed the setup at ECO-V office and facilities for our international volunteers.

All at ECO-V and my family are really looking forward to have another successful year. We are looking forward to residential training workshop for ECO-V members which is scheduled for 16th and 17th of January including a nature watching boat tour along Bolgoda lake. We are also getting ready for another awareness campaign in Colombo which will take place in March.

I take his opportunity to thank everybody who were with us for year 2009 by encouraging and admiring our efforts and will very much hope that you all will be with us in 2010 too. We are determined to commit our selves to do our duty to protect Mother Earth.

Thank you and wish you all the best for year 2010 which is the International year of Biodiversity. Kanchana, Thushara, Boo and Nipu

Python in Boralesgamuwa

On 9th December 2009 Harsha, Tharaka, Indika and Kanchana got involved in releasing a Rock python (Python molurus) which was caught in Boralesgamuwa in the suburbs of Colombo. We got the message at 4.30 in the evening but the villagers had caught it in the previous night and kept in a barrel under very pathetic conditions. When we phoned the National zoo we were asked to release it to the Attidiya marsh which is a sanctuary where there are lots of people. We were not happy by the idea as we felt that the python will face the same danger again as there is a possibility of getting it caught by people again. When Tharaka and Indika visited the place where the python was kept people have gathered around it and making fun by showing it to the people who have gathered due to news that spread from the previous night. Somehow they were able to persuade the villagers to release the python. Tharaka, Indika and Harsha were able to put the python in to a big bag and transported it to a forest in Avissawella area by a van. The mission was accomplished around 8pm after getting delayed at an Army checkpoint where we had to answer many questions about transporting a python in a bag. However at the end of the day we all were happy as we rescued its life.
Next day morning Kanchana had to face another group of villagers who were trying to kill a Banded Kukri snake (Oligodon arnensis/“ Arani Dath Ketiya”) while she was waiting for kids’ school van. She was alone trying to convince the people that this snake does not harm for people and asked them to help her to catch it. But they were not so please about her request. However she was able to stop men killing the innocent creature and caught it into a bag and released into the reservation in the Bellanwila marsh behind her house. Wow it was a week of snakes!

ECO-V starts its field trips again

After a lapse of few months ECO-V revived its educational visits to different parts of the country again. As the first trip for year 2009, we decided to take our members for 2 days “Thiresi Charika” to war ravaged Eastern province capital Trincomalee by train. Ranjith, chief organizer of the ECO-V was back in action with Harsha in organizing the field trip. We wanted to keep the crowd to minimum as we were not sure what to expect. At last 15 of us started our journey from Colombo Fort railway stain by night train. It was not too bad though we struggled to catch our sleep with hundreds of mosquitoes who got into the train. However we reached Trincomalee by 6 am in the morning on 28th November. We were received by Sarvodaya district coordinator Jeeva aiya and we were ushered in to a van and he took us to sarvodaya guest house.
There was a drizzle when we reached Sarvodaya Centre at Uppuweli but it didn’t stop us having a great day in Tricomalee. After a lovely breakfast we visited Nilaweli beach which is named as one of the most beautiful beaches in Sri Lanka. We were not encouraged to visit the Pigeon Island one of the marine National parks in Sri lanka in the morning .Therefore we decided to go to Thiriyaya, Girihandu Seya temple which is about 33 km away from Nilaweli. It was a very beautiful area where we saw some birds including Jungle fowl, Green bee-eaters and Malabar pied Hornbills. The scenery was so exiting when we climbed the rock where we could see most of the province up to Mullaitivu. There were many ruins of Buddhist pagodas which were supposed to be first build during Lord Buddha’s era. We all were so glad to be there after 30 years of the war where the area is lot of activities for development and re awakening.
On our way back we visited Nilaweli beach again and had a discussion about environmental facts and issues in the area. We were thrilled as the boat men agreed to take us to Pigeon Island in spite of the rough sea condition which had a great risk too. But it was a life time experience and we all were very happy to be there. Everybody enjoyed the sea bath at the end and we returned to Sarvodaya for early dinner. We had a short “Thiresi discussion” after dinner in the beach hut of Sarvodaya and everybody agreed for more frequent meetings and field trips since the war is over.
Next day morning we visited Koneshwaran temple and got into the train at 10am. No body felt tired during the 13 hour train journey as Nanda, Prasanna and Ranjith kept us laughing by making jokes on each other and feeding us with many snacks. We all were very happy as it was a very successful field trip after many months of silence.

Training in Bangalore , November 2009

I had a great opportunity as alumnus of International Training Centre (ITC) at Durrell and also as an alumnus of Conservation leadership Programme (CLP) to participate in a workshop in training on scientific writing for peer reviewed journals. ITC at Durrell sponsored all my expenses for the training and there were 16 CLP alumni in the 5 day workshop held at NCBS campus in Bangalore. Dr. Martin Fisher, Editor of Oryx, the Journal of Fauna and Flora International, UK conducted the work shop while Dr. Charu Mishra and Dr. Uma Ramakrishnan were the co facilitators for the workshop. Stuart Paterson from CLP coordinated the work shop. I also met our dear friend Ramesh Kannan from ATREE India who visited us last year during my stay and had discussions on our future projects. Workshop was a great opportunity to meet my old friends from CLP, Wakid Abdul, Bandana Aul and Supria Juhangwala who were with me during past CLP programmes.

In London and Cambridge

After 5 days in Jersey I had to say good bye to everybody and I flew back to London and joined with Sarah and Tom Bear in Cambridge. Meeting Prof. Nigel Leader Williams at Cambridge University and Sue Stokes (Kate Stokes mom) were the highlights while I was in Cambridge. It was very nice to meet Sue and talk about Kate Stokes Memorial Award training programme for Friends of Mother Earth. Thanks to Tom and Sarah I had a very fruitful time in Cambridge visiting Fauna and Flora International (Meeting with Stu Paterson). It was very nice to meet Nigel Collar from Birdlife International and his daughter Clio Collar who was a volunteer to ECO-V two years ago. After Cambridge , I went to London and stayed with Catherine Faulks and Edward Whitley and family before I came back to Sri Lanka. Discussing the progress of ECO-V and future plans with them was very useful. I came back to Sri Lanka on the 31st of October after a very successful travel in UK.

In Jersey Zoo after 10 years of my first visit

I was lucky enough to get the second training from International Training centre at Durrell, Jersey Zoo in October 2009. This was my 3rd visit to Jersey zoo and I really enjoyed the developments I saw since my last visit in 2007. I was there for 5 days learning about Invasive species management. There were 16 participants from 12 different countries and it was very interesting to share ideas and learn new skills on managing the invasive species. I was so glad to meet my friend Sita from Nepal whom I met at Waheningen International, Netherlands during wetland management course and it was fun to share a room with her again.


I went to Jersey two days before the course started and spent time with my dear friends, June and John. It was very nice to be with them again and to go on horse rides. Meeting John and Judy Banks again after two years was a very happy moment. Talking about changes in Sri Lanka where they were born and talking about common friends was very interesting. I really didn’t have enough time to meet my old friends but just managed to meet Jo, Jamie, Chris, David, Catherine and John Fa. Meeting Dr. Lee Durrell after 10 years was so nice and I am so glad that we had enough time to catch up few things. It was such fun time meeting all trainees from different Islands on the world and all of them came from Islands smaller than Sri Lanka.