Sri Lanka is truly a bird’s paradise. Our island is dotted with hundreds of lakes and other places of refuge for the birds, allowing you to spot birds almost anywhere in the island. Most birds are found in the wet zone although you do find certain species in the dry zone as well. 250 resident species are found mostly found in the Wet Zone, including the Sri Lanka myna, whistling thrush, yellow-eared bulbul, red-faced malkoha and brown-capped babbler. If you visit Sri Lanka during the northern winter from October to March, you’ll be able to see countless migratory birds. And did you know that some of these birds migrate from as far off as the arctic Siberia and Western Europe! The many reservoirs in our island attract vast numbers of water birds – stilts, sandpipers, terns and plover, as well as herons, egrets and storks. The forests attract species of warblers, thrushes, cuckoo and many others. You could also try spotting our 33 endemic birds. The endemic jungle fowl is Sri Lanka’s national bird. The recently opened Kumana sanctuary in the southeast, Bundala (famed for flamingoes) and Kalametiya sanctuaries are very important bird sanctuaries.

The glamour set of the insect world, most species of butterflies and dragonflies in Sri Lanka are found in the lower foothills. Some butterflies can be seen all year round while others are seasonal. The two major seasons where butterfly numbers peak, corresponds to the start of the southwest monsoon in March/April and the northeast monsoon in September/October. One of the most spectacular scenes is the seasonal migration of butterflies during March and April, when tradition has it that they fly towards 'Samanala Kande' (Butterfly Peak), the local name for the mountain more famous as 'Sri Pada' or `Adam's Peak'.

There is a one-in-a-two chance that the dragonfly you see in Sri Lanka is endemic! That itself says a lot about the richness and extraordinariness of Sri Lanka’s dragonfly fauna.

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