ET gets a girl! ... These fantastic wee birds are relatives of Nightjars. They live in pairs (the male is the greyer of the two) within primary rainforest where they hunt large insects from a perch or via a rather weak fluttering flight.
These birds are a challenge to find but we had an expert guide in Mr C. Wickramasekara. Wicky was simply superb at finding the rare and unusual as well as having a wide knowledge of Singhalese culture and wildlife. He is a thoroughly nice guy and great company and of course can find Frogmouths in the dark!
The birds were photographed using flash. The birds were first illuminated using a weak hand torch which allowed me to focus and which constricted the pupils of the birds -a handkerchief was then placed over the flash to diffuse the light -these birds have delicate eyes which don't respond well to being "lasered" by a flash unit.
Image taken on the track from Martin's Place leading to the Sinharaja NP gate, Sinharaja, Sri Lanka.
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Africa (entire continent rather than south of Sahara)
AN
Antarctica
AO
Atlantic Ocean
AU
Australasia (Wallacea (Indonesian islands east of Wallace's line), New Guinea and its islands, Australia, New Zealand and its subantarctic islands, the Solomons, New Caledonia, and Vanuatu)
PAL
Eurasia (Europe, Asia from the Middle East through central Asia north of the Himalayas, Siberia and northern China to Japan)
IO
Indian Ocean
LA
Latin America (Middle and South America)
MA
Middle America (Mexico through Panama)
NA
North America (includes the Caribbean)
NO
Northern oceans
OR
Oriental Region (South Asia from Pakistan to Taiwan, plus Southeast Asia, the Philippines, and Greater Sundas)
