I founded BIRDWING Nature Holidays in 2005 as a travel company specialising in birding & natural history holidays for individuals and small groups.

In this website, you will find bird watching and natural history holidays that cater to a wide range of palates. My 14-day Absolute Birding is good for keen bird watchers as it mainly focuses on birds. However, it will also present plenty of 'other' wildlife viewing opportunities. Therefore, this same tour could be altered to incorporate other aspects of natural history for people with broader interests. In this tour wide range of accommodations are used that are close to the birding sites.

I run a 14-day Absolute Birding tour from 17-30 Jan, 2010. 2 British birders have already booked this tour and I am looking for 2 more couples to make it a group of 6. For details click here.

I oraganized and guided an Absolute Birding tour from done 31 Jan – 14 Feb, 2008 with 4 British birders, which was extremely successful. In this, we bagged a whopping 252 species of birds including all 33 endemics currently recognised, additional 42 endemic to South Asia and 9 of the 15 resident nocturnal birds of which 7 were Owls. Special birding highlight was seeing a pair of the newly rediscovered breeding resident; Marshall’s Iora at Lunugamwehera. We also had 2 sightings of Leopard at the Yala National Park, which included a prolonged sighting of a male resting on a rock. To read the full report click here. To view a PDF version of the same with images click here.

An 18-day Birds, Wildlife and culture tour done with two British birders from 24 Jan to 9 Feb, 2009 yielded 253 species of birds including all 33 endemics. A special highlight in this was seeing 10 of the 15 resident night birds. We also had two Leopards on this tour. Click here to read a blog post that I did following this very successful tour. A detailed report of this is coming up.

My 17-day Birding in style is ideal if you need to enjoy great birding without compromising on the quality of accommodation. In this we use only 6 hotels to cover 17 days giving you ample time to enjoy slow-paced birding & excellent comforts of the hotels used such as spas/infinity pools etc., It also incorporates a tinge of culture at bearable levels with visits to a couple of cultural World Heritage sites.

I did my first Birding in style tour from 24 Feb-10 Mar, 2009 with 4 bird watchers from Australia and Britain. With all the spa treatments, sampling of infinity pools and other such pamperings, we managed to see 230 species of birds and 2 Leopards among other specials. A report will be available soon.

My 15 day Birding, wildlife & tea holiday is a mixed-interest one that is ideal for birders as a family holiday with non-birding spouse/children joining in as it offers plenty of ‘other things’ to keep everybody happy. It covers almost all the key birding sites/zones ensuring profitable birding. Again, accommodation used for this is first class and these include a stay in a luxury tea bungalow built originally in the days of the Raj. Exploring the fabled Ceylon tea is one of the top highlights of this holiday.

Moving on to the last set of tours available in this site, my Natural History Holidays include an 8 day Leopards & wildlife safari centred around the Leopard and wildlife hotspot, Yala National Park. In February while guiding a tour that included 2 game drives, we recorded 7 Leopards at the amazing Yala National Park. Click here to see a detailed report of our sightings including videos. Finally, the 2 Day Sinharaja Rainforest tour and Birding Day Breaks are ideal if you are on a shorter visit. Click here and here to read a 2-part report of a 2-day trip to Sinharaja and here to read a report of a day excursion to this magical rain forest, which is my favourite wilderness area in Sri Lanka.

All these holidays can be tailor-made to fit your specific holiday requirements and stand as indicative itineraries. In addition to these tours that I introduced here, I am capable of doing Whale-watching, Wild-cats, Macro photography, butterfly-watching and Dragonfly-watching tours. Please inquire for itineraries.

Apart from the trip reports listed in this web site, all my travel reports and natural history posts can be found at my blog; gallicissa.blogspot.com.

It should be mentioned that I will be your first point of contact for all the above holidays and also will lead them personally. I do not aim for a huge volume of tours every year, but instead make sure that the limited number that I operate is done with my careful attention to detail through my personal involvement in your holiday from the start to the end. Therefore, I am careful not to promise things that I cannot deliver!

I look forward to opening the door to this magical island of serendipity!
Amila Salgado
BIRDWING Nature Holidays.

BIRDWING Nature Holidays is a licensed in-bound travel agency.