Asian Fairy Bluebird (Vagrants of the family Irenidae (Fairy Blubirds))

     Birds that appear outside their normal range are known as vagrants. This post summarizes up to date published sight records of vagrants of the family Irenidae (Fairy Blubirds) in Sri Lanka.

Asian fairy bluebird

Layard obtained a specimen near Kandy and Kelaart procured the second specimen also from Kandy during 18^th century. Taxidermist of Colombo museum Hart reported a small flock in Rakvana in 1868 and again 3-4 birds in November 1877 at the same location and procured single specimen (Legge 1880:603). As per Phillips it has not been recorded since 1877 (Phillips 1978:70). In 1977 there is a sight record of a flock of 6 birds, drinking at a waterhole north of Trincomalee (Anon. 1977) and another rather doubtful sighting in February 1987 from Gilimale (Hoffmann, T. W., 1988)

References:

Anon. 1977. Fairy Blue Birds. Loris. 14(4):243

Hoffmann, T. W., 1988. Notes from the Ceylon Bird Club 1987, A brief avifaunal survey. Loris, 18(1), 23-25

Legge V., 1880. A History of the birds of Ceylon  1983 second edition.
Phillips W.W.A., 1978. Annotated checklist of the Birds of Ceylon (Sri Lanka) 1978 revised edition.