Thank you so much Athula for an absolutely amazing six days of birding. Not only is Athula professional in his guide services, he ensured that everything was well taken care of including the accommodations and food. Athula is an expert bird guide and he knows each bird species and calls which he can easily identify. Throughout the six days he has put in a lot of hard work and dedication to ensure that we were able to see all the endemics.
Birding only in Sinharaja and Nuwara Eliya we were able to see all endemics except the Wood Pigeon. Highlight of the trip included photography the endemic Serendib Scopes Owl, Sri Lanka Frogmouth, Scaly Thrush and the all-time elusive and incredible rare Ceylon Bay Owl. It is only with Athula’s expert service that we were able to achieve this and we would highly recommend Athula to any prospective bird watches or photographers.
Safari in Yala National Park -- Lisa Correl and Julian with Thilina
Everything was fabulous. Great bird sightings. Great safari.
Excellent hotels (apart from Lake view) Lovely Sri Lankan people
Fabulous food.
Thilina is an amazing guide. Very knowledgeable – polite – nothing too much trouble. He made this a perfect tour. Very sad time to be in Sri Lanka with the awful troubles. But it didn’t spoil out trip. Thank you to Jith and Thilina !!!
Our guide Tilly (Thilina) was outstanding and we would recommend him to anyone- especially bird photographers. Accommodation was very good and the gardens around Hibiscus and Blue Magpie were “dripping” with birds.
We had a great holiday and would definitely use WWJ again. These guys really know their birds and where to find them.
Mary & I are now back home and fully recovered from our long flight from Colombo to Scotland via Dubai (26 hours travelling).
Firstly, we would like to thank you personally for organising a wonderful tour. We’re both of the opinion that this was the best and most well organised Birding tour we’ve ever undertaken, a credit to your planning .
We would also like to take this opportunity to once again thank Athula, who primarily was an excellent guide, driver and general all-round fixer . At a number of our hotels the staff didn’t seem to understand the concept of being vegetarian, on one occasion even thinking that Chicken soup was vegetarian . Not to worry, all sorted by Athula.
Our birding trip was a big success due to the expertise and leadership of our guide Thilina Karunanayaka. His combination of passion for passion for nature, enthusiasm, resourcefulness and jovial character ensured that we found all 34 endemic species of Sri Lanka, plus a few bonuses! Thilina carried out detailed reconnaissance on the most difficult species, especially owls, seeming to have local contacts assisting him in every place we went. Lastly, we encountered a couple of tricky situations during the trip which our guide took care of in an extremely professional manner. We highly recommend Thilina of Walk With Jith tours to anyone serious about observing birds and / or wildlife in Sri Lanka.
We are birdwatchers not “twitchers” and so were unsure what to expect. We were reassured firstly by Jith’s prompt and helpful information.
Our guide, Upali was amazing – he made us feel safe and secure, drove really carefully and carried out the itinerary to the letter. His knowledge about birds is first class. He was always polite and very helpful and never lost patience with our lack of bird watching experience. We managed to see the majority of the endemics and most of the birds shown in the bird book I had purchased. We were generally happy with our accommodation – it did vary considerably but we felt was value for money. The evening meals at Rock View motel were not to our liking. We particularly enjoyed the plantation hotel at Kithulgala and the Hibiscus hotel or Tissamaharama.
This has been an exceptionally positive experience from our initial enquiry and creation of a bespoke itinerary to Jith personally meeting us at the airport and introducing us to our superb guide Susa.
This was our third trip and as enjoyable as the others, Our guide made it particularly enjoyable – his knowledge of the birds and wildlife generally was astounding.
His knowledge of location, habitat and calls ensured we saw more different birds than on earlier trips to Sri Lanka with “walk with jith”.
His organising and time schedules ensured we were out birding at the best/most comfortable times of the day.
Hetti’s English and sense of humour were particularly entertaining whilst driving between locations.
My wife and I thoroughly recommend “walk with jith” for birding in Sri Lanka.
Through Walk With Jtih arrangement. We had a wonderful birding trip experience in Sri Lanka starting from Feb 23rd to March 04th 2019.
During this journey, we watched 203 species of birds which includes all the 33 endemics. Thanks to Athula, our bird guide, he is a birding expert, without his help we couldn’t achieve our target.
