Deepal Warakagoda is a prominent

Sri Lanka Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, also known historically as Ceylon, is an island country in South Asia. It lies in the Indian Ocean, southwest of the Bay of Bengal, separated from the Indian subcontinent, ...

ornithologist Ornithology, from Ancient Greek ὄρνις (''órnis''), meaning "bird", and -logy from λόγος (''lógos''), meaning "study", is a branch of zoology dedicated to the study of birds. Several aspects of ornithology differ from related discip ...

. His early working career was in

electronics Electronics is a scientific and engineering discipline that studies and applies the principles of physics to design, create, and operate devices that manipulate electrons and other Electric charge, electrically charged particles. It is a subfield ...

, but since his childhood he has studied the island's bird fauna and for many years he has been working as a professional guide for birding and wildlife tours of the island. He is mostly known for his records as one of the few

who has seen the greatest amount of species in

. Deepal Warakagoda is also one of the major roles of the Ceylon Birds Clu

He works with great passion to educate on birdlife in Sri Lanka and its rich diversity of fauna in soundscapes of natural habitats, and their conservatio

and has his own career experience for over 30 year

Discoveries

He discovered a new species of bird endemic to Sri Lanka, the Serendib scops owl, Serendib Scops owl. His expertise in vocalizations had enabled him to realize that an owl he heard calling near

Kitulgala Kitulgala is a small town in the west of Sri Lanka. The 30th Academy Awards, Academy Award-winning ''The Bridge on the River Kwai'' was filmed on the Kelani River near Kitulgala, although nothing remains now except the concrete foundations for the ...

rain forest was an unknown species, and he later saw this bird in January 2001 in the Sinharaja rain forest with assistance of a few. He surrounded the bird's habitat and took photographs while it was roosting under a thick bush. This new-found species of scops owl is now on the

IUCN Red List The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, also known as the IUCN Red List or Red Data Book, founded in 1964, is an inventory of the global conservation status and extinction risk of biological ...

. He has also identified (each for the first time) 15 new migrant species of birds in Sri Lanka, and has published a large number of articles on the

avifauna Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweight ...

of Sri Lanka.

Creations and experiences

Warakagoda is Sri Lanka's foremost sound recordist in natural history subjects, and has produced and published the only comprehensive

audio guide An audio tour or audio guide provides a Sound recording, recorded spoken commentary, normally through a handheld device, to a visitor attraction such as a museum. They are also available for self-guided tours of outdoor locations, or as a part of ...

to the island's birds (on tape and CD). He has an unmatched knowledge of Sri Lanka's bird songs and calls. His audio recordings of the island's distinct bird species have played a major role in the recognition of several of them as endemic to Sri Lanka in the book '' Birds of South Asia. The Ripley Guide'' (2005) by

Pamela C. Rasmussen Pamela Cecile Rasmussen (born October 16, 1959) is an American ornithologist and expert on Asian birds. She was formerly a research associate at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., and is based at the Michigan State University. She ...

and John C. Anderton. Although best known for his knowledge of the avifauna of Sri Lanka, and expertise in finding and identifying birds, his keen interest extends to the island's other wildlife too. Warakagoda founded the Drongo Nature Sounds Library in 1997, the only one of its kind in Sri Lanka, which now holds the largest collection of audio recordings of individual species of fauna and soundscapes of natural habitats of the country. He was joint secretary of the Ceylon Bird Club, and is a national coordinator in Sri Lanka for the Asian Waterbird Census. He is a founder of Bird and Wildlife Team, a company specializing in natural history tours of Sri Lanka and India, and works as one of its senior tour leaders. He is also a leading tour guide of the organization 'Wings birds' He is currently working on several new publications in the print and audio/video media, for the betterment of education of the country's bird fauna and bird watching in the nature-based tourism industry in Sri Lanka.

Publications

* ''Helm Wildlife Guides: Birds of Sri Lanka'' (2022

- by Deepal Warakagoda, Uditha Hettige and Himesha Warakagoda ISBN 978-1-4081-1041-6 * ''Helm Field Guides: Birds of Sri Lanka'' (2012

- by Deepal Warakagoda, Carol Inskipp, Tim Inskipp and Richard Grimmet *''A Guide to the Birds of Sri Lanka'' Third Edition (1998

- by G. M. Henry, revised and enlarged by Thilo W. Hoffmann, Deepal Warakagoda, and Upali Ekanayake - * ''Photographic Guide to Birds of Sri Lanka'' (2000

- * Sri Lanka Nature Sounds (2011

* ''The Bird Sounds of Sri Lanka. An Identification Guide Part 1'' (1997, 2nd ed. 2001

audio tape *''The Bird Sounds of Sri Lanka. An Identification Guide Part 2'' (1998) audio tape *''The Bird Sounds of Sri Lanka. 99 Species'' (2003) audio CD *''The Bird Sounds of Sri Lanka. Habitat Edition 2005'' (2005) audio tape *''Bird of Sri Lanka, MP3 sound and image collection'' (2008) CD-ROM – by Deepal Warakagoda and Uditha Hettige. *''Bird Sounds of Sri Lanka, Vocalization and Image Guide'' (2008

CD-ROM – by Deepal Warakagoda and Uditha Hettige. *''Indian Bird Sounds, The Indian Peninsula'' (2009

A set of 5 audio CDs – by C. Chappuis, F. Deroussen and D. Warakagoda. *''The Bird Sounds of Sri Lanka. Habitat Edition 2017'' (2017

MP3 digital album.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Warakagoda 1965 births Living people Sri Lankan ornithologists Wildlife sound recordists 21st-century Sri Lankan people