Leopard sleeping in a tree

In this third and final part of my leopard trilogy, we see a different leopard sleeping in a tree. As some people never get to see a leopard on their Yala safari, we counted ourselves very lucky to see two leopards on ours.

We still ask ourselves the question whether this encounter was due to the sharp eyes of our tracker or his knowledge that this leopard sleeps in this very tree every afternoon. In either case, we appreciated seeing this wonderful creature hanging lazily on a branch halfway up the tree.

As you can see from the last image, the leopard was very far away from the track. The first two images are merely very small centre crops of similar images taken with my longest telephoto lens.

Leopard on a wander

In this second part of my leopard trilogy from Sri Lanka, the big male leopard sleekly wanders down from the undergrowth past a non-caring squacko heron before turning towards the water. However he decides to continue his turn and circles back to the undergrowth, likely disturbed by the jeeps gathering on the track with revving engines and tooting horns.

I am actually surprised he didn’t make a dash for it, but then again, he is probably used to the commotion of jeeps turning up daily.

Leopard emerging from the undergrowth

While on holiday in Sri Lanka we experienced our first ever safari at the Yala Nature Reserve. Although there were a few highlights our experience was very disappointing.

The safari consisted effectively of a two hour race in a jeep over rough tracks through the nature reserve, stopping just long enough on sight of some wildlife for a quick few shots before speeding off again. The question ‘did you get it?’ was followed by a swift acceleration when the answer was affirmative.

The safari felt like a race through the reserve, ensuring we captured every type of wildlife on camera. It was like going through a list of tick boxes, with the driver’s and tracker’s tip en par with how many species they could get to show us.

We were expecting a much more relaxed approach, driving to a location, staying there to soak up the atmosphere, being one with nature and seeing wildlife appear more naturally. But maybe we were expecting too much.

One of the highlight of the safari was seeing this big male leopard emerging from the undergrowth. It was heading for a drink at the pool of water, but decided to disappear back in the undergrowth, disturbed by a dozen’s of jeeps with engines roaring and tooting of horns, all vying for the best vantage point.

No wonder the leopard disappeared.

Searching for food

In this third and last post of my trilogy on wild elephants in the Yala Nature Reserve in Sri Lanka, we have a young elephant searching for food.

We watched this you elephants for a little while. It would repeatedly kick the ground, wait until the dust had settled and then search for food under the loose chunk of ground. The young elephant was closely observed by a pigeon, hoping for an opportunity to dash in and grab some insects from the freshly loosened ground.

The sequence on the right is best seen in the slideshow.

Hiding under mami

Once the two munching wild elephants had crossed the track as shown in my previous post Is it a tree?, these two mother elephants, each with a cute baby elephant followed and crossed the track shortly after.

First the mother elephant above appeared and crossed the track right before the jeep, with her baby clinging closely underneath it. Then the other mother elephant crossed the track behind us with the baby elephant following closely.

Is it a tree?

While driving along a rough track through the Yala Nature Reserve in Sri Lanka, our driver stopped the jeep beside these unusual tree trunks. Before we realised it, the tree trunk moved, grabbing a bunch of branches. The elephant crossed the track right in front of our jeep, munching away while crossing the road.

This is the first post in a trilogy of posts on the wild elephants we encountered in the Yala Nature Reserve.

The Apsara paintings

One of the most famous features of Sigiriya are the 5th Century paintings found in two depressions on the rock face some 100 metres above the ground. These paintings are a merely a fragment of an immense backdrop of paintings that once extended in a wide band across the Western rock face measuring some 140 meters long and 40 meters high.

All that has survived are the female figures preserved in the two depressions known as apsaras (or celestial nymphs), often found in religious and royal art in Asia. As so little of the mural has survived, the entire composition is left to ones imagination. The mural could well have depicted a devotional procession of the ladies of Kasyapa’s court or an expression of the cult of divine royalty with vijju kumari (lightning princesses) and meghalata (cloud damsels) at the abode of the god Kuvera.

This last image is a closeup of the centre of Sigiriya’s rock above, clearly showing the location of the Apsara paintings. There are two narrow spiral staircases leading up and down to a closed off viewing platform from the hidden traversing walkway partway up the rock face.

A scary climb, especially if you suffer from vertigo, but it is well worth it. The Apsara paintings are absolutely superb and without a doubt a must see for anyone visiting Sri Lanka.

Kingfisher

On the last day of our holiday, we went on a short river safari up the Balapitiya River in South West Sri Lanka. Not the best choice of river for watching birdlife, as the banks of the river were covered in mangrove trees. Consequently, there were no ibises, storks, herons, egrets and other waders, that we had seen in abundance elsewhere in Sri Lanka, to be seen.

The boat trip marked by a very noisy outboard and with the continuous diesel fumes was disappointing, although there were a couple of highlights. The first highlight was this kingfisher, perched on a post sticking out of the water. The kingfisher was, surprisingly, unperturbed by the noisy outboard motor, so we managed to get very close, giving me the opportunity to take a couple shots.

I will leave you in suspense with what the other two highlights of this boat trip were, as each will deserve its own post.

Views of Sigiriya

The Lion’s Rock, or Sigirya in the local tongue, is a dominant volcanic rock rising some 1,000 feet above the central planes of Sri Lanka and is distinctively visible from all directions.

Sigiriya has had a very long and turbulent history, from being inhabited in pre-historic times to becoming a Buddhist monastery in the 5th Century B.C., before being captured by King Kashyapa’s to build his splendid palace in the 5th Century A.D., and finally returning to be a Buddhist monastery after the king’s death until the 14th Century A.D. But more about the archeology, history and legacy of the Lion’s Rock in various upcoming posts.

We were lucky to witness this fantastic sunset from the terrace of the superb Kandalama hotel shortly after our arrival while sipping on a fresh mango juice. The Kandalama hotel was a fabulous experience in itself, but I will leave that also for a future post.

The next morning our guide drove us to Sigirya via the senic route, giving us the opportunity to view the fabulous rock across Kandalama Wewa. Due to the dry period, the water level in the reservoir was so low that the dead trees provided an eerie foreground to the prominent rock.

This final panorama of Sirgiriya is taken from the extensive gardens surrounding the rock on our walk in to a long but very rewarding climb to the top.

Ancient Sri Lankan door

A wonderfully preserved ancient Sri Lankan door.

Swallow singing it’s heart out

Our swallows are back from their African sojourn. At least four pairs have returned the very lengthy journey and are, once again, swooping through the fields, round the cottages and over the loch catching insects.

This swallow is one of a pair nesting in the eves of our cottage, high above our kitchen window, and has made this pole that is stuck in the fence just outside the kitchen window as his favourite perch.

With the high winds this weekend, their speeds are phenomenal, with absolutely no chance of shooting one in flight. But there is plenty of time this summer to try and capture these beauties in flight.

Freefall

At the weekend, we finally got a couple of lazy days at the cottage, with time to enjoy some sunshine on the deck with a book, watching the birds and a little photography. We had an abundance of small birds frequenting the trees beside our cottage and scuffing themselves on thistle seeds and sunflower hearts on the feeders. The noise of the chirping and bird song was at times deafening.

I tried some photography with the same approach as a few weeks back: manually focussing on the plane between a branch and the seed feeders, and triggering off sequences of shots when a bird is about to jump of the branch or fly into the frame. I really need to get myself a wireless remote, as I cannot place the camera close enough to the feeders while staying far enough away from them not to scare the birds.

Unfortunately, I had less success with shooting birds in flight than two weeks ago, coming away with a lot of ‘nearly wonderful’ shots, particularly of the colourful siskins, gold finches and lesser redpolls. These two images of a siskin in freefall are the best of the lot and are in fact two different crops from the same photo.

I just cannot make up my mind which one of these two photo’s I like best. I love the one above for it’s simplicity and making you wonder what is going on. I also love the bigger picture below, with the goldfinch’s look and expression, also wondering what is going on.

Would love to hear what your thoughts are.