mabidally
Online
• • • •
Upload & Sell: Off
|
It’s our second day in in Wilpattu without a significant sighting. The previous morning had been quite cool and today was even cooler, a pleasant change for usually hot and humid Sri Lanka. The chill in the air as the wind thrust onto me in the exposed safari jeep made me regret not having brought along a my light fleece jacket. A majestic Grey Headed Fish Eagle, perched fully alert at “Percy-bandi-wewa” looking out for rising fish. A few minutes later we had a great sighting of a sloth bear meandering along the cleared tree line at “Thambi-olluwa”. After circuiting Borupanvilla and Thimibirivilla in search of the famous Borupanvila cubs who have been putting on a few shows of recent, we took a turn to the left, just near the edge of Mahapatassa villu, heading for the upper Kokkare road. I immediately asked the tracker “why not take a look at the villu”, commenting that the morning sun was just breaking through, warming the cold air and ground? This is the time a leopard loves to emerge from the bush and lie out in the sun to get the night chill out of its bones. In Yala, leopards love to sit on the many rocky outcrops one finds there. Here in Wilpattu they love the cool soft white sand warmed by the first rays of the morning sun. So, reversing the vehicle in a very tight space we turned around and headed back down to the edge of the Villu. We scanned the large expanse of Mahapatassa with its white sandy rim sandwiched in layers between the blue sky, the dark green tree line and the reflections in the still waters. It was a tranquil scene with a gentle morning mist still rising from the water surface. Far off in the distance we spotted a small yellowish speck and after a closer look with binoculars we noted it to be a spotted Chital deer taking a drink. We finally just began reversing the vehicle to head back to the road when abruptly the quiet morning still was broken with a sharp “kraakh krchaack” call from far across the villu. Alarm call of the grey langur monkey! We stopped and listened, and the monkeys alarm called again persistently. It was a dead giveaway of a leopard on the move! We scanned the distant horizon with binoculars but no luck. The tracker then said we could approach the other side closer, and so we reversed out of the villu and took a road skirting the outer edge of the villu towards the direction we had heard the alarm calls from. It was slow going on narrow windy road that appeared to have been cut as a temporary route around for when the villu had been completely flooded the past couple of years. Water levels at Mahapatassa have now dropped since the heavy rains of 2015; however only parts of the villu’s edge are still motorable. Half way along the route we spotted freshly dropped leopard scat along the edge of the road. The leopard must have walked this way literally minutes before! A few moments later we came to another opening dropping down to the villu and turned into it. We stopped and scanned the edge of the villu again, and under the overhanging branches of a large protruding ficus tree about 500m yonder we saw the tell tale shape. A quick scan with the binoculars confirmed that the “prince was in the audience chamber”! The tracker wanted to move in closer however I restrained him and took time to take a couple of distant compressed landscape shots. Then we moved in closer, driving slowly so as not to alarm it. It was a big beautiful male in its prime, lord and master of all the territory around him, he was relaxing, sprawled head down and enjoying the warmth of the early morning sun. At about two hundred meters distance we stopped again and took our time watching him and taking a few more shots, allowing the leopard to get used to our presence without alarming him. Approaching too fast can unsettle an animal and it will often get up and disappear into the bush in the blink of an eye. Eventually the leopard had noticed our presence and turned to give us a lazy look and a big yawn, then relaxed down again. I watched carefully for the flick of its tail, a tell tale sign if it was irritated by our presence but there was none. So feeling confident that he had accepted our presence we slowly edged closer. The tracker was very keen to move in very close and I had to restrain him. The leopard was still very relaxed and we stopped and watched him for about ten minutes from about thirty meters distance. With an occasional flick of it’s tail, he turned to look at us and then lie down again and then up to turn and look at us again. Then he sat up alert focused on something in the bush. Eventually he got up and had a good trademark leopard stretch, then strolled around towards the bush where he marked territory, accompanied by a cacophony of grey langur monkey alarm calls. We moved in closer to find him lying on a patch of leaf litter at the edge of the bush and was able to click a few more close ups. Eventually, having had enough of our prying eyes, he got up and strolled up the steep sandy bank of the villu to lie down behind a patch of thorn scrub barely visible even through the binoculars.
A leopard sighting in the jungles of Sri Lanka is always an exciting event. While Yala NP is more famous and has more leopard sightings, of recent there have also been many problems at Yala with overcrowding and too many safari jeeps jostling for limited space resulting is a very poor quality visitor experience, also very disturbing to the wildlife. Yala is badly in need of better regulation. Wilpattu NP, located on the North Western side of Sri Lanka is a much larger park. In the older days it was considered the foremost park for leopard. Wilpattu was closed for a long period during the war and ran to ruin with neglect, poaching, and a haven for criminals and other illegal activities. Reopening after the war ended in 2009 the park has slowly recovered. The leopards in Wilpattu have been quite shy with much lesser sightings but on occasion the quality of the sightings and the visitor experience has been much better and also offers the serious photographer much better photo opportunities.
All C&C Welcomed.
Grey Headed Fish Eagle
The Prince in the Audience Chamber
Handsome Dude in Morning Light
Lazy Yawn
In Wilpattu Jungles
Slinking Away
|
