Sri Lanka’s Yala ideal for leopard spotting
"My four days in Sri Lanka's premier national park produce five excellent sightings – a success rate that competes with anywhere in Africa!"
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Showing posts with label Leopard. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Leopard. Show all posts
A leopard in front of me a tusker behind me!
CJ over at The Oxymoron Chronicles has written an interesting blog post about his visit to Yala. Read it here, below I have attached an image an a quote from him.
No this is not like being caught between a rock and a hard place or being between the devil and the deep blue sea. But a wonderful heavenly moment I enjoyed when I was in Yala over the weekend. This time we were stayin out side the park in the wild life and nature protection society bungalow. It is situated in a faraway corner of the Palatupana salt erns. Infact you would not be wrong if you woke up and thought you were inside the park. The facilities are basic but if you are used to what's available in the wild life bungalows it is more or less the same and helps you make believe that you are actually in the park.Read more...
Encounter with leopards in Sri Lanka
By Gehan de Silva Wijeyeratne, CEO of Jetwing EcoHolidays.
In July, the British High Commission relaxed the travel advisory to Yala and during the third week I was in Yala with the British High Commissioner Dr. Peter Hayes, his wife Kirsty and their children.
During the last weekend of September I returned with Tom Owen-Edmunds and Libby Southwell.
Our first half an hour into the park and the last half an hour into the park produced two amazing and memorable leopard sightings. Both were close, and provided great viewing. I suspect both were the Kohombagaswala cubs.
The first sighting was on the Uraniya Road, just before Palugaswala No. 1. We had left the Yala Village hotel and proceeded leisurely. In our first half an hour we came across a cluster of jeeps that were looking at a young male seated on a low rock. We had great views but through a thicket of Weera trees, quite atmospheric. After five minutes or so the leopard stretched and moved away.
We stopped at the tsunami memorial at Patanangala where a male House Sparrow attacked its reflection in the mirror. Tom who is a fairly keen birdwatcher ticked off the birds in a copy of John Harrrison's Field Guide to the Birds of Sri Lanka. We examined House Swifts, Crested Tree-swifts, Barn Swallows and Ceylon Swallows which hawked overhead. Near the round wala on the Meda Para we came across a female Barred Button-quail which was foraging in the dry leaf litter. Its technique was to rotate in the leaves as if was trying to make a circular depression to create nest.
We watched it for at least fifteen minutes. The role of the sexes are reversed in this bird and the female was strongly marked.
We exited the park around 12 noon and headed to the Palatupana salt pans. There was a good mix of waders including a single Ruff. Species present included Golden, Grey and Lesser Sand Plover, Common, Green, Marsh and Curlew Sandpiper, Little Stint, Redshank, Black-winged Stilt, Great Thick-knee, etc.
The evening game drive got off to a tremendous start when five jackals visited the lake near the ticket office. At Buttuwa wewa crocodiles were concentrated into a small area. We could see at least 50 crocodiles, some enormous.
Two endangered Lesser Adjutants were in the distance. Two Black-crowned Night-herons were also out in the open. This is unusual for a bird which is nocturnal.
We took the road running past Pimburagala which comes from the far side of Wal Mal Kema. This is a very graphic landscape with sheets of rock bordered by gaunt, leafless thorn scrub. The park was very dry and almost all of the water bodies were totally dry. The evening light was wonderful. At Wal Mal Kema, the effect of the evening light on the pink hued rock was breathtaking. It was quiet and we were the only jeep and we settled in to take it all in. Into this wonderful light walked a peacock, which shimmered and dazzled in the warm but soft light. More..
[Video] The spectacular Yala National Park in Sri Lanka
YALA NATIONAL PARK, one of Sri Lanka 's premier eco tourism destinations, lies 24km northeast of Tissamaharama and 290km from Colombo on the southeast coast of Sri Lanka, spanning a vast 97,878 hectares over the Southern and Uva Provinces.
The vegetation in the park comprises predominantly of semi-arid thorny scrub, interspersed with pockets of fairly dense secondary forest. Small patches of mangrove vegetation also occur along the coastal lagoons. The park is renowned for the variety of its Wildlife (most notably its many elephants) and its fine coastline (with associated coral reefs). It also boasts a large number of important cultural ruins, bearing testimony to earlier civilizations and indicating that much of the area used to be populated and well developed.
Yala in Sri Lanka contains one of the world’s largest concentrations of leopards
Leopards are spotted regularly at Yala, resting on rocks situated on higher ground. Photo tharendra/license.
According to a PBS documentary called Leopards of Yala, the Yala national Park in Sri Lanka has one of the world’s largest concentrations of leopards in the world.
For more than a century, Yala National Park in Sri Lanka has been one of Asia’s most celebrated wildlife preserves, a lush windswept tropical forest rich in rare aquatic birds and abundant with ferocious predators, such as crocodiles and sloth bears. But only in very recent years has Yala’s big cat distinction been brought to light: It contains one of the world’s largest concentrations of leopards. NATURE takes viewers deep into the jungle habitat of these elusive animals, in Leopards of Yala.
Over a period of six years, Jehan Kumara, a businessman from Sri Lanka’s capital city of Colombo, and Dr. Ravi Samarasinha, a physician from the local countryside, devoted their spare time to tracking leopards in Yala. In the course of their work, they are joined by Scottish cameraman Gordon Buchanan, attracted to Yala by the lure of finding the only big cat he had never captured on film.
[Video] Leopard sightings at Yala National Park, Sri Lanka Read more...
[Video] Leopard vs Sloth Bear at Yala National Park, Sri Lanka
Gordon Buchanan puts his life in grave danger to capture some remarkable footage at the Yala National Park in Sri Lanka.
Photos of Yala Wildlife, Sri Lanka
David Behrens visited the Yala National Parkin 2002. Click the thumbnails below to view David's images at the original gallery on Pbase.
On a recent trip to Sri Lanka I had the opportunity for a one day visit Yala National Park (also known as Ruhunu National Park). All I can say is WOW! This is like a miniature African safari! The pictures shown are the results of only one day in the park.
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