Wilpattu National Park – what an amazing place! The name of the Backcountry Journeys tour I am on is Kings of the Jungle: Leopards and Sloth Bears. Casey warned us not to expect to run into leopards and sloth bears right away. Sometimes they can be elusive. But what happened on the first afternoon? We saw both! Such an exciting start to this tour.

I can’t begin to post photos of all the creatures we have seen so I will post the most exciting finds.

Leopards – We have seen two leopards, a sister and brother who are still cubs, about a year old. The sister is quite bold but the brother is pretty camera shy. We will see a lot more leopards when we go to Kumana National Park.

Sloth Bear – We have only seen one sloth bear and count ourselves lucky for that sighting as they are notoriously shy. This specimen was pretty old and banged up. They have no predators – they just fight with each other. Look at the claws on this bear!

Elephants – We were told that elephant sightings would be unlikely though there are elephants in the park. But guess what? We saw two elephants – one took one look at us and went back under cover but the other stayed nearby eating. Asian elephants are smaller than African elephants; Sri Lankan elephants are the largest of the Asian variety.

Indian Peafowl – By far the most exciting bird sighting was of the Indian Peafowl and the courtship display. I took this video while watching in amazement. The female being courted didn’t want much to do with the male, however. I was surprised to hear clacking coming from the feathers and the very loud male call. This video is a bit long – just over 3 minutes but I think it’s worth watching. We watched for at least 20 minutes and the male was still in courting mode when we left.

Sri Lanka Shama – The shama is also notoriously shy and we were lucky to see one on consecutive days. It is endemic to Sri Lanka and is famous for its wonderful song. I recorded the song which you can hear below.

We have had three and a half days of safari in Wilpattu National Park. Each verhicle has a driver and a naturalist and two to three group members. Our naturalist and driver for all but one day were Dileepa and Randy. Dileepa will be submitting his PhD thesis in Herpetology (study of reptiles) in the next few weeks, so needless to say he is a pretty smart guy. I think Randy must have a career as a Formula One driver waiting for him. Not only can he manoever the truck over impassable roads and squeeze through incredibly tight spaces, he can drive like a man possessed when we have to race to get to a sighting in another part of the park.

There was an incident one day while we were waiting, hoping for a leopard sighting. About 15 jeeps had crowded into a narrow road and blocked passage of a large truck carrying road repair workers. For the longest time, no one moved to let the truck through. Then my driver for the day (not Randy that day) started motioning to other drivers to move over and let the truck through. If these workers couldn’t put in their hours for whatever reason, they would not be paid. I am so happy my driver took the lead. Once the big truck had passed, the jeeps got back into their crowded positions to await a hoped-for peek at a leopard.

Tomorrow we head for Habarana in central Sri Lanka and a game drive in Kaudulla National Park, known for its elephant population. We remain in Harbarana for only one night before heading for the south east coast and Kumana National Park.

My unduplicated photographed species count for Wilpattu National Park:

• 42 birds
• 12 animals
• 7 reptiles
• 1 butterfly

I hope you’ll continue to travel along with me. I love reading your comments. Please sign them so I know who you are. Thanks. හබරණින් ඉක්මනින් හමුවෙමු. (See you soon from Habarana.)