We travelled south from Wilpattu National Park to the Kurulu Eco Park today which took about 2.5 hours. We’re staying only one night in this area because the Eco Park is small and elephants are really the only attraction. Once one has taken 300 photos of elephants, who needs more?

After settling in at the Cinnamon Lodge Habarana which gave us a taste of Sri Lankan luxury, we headed out to the Park for our afternoon drive. We will go on a night drive after enjoying a few hours of R&R. It’s a shame we have only one night in the beautiful, luxurious Cinnamon Lodge!

There was no shortage of elephants to view – see the photo at the top of this post – and they were not the least bit worried about us, casually passing so close we could have reached out and touched them.

It was fun to watch them emerge from the bush and just as much fun to watch them pass by.

Elepants have an interesting anatomical symmety when viewed from behind.

The only other creature we spotted during this afternoon drive was an oriental garden lizard.

A few of us went on a night drive which was not particularly productive but was interesting as I had never been on one before. The guides and naturalists have multi-colour flashlights which they use in red mode to spot eyes shining back at us. When they can definitely determine there’s something to shoot, they switch to powerful white lights. We saw night jars – many of them, often sitting in the middle of the road, sometimes on tree branches. In contrast to the elephants, these birds are tiny – perhaps 3 inches head to tail. We also saw a fishing cat which looks to me to be indistinguishable from our domesticated house cats. Apparently the fishing cat does fish though I’m not sure how.

I asked above – what does one do once one has taken more than enough elephant images? One tries to be artsy! 🤪

Tomorrow we travel to south east Sri Lanka to spend our final four days in Kumana National Park. This park is known for its leopard population and many species of birds. I’m looking forward to increasing my unduplicated count of animals, birds and reptiles – and butterflies of course.

Til next time. ඔබ මා සමඟ ගමන් කරනු ඇතැයි මම බලාපොරොත්තු වෙමි. (I hope you will travel along with me.)