Our final location on this trip was Kumana National Park on the southeast coast of Sri Lanka. We stayed at a small safari lodge – Wild Edge – which uses local ingredients in cooking, etc. It was more on the minimal side in terms of housing, but the people running it were friendly and accommodating. I was completely out of clean clothes and pretty well gave them everything I brought with me to launder. The total came to 4,000 LKR which is CAD $16.75 – a great deal!
Kumana is a smaller park with one of the highest concentration of leopards in the world. So we went with great expectations – leopards in the bush, leopards lazing on rocks, leopards in any ol’ pose. Bring ’em on!
We spent 3.5 days in Kumana and while we found fabulous birds and a couple of new-to-me animals, we did not find leopards. Other trucks claimed they had spotted them but we were not so lucky. On the final day during the final drive, lady luck did smile on me and I was able to capture a photo of a leopard in a tree. The other two trucks in our group were too late. The leopard was tired of being photographed and went elsewhere.
It was very hot in the park. I think the leopards were smarter than we were. They stayed deep in the forest in the shade while we bounced around in trucks in the sun!
As I mentioned, we saw some great birds. The black-necked stork pictured below is the tallest bird in Sri Lanka, and very rare. Here’s a slide show of some of the fabulous birds we saw. Click right to see them all.
We also saw some impressive crocodiles and animals.
We headed back to the Colombo area to prepare for our return home and am now in the wonderful Tamarind Tree Garden Resort where I started the trip.
My unduplicated photographed species count for Kumana National Park:
- 28 birds
- 15 animals
- 1 reptile
මගේ ඡායාරූප ඔබ සමඟ බෙදා ගැනීමට ඉඩ දීම ගැන ස්තූතියි. (Thank you for letting me share my photos with you.)
I’ll see you in Hong Kong!
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