Off beaten track

The phone beebed as Sumudu reached over and said he�s customary �Kiyanna!� (translated loosely as What�s up). Looking back at us with a terse �Allagane� we sped up as he drove through the dusty tracks to where a leopard had been sighted taking a snooze in a tree. A breathless ride later we came to a hurried halt in front off not a snoozing leopard, but a traffic jam in the jungle. Traffic jam (photo courtesy PP) Don�t get me wrong, I love Yala from the bottom of my heart, but sometimes the crowds can get on my nerves. The engines revving, the fumes and the loudness of the pissed off drivers all can be a bit much. I don�t really care if the leopard in question is doing a tango, dressed in a pink mini-skirt on a Palu tree, I simply have no patience for this kind of thing. Sumudu trying to get the line moving (photo courtesy PP) We stayed in line for what seemed an eternity, Sumudu trying to jostle a look see at a leopard that remained obstinately blocked by a bush in front of us. I made

As a word of explanation, I once spent two months living in a little village in Maragalakanda, close to Moneragala back in 2004. My purpose, living there without electricity or running water, was to study bird diversity in an agroforestry scheme for my MSc. This was when the photography bug first bit so there are some tales worth telling and some photos worth showing, though the latter were for the most part taken with a dinky Canon G3. For more of the Moneragala Chronicles click here . Nuwan jumped off the tree that he had just tied a yellow ribbon to, marking one of our research sites and landed lightly on the rock. He looked at his feet, looked at me initially with no indication that anything was amiss but a split second later his countenance changed. Dare I say he went a bit pale and in rapid succession he did a double take towards his feet and daintily but adroitly stepped aside. Of course not being one to be fazed by anything, especially anything reptilian in

For many moons the trackers at Yala used to urge us to keep an eye on the Palu trees, for apparently you would often see the tail of a leopard twitching in the tree tops. The higher elevations were favourite places for the elusive Panthera pardus kotiya (yes I�m showing off, I know the scientific name!) especially as the temperature in the park increased. Yet for all the supposed love for heights the leopards had, over a couple of decades of trips I never saw one in a tree. December was when I first saw a leopard in a tree, a beautiful young cub . And on my next visit to Yala in January, it seemed all the leopards had suddenly decided to go aerial as a couple of hours into our round Sugathe our jeep driver got a call about a leopard up a tree near Vepandeniya on the Uraniya Loop. Pelting hell for leather there, what we initially came face to face was a line of vehicles. Unfortunately in Yala on the weekends, this is very much to be expected, so we resignedly took our place at the back

As some of the foreign elements of the family had come down for a flying visit to the homeland we did a rather hectic jaunt to the cultural triangle including Sigiriya, Ritigalla, etc and decided to get some wildlife in by visiting Minneriya. Notably I had never been to Minneriya to see the 'gathering' so I was quite excited. We rolled into Sigiriya village, rented a jeep from the hotel and headed out to the park in the early evening. As the jeep hurtled over the potholes, my aunt got progressively mystified, as in her experience, Minneriya had been a lot closer to the hotel than it seemed now. Talking to the jeep driver, the mystery was cleared up when it turned out that despite our request, we were heading to the nearby Kaudulla park instead of Minneriya. Apparently because given the time of year (July), Kaudulla was a better place to visit to see pachyderms as the gathering still hadn't taken place in Minneriya. Jeep entering the park Rolling into the park, we all stood

I finned out to where the water depth increased to around 3 meters, still getting used to feeling of being so lightweight sans the usual scuba tank, weights and other paraphernalia. Even inhaling was vastly different, so silent through the snorkel as opposed to the usual clatter of the regulator. The early morning sun warmed my back as I floated above a prolific garden of coral. The branched corals however looked oddly bleak, deserted, as if the myriad inhabitants knew that something was afoot. After peering into the blue distance for awhile without any reward, I took a quick skin dive down and as I skimmed over the coral, it was there. One minute what was an empty blue space was suddenly occupied by the streamlined, gun-metal grey of the world�s best adapted predator. Like a wraith it had appeared out of the blue, a Black-Tip shark. Unfortunately the commotion I caused with my dive scared it off and it retreated as quickly as it had turned up. Chastened by my lesson in patience, I cam

Continued from (Part 1) (Part 2) (Part 3) Did I mention it was raining? Well it was and showed no signs of letting up. As we huddled under the tarp, making some feeble attempts at sopping up the tents, one of the more astute members of the group noted the river. Where there had previously been a somewhat small rapid shooting frothy white through the rocks, there was now what looked like the Limpopo in full blast. Brown water with vestiges of white foam shot through the rocks with frightening energy as the water swirled up the tree trunks that had previously stood high and dry. The sand bank on the opposite bank, which, with its rock face backing had seemed such an ideal camp site was now washed away. Given the impending prospect of being washed into the Senanayake Samudra, kitchen table and all, we discussed our options, namely : a)    get the hell out of there and go crash at the park office b)    batten down and stay, hope the rain stops and the river doesn�t rise any further.

Continued from (Part 1) (Part 2) I woke up bright and early to take some landscapes from our campsite. Unfortunately the sun didn't have the same idea and it was a decidedly overcast and damp day that I woke up to. While the rest of the camp slumbered I wandered down to the river, camera in hand and amused myself by stopping my aperture down as much as possible and taking some long exposures. Sleeping camp; Gal Oya river at dawn Once enough people had woken up to provide some sort of rescue service in case of wild animal attack I wandered out of camp for some ablutions and then met up with everyone else for a morning river bath. Dry zone notwithstanding the Gal Oya is pretty damn cold early in the morning and rain appeared to be in the air. Following a late breakfast we powwowed as to what to do, finally deciding on a small walk to Makara , about a click from the camp site to where the river exits into the mighty Senanayake Samudra. A friend of mine (whom I have no reason to dis

Continued from (Part 1) After a handful of hours of sleep and the long, arduous drive , we celebrated by carrying a mountain of camping gear down a small path to our campsite on the banks of the Gal Oya. In the spirit of trying out this Web 2.0 business, I did a small videolog of our approach to the campsite. Note that most of the time I'm talking utter nonsense due to equal measures of exhaustion, concentrating on not trying to fall down the path and my general ability to talk nonsense. David Attenborough I most certainly am not. Also please note there might be a small amount of swearing in the clip so close your ears if you're sensitive to that kind of thing. Videos aside, we carried everything but the kitchen table (oh wait...we did carry the kitchen table down) to the site and set up. Thankfully the tents (rather brilliant knock offs of $500 REI tents) were easy to install and put up and in the space of an hour we were sorted. All there was to do was jump in the river