Barana - Kala Wewa, Sri Lanka

 

Barana was in musth when we decided to visit the Kala Wewa area a few weeks ago. We got there around midday and had to wait a few hours until he made his appearance. Fortunately there was a herd of elephants at a water and they provided us with a number of photographic opportunities while we waited. Barana's presence was given away by the odour of the secretions from his temporal ducts that carried on the wind. We watched and photographed him for a few hours as he drank his fill at the edge of the wewa and we left him feeding on the plains.

Leopards - Wilpattu, Sri Lanka

 

Wilpattu was quiet last week with all the Covid-19 scares and fortunately, we were in the park. I'd have seen about 4 different vehicles within the park on our different drives. It was avery different experience from Yala with drivers cooperating with each other and actually tracking animals instead of being on the phone. We came across this pair of mating leopards on one of our morning drives and were able to watch them for about 15 minutes before they moved deeper into the jungle. This photograph was taken during one of their interactions.