Dermot Breen's Blog: April 2017

Saturday, 29 April 2017

Sri Lanka Non-Passerines 25.2.2017

A few of the non-passerines seen in Yala National Park on 25th February. We were lucky to catch up with a single Black-necked Stork on a distant pond while dipping on a Leopard in the morning. This is a very rare species now in Sri Lanka and Yala is the main site for them. A nice selection of waders and other storks also seen during the day including the impressive Great Thick-knee.

Spoonbills

Woolly-necked Storks

Woolly-necked Stork

Black-necked Stork

Painted Stork

Lesser Adjutant

Barred Buttonquail

Crested Hawk-Eagle

White-bellied Sea Eagle

Brahimy Kite

Lesser Whistling Duck

Great Thick-knee

Pacific Golden Plover

Grey Plover

Kentish Plover

Lesser Sand-Plover

Yellow-wattled Lapwing

Little Stint

Curlew Sandpiper

Lesser Sand-Plover and Marsh Sandpiper

Marsh Sandpiper

Common Snipe

Gull-billed Tern

Thursday, 27 April 2017

Sri Lanka Mammals 25.2.2017

We spend the whole day in Yala National Park on another safari. Another photo heavy session ensued so I'm going to break this up into a three posts. Starting first with the respectful list of mammals encountered during the day. The undoubted highlight being Leopard of course. We managed to come across four individuals, all found by ourselves after "dipping on" one animal first thing. It looked like this animal had been seen by large numbers of visitors so it was nice to have several Leopards largely all to ourselves. The first animal was first spotted lying right in the middle of the dirt track when we came around a corner, couldn't get much easier than that! Later on we came across another animal on the road. Over the next hour we had three animals in this same small area. It looked like two males and one female were involved. One of the males came very close to the jeep at one stage, almost too close for my 400mm lens. The female retreated up into a tree and was closely followed by one of the males. She wasn't very impressed by his advances and aggressively admonished him with paw swipes and spine-tingling deep roars. Another amazing wildlife experience and certainly one of the highlights of the whole trip.

Yala Leopard from Dermot Breen on Vimeo.

Spotted Deer

Ruddy Mongoose

Indian Elephant

Toque Macaque

Marsh Mugger