Sri Lanka Day 6

Our next visit was to the Wasgamuwa National Park, which is nominally in the dry zone and we had been warned to bring scarves to protect ourselves against dust.  However the tracks were all still damp from the continuing rains.  This didn't change the fact that this park contains an immense diversity of wildlife and, unlike those with more obvious big game targets, it is far from overcrowded.

More or less immediately on entering the Reserve, we saw a huge mugger crococile slide into a small lake to a backdrop of spotted dear and cattle egrets while a couple of ducks swam around nonchalantly. It all seemed a bit incongruous.

White-fronted kingfishers

Next we were treated to a display by a group of spotted weavers servicing their inverted nests in the nearby rushes, while various other kingfishers, bee-eaters and others moved around the scene. I looked along to a wee bridge where a white-fronted kingfisher was sitting and in a few minutes there was two, then three of them and a pair of indian robins on the other side.

Crimson rose

Turning a corner where there were a couple of birds of prey, we saw a tree with three parakeets in it and were then treated to several close views of male and female crimson rose butterflies nectaring, and I think it has to be the crimson rose that qualifies as the most beautiful butterfly of the whole trip. It cheapened its value somewhat by appearing somewhat regularly from this point on, but the colouring on the male is frankly startling.

On the move again, we quickly stopped again because we sighted a wild water buffalo on our left. And he sighted us too!  He stood up and gave us a jolly good once over before moving off into the trees.

Water buffalo

In fact it is quite clear that big game of other kinds are present on the reserve.  We saw some elephant paths and one of our party identified a leopard dropping.

And so the thing went on really.  Almost at every turn there was something noteworthy or new.  There were scores of butterflies feeding on fruit and urine bait on the road, several wild peafowl, which apprently eat snakes, every kind of heron, various birds of prey and pretty little birds filtering through the tops of trees.

Ultimately it gets difficult to deal with it all systematically.  Here are a few more of the things I managed to photograph:

Angled coster	Butterflies on jackfruit
Common pierrot	Forget me not
Glassy tiger	Green bee-eater
Peascock	Plain tiger
Streaked weaver	Tawny coster

To which we need to add the various species that interested me, but didn't get captured on film: Pioneer, Dark wanderer, Ceylon lace wing, Black winged kite, shikra, grey-headed fish eagle, Asian koel, Drongo cuckoo, Sri Lanka hanging parrot, White-browed fantail, Tri-coloured munia, Paddyfield pipit.

Quite a day overall!