We
got back Saturday night to find our internet service gone, and didn't
get it restored until just now (Monday AM). We left Monday morning
for Mirissa on the south coast a beautiful touristy resort city with
a lovely (but boring) beach. We stayed in a very interesting hotel
built in a series of levels up the side of a hill. It had a rooftop
swimming pool, so it was quite luxurious. I have no interest in
beaches; our real motive for going to Mirissa is that it happens to
be the place where the blue whale tours -- now famous worldwide --
originate. It was only recently discovered that large numbers of blue
whales live year round off Sri Lanka's south coast.
Tuesday
morning we climbed aboard one of more than a dozen smallish whale
tour boats (ours seated thirty people or so) and headed out into the
Indian Ocean. On the way out, we saw flying fish, very bizarre
creatures that erupt from the waves and glide rapidly along, banking
and changing direction as their long fins flutter like wings. There
were few seabirds aside from the ubiquitous whiskered terns. To
everybody's (and especially Elanor's) delight, we found ourselves in
the middle of a huge school of acrobatic spinner dolphins (as many as
200 individuals) that leaped and pirouetted in groups of five or ten
at a time. We watched them for quite a while. Much farther out to sea
(about 15 miles) we finally found blue whales -- five in all, and one
pair that we were able to approach within a hundred yards. They are
truly enormous, visibly much larger than the humpback and even the
fin whales we see so often in Newfoundland, and do quite a bit of
rolling and fluke-displaying between dives. One of them must have
been nearly 100 feet long. Standing in the presence of the largest
animal that has ever lived on this planet (or perhaps, anywhere
else!) was a nearly religious experience. On the was back to shore,
three pomarine jaegers -- very rare birds this far south -- flew past
the boat. Elanor and I spent quite a bit of time in the hotel
swimming pool, and she's now really learning to swim quite well. She
learned to do a passable crawl while we were there, as well as to
swim on her back all over the pool and to tread water. She's now
fearless in the deep end, and I've ceased to worry about her
drowning.
On
Wednesday we went over to Tissamaharama (near Kataragama in southeast
Sri Lanka), a lovely town near both Bundala and Yala national parks.
We stayed at a small hotel beside a lake full of lotuses that
absolutely brimmed over with birdlife, including such beauties as
pheasant-tailed jacanas, purple swamphens, lesser whistling-ducks,
and black bitterns. The woods and paddies around the lake were also
alive with birds. The huge pipal tree at the Buddhist shrine near the
hotel usually had green imperial pigeons roosting, and the newly-cut
rice paddies were full of little birds like ashy prinias,
scaly-breasted munias, and the dauntingly-named zitting cisticola. I
racked up quite a number of new species for my growing ebird list
just walking around the lake. Also, several mugger crocodiles lived
in the lake; one fair-sized individual often lay out in the sun on an
islet, daring the lapwings, cormorants, and other waterbirds to come
within reach. Elanor enjoyed observing the epic numbers of geckos
around the hotel and following around the large monitor lizard that
patrolled the grounds.
We headed out at 4:30 AM for Yala National Park in a safari jeep. The driver was pretty knowledgeable. We told him we didn't want to participate in the mad rush into the park when the gates opened to go to the spot where leopards were usually seen. If we saw a leopard, fine, but we wanted to go at a leisurely pace, along less-traveled roads, and see lots of birds. We arrived at the park gates while it was still dark and waited in the gloom for dawn to break. Accordingly, when the gates opened, the other jeeps tore off in the direction of the main leopard sighting area, and we took "the road less traveled" by ourselves. As a result, we didn't see any leopards, but we saw many other things, mostly without other vehicles around. The first prize of the day was a lesser adjutant, a very rare giant stork species, standing in the middle of the road. We got a good long look at him. We found large, very entertaining flocks of Malabar pied hornbills that cackled and cavorted in the trees along the road. Also present were plenty of grey langurs and tocque macaques, as well as wild water buffalo (one of the few places in the world where they can be seen), and lots of mugger crocodiles, including one that was more than 15 feet long. The landscape was surprisingly beautiful, with scrub jungle punctuated by ponds and lakes, as well as ranges of striking rocky hills and tors, one of which resembled a human profile. We stopped at every pond and tallied species, with Pam taking oodles of photos. Near the sea, we found a beautiful flock of herons, painted storks, and spoonbills probing in the mud for snails and whatever. Behind then stood two great thick-knee (the first burrhinids I've ever seen) and a host of shorebirds. While we were watching these, a grey-headed fish eagle sailed up and landed on a log; Pam got nice shots of him.
Back
inland, we found many more birds, including the crested treeswift,
the golden-fronted leafbird, and the ashy-crowned sparrow lark, among
many others. We saw several mongooses and at least three Indian
monitor lizards, hers of spotted deer, a pair of sambar, quite a few
wild boar, and finally, a number of elephants. The first one we
encountered was a large tusker walking down the middle of the road,
which we followed, along with several other jeeps. Eventually, he let
us pass -- so close that we could see his cheek glands. Elanor, of
course, was ecstatic. A little further along, we came across a female
elephant with two half-grown calves bathing in a pool. We watched
them blow water on each other for a while. We later encountered
another large tusked male. by the day's end we had tallied more than
90 bird species.
Friday
we went to Bundala National Park, known primarily for its birds. Here
we were accompanied by a park guide who knew where to find the birds.
We racked up lots more species, including a pied cuckoo and common
thick-knee. Our real hope was to find the black-necked stork, of
which only one lives in Bundala and the other ten or eleven (Sri
Lanka's entire population) in remote corners of Yala. At one point,
we came upon two huge saltwater crocodiles mating at the edge of a
lagoon; they glared at us and began swimming slowly out into the
lagoon, passing within a few feet of our vehicle. Bundala also had
enormous numbers of langurs and macaques all along the roads, and
Elanor happily kept a tally. Finally, just past noon, in a
remote salt pan full of painted storks, spoonbills, and smaller
shorebirds of many kinds, we found the black-necked stork, a very shy
bird that stayed just close enough for a good long look in the
spotting scope. As a bonus, I spotted
a small group of rare pratincoles, a sort of cross between a swallow
and a sandpiper. Once again, we ended up with nearly a hundred
species for the day.
After
we got back to Tissa, we took a took-took (!!) up to Kataragama, one
of Sri Lanka's two holiest places, revered by Hindus, Muslims, and
Buddhists alike. The sprawling complex of temples and shrines
extended over many acres. For me the most interesting thing was the
cell phone tower built of reconditioned sewer pipes, which had become
a preferred roost for the Malabar pied hornbills that frequented the
area. The place was of course full of hawkers and beggars, as well as
Hindu holy men and Buddhist monks, and monkeys were everywhere. The
temple elephant was getting its daily bath in the Menik river when we
arrived, which Elanor watched with rapt attention.
Saturday
we took the only air-conditioned bus of the day back to Colombo (a
six hour trip, including a rest stop in Matara). We got home to a
dead internet and a new water leak in the upstairs hallway, but it
was a great trip. Elanor is now a very seasoned jungle adventuress,
and can't quite decide if she likes the monkeys, elephants, or
dolphins the most. I've nicknamed her "Elanor of the elephants."
