5 March 2020
A long, hot and winding drive south today in preparation for a few days at one of Sri Lanka’s birding hotspots the wet zone forest at Kitulgala.
Kitulgala – Day 1
Kandy – Birding
4 March 2020
Birding around Kandy means the Royal Botanical Gardens and the Udawatta Kelle Sanctuary – we visited the gardens in the morning and the sanctuary in the afternoon.
Kandy
3 March 2020
En-route to the central highlands of Sri Lanka we had a quick stop-over in the former capital Kandy.
Birding Habarana
2 March 2020
After a hectic couple of weeks we decided to have a fairly lazy day with just some early morning and late afternoon birding around Habarana.
Polonnaruwa
1 March 2020
A break from the wildlife today as we decided to visit the archaeological relic city of Polonnaruwa.
Polonnaruwa was the 2nd ancient kingdom of Sri Lanka, it was established in the 10th Century when the Chola Dynasty (Tamils) from southern India invaded Anuradhapura the then capital.
Asian Elephant
29 February 2020
The target species this afternoon and surely the easiest of all the Sri Lankan Elephant, the native sub-species of the Asian Elephant.
Elephants are now found only in the dry lowland areas of Sri Lanka and inevitably this does lead to conflict with the human population not least because it has been estimated that about 65% of their range is outside protected areas.
Sigiriya
29 February 2020
A morning visit to Sigiriya, probably the most visted site in Sri Lanka.
En route to Habarana
28th February 2020
Following our 2 days in Wilpattu we had a transfer day over to our home for the next few days near Habarana. Habarana is the gateway town for the Minneriya National Park one of the best spots to see Asian Elephant on the island but more of that tomorrow.
Wilpattu National Park – Day 2 (Mammals)
27th February 2020
Large mammals are well represented in Wilpattu – we had good sightings of many species ranging from Ruddy Mongoose upto Sri Lanka’s apex predator and everyones number one target the Leopard.
Wilpattu National Park – Day 2 (Birds Part 2)
27th February 2020
More birds – Willpattu really was heaving with life on our second day in the park.
Continue reading “Wilpattu National Park – Day 2 (Birds Part 2)”
Wilpattu National Park – Day 2 (Birds Part 1)
27th February 2020
Today was a full day in the park i.e sunrise until sunset – 6.00am to 6.00pm, so an early start.
We arrived at the park entrance at about 5.45am and joined a few other “jeeps” waiting for the park to open. Had this been Yala Block 1 there would have been many dozens if not hundreds of “jeeps”, fortunately Wilpattu is somewhat off the main tourist route and therefore is much quieter than Yala and all the better for it. On reflextion we enjoyed Wilpattu far more than Yala and were really glad we included it in our itinerary, many do not.
Continue reading “Wilpattu National Park – Day 2 (Birds Part 1)”
Wilpattu National Park – Day 1
26th February 2020
Wilpattu National Park is located in the Northwest coast lowland dry zone of Sri Lanka, it is the country’s largest national park. The unique feature of this park is the existence of “Willus” (Natural lakes) – Natural, sand-rimmed water basins or depressions that fill with rainwater.
Sri Lanka
As I mentioned in a previous post I had for some time wanted to visit Sri Lanka the combination of world class birding coupled with some iconic mammals makes this small Indian Ocean island a potentially excellent destination for a wildlife photographer furthermore the presence of a number of UNESCO world heritage sites coupled with the colonial history makes Sri Lanka a good all round destination.
“Safari” Gear & Settings
Safari is a Swahili word that means journey. In the “bad old days” a Safari was all about big game hunting, fortunately to a large extent those days are past and now Safari has come to mean a vehilcle based wildlife watching/photography trip and whilst the concept of a Safari orginates in Africa, Safaris can now been indertaken in many parts of the world often in search of specfic species, for example Tiger Safaris have become huge business in India.
The Marina at Night
The Marina makes a good photographic location during the day – but makes a great location at night and probably the best location in Dubai – think lights, reflections and light trails.
Going Straight in the Marina
and for those who prefer there architecturals lines straight here are a few shots from the Marina taken with the PanaLeica 8-18mm and fairly extensive use of the transform tool in Lightroom to correct for those converging verticals – the key with this type of shot is to shoot much wider than the intended final image in the knowledge that the transform tool will straighten the verticals but will also narrow in on the image quite significantly.
Fishing in the Marina
I am always on the lookout for somewhre to use my Fishy Fun Samyang 8mm fisheye lens, its fun to use and you never quite know what your are going to get.
Fisheyes like bold structures, foreground details and blue skies so the Marina development in southern Dubai looked like an ideal location to give it a spin.
View from the Top(ish)
Well not quite the top, in fact to be honest no where near the top, but about 2/3rds of the way up the Burj Khalifa – that said plenty high enough.
Old Dubai
There is more to Dubai than just glass, steel and concrete. A glimpse of old Dubai and its people can still be seen along and around the Creek where wooden Dhows still ply their trade around the Gulf and Arabian ports. The gritty subjects make ideal candidates for some black & white photography where contrast and texture are key.
The Burj Khalifa at Night
Whilst the Burj Khalifa makes a good subject during the day, at night it comes into its own as indeed does the Olympus OM-D EM1 mkII image stabilisation – all images here are handheld.
