Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Captured animals brought to the wilderness
These two animals were animals captured from individual's homes by the Department of Wildlife as it is illegal to have them in ones homes. They seem to have adjusted well. These pictures were taken in 2004 when we were camping in that viscinity, that is at Maradanmaduwa. The Sambhur actually did raise a young and although she used to come and ask the people who came there for food, she never exposed her young one. So the young one is rather wild. The deer that you see in the picture managed to join a herd of about 6 other deer. How we knew this was, because when ever our vehicle drove past it was the only one who would come and ask for food and would often come behind the vehicle. Some habits never die!!!
Monday, March 19, 2007
A Trip to Singharaja
Blue Magpie Lodge, Singharaja - 3rd to 4th March, 2007.
This was the monthly trip of the Sri Lanka Natural History Society. There were 19 of us. The organising committee had organised 2 vans for the crowd to travel in. We opted to take our own vehicle as we had several camera equipment to take with us. We left Colombo at about 3.30 a.m. on the 3rd of March having picked up our other two friends who live close to our house.
We proceeded straight to Singharaja, only stopping to get some breakfast of buns and fishbuns. We reached the Blue Magpie Lodge around 6.30 a.m. (Along the way we met one of the trackers, Thundula, who lives just next door to our lodge. We asked him whether he would be our guide for the day, but he informed us that the guides had to take it in turn). We had a cup of tea and waited a while till the mist cleared. When we set out on our journey, the day seemed like a beautiful day - the sun was shining and the birds were singing.
We went to the office where we had to purchase our tickets and we eventually ended up with tracker Thundula. We then proceeded to the gate where we headed into the forest. We were informed that a trogen was nesting and also the blue magpie. Since the camera equipment is so heavy we only trek from the entrance to the research station and back which is about 4 kms in total. Luckily the trogens nest and the blue magpie's nest were both along the way.
We saw plenty of other common birds along the way. We were cautioned as we approached the trogens nest which was just by the side of the road, in a hole, in one of the trees. We waited there for about a good one and a half hours but we were not lucky. The trogens are generally very shy birds. We then decided to go and try the blue magpie's nest. There were 2 hatch lings who seemed like they would leave the nest any minute. My husband photographed the birds while my friend and I decided to rest our legs at the research station. We then headed back to the lodge - there we were met by the rest of the crowd who seemed to be just about to set off on their journey into the forest. This was around 3.30 p.m. The weather by this time seemed rather bad. They left and it did not take 10 minutes for them to return as it was pelting with rain. The rest of the day it rained and we not able to do much.
The next day we woke up and we went into the forest again after taking care of all the preliminaries of purchasing tickets etc. Once again we tried for the Trogen but to no avail - he/she just did not oblige. We once again went to the research station and back seeing many common birds. Came back to the bungalow, had lunch and started our journey back to Colombo.
"The value of biodiversity is more than the sum of its parts."- Byran G. Norton
This was the monthly trip of the Sri Lanka Natural History Society. There were 19 of us. The organising committee had organised 2 vans for the crowd to travel in. We opted to take our own vehicle as we had several camera equipment to take with us. We left Colombo at about 3.30 a.m. on the 3rd of March having picked up our other two friends who live close to our house.
We proceeded straight to Singharaja, only stopping to get some breakfast of buns and fishbuns. We reached the Blue Magpie Lodge around 6.30 a.m. (Along the way we met one of the trackers, Thundula, who lives just next door to our lodge. We asked him whether he would be our guide for the day, but he informed us that the guides had to take it in turn). We had a cup of tea and waited a while till the mist cleared. When we set out on our journey, the day seemed like a beautiful day - the sun was shining and the birds were singing.
We went to the office where we had to purchase our tickets and we eventually ended up with tracker Thundula. We then proceeded to the gate where we headed into the forest. We were informed that a trogen was nesting and also the blue magpie. Since the camera equipment is so heavy we only trek from the entrance to the research station and back which is about 4 kms in total. Luckily the trogens nest and the blue magpie's nest were both along the way.
We saw plenty of other common birds along the way. We were cautioned as we approached the trogens nest which was just by the side of the road, in a hole, in one of the trees. We waited there for about a good one and a half hours but we were not lucky. The trogens are generally very shy birds. We then decided to go and try the blue magpie's nest. There were 2 hatch lings who seemed like they would leave the nest any minute. My husband photographed the birds while my friend and I decided to rest our legs at the research station. We then headed back to the lodge - there we were met by the rest of the crowd who seemed to be just about to set off on their journey into the forest. This was around 3.30 p.m. The weather by this time seemed rather bad. They left and it did not take 10 minutes for them to return as it was pelting with rain. The rest of the day it rained and we not able to do much.
The next day we woke up and we went into the forest again after taking care of all the preliminaries of purchasing tickets etc. Once again we tried for the Trogen but to no avail - he/she just did not oblige. We once again went to the research station and back seeing many common birds. Came back to the bungalow, had lunch and started our journey back to Colombo.
"The value of biodiversity is more than the sum of its parts."- Byran G. Norton
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