A day in Wilpattu National Park

Namal had proposed that as there were no new guests arriving before the evening we could do an all day safari instead of separate morning and afternoon ones, and we, along with Wendy and Mike, had agreed. That meant a slightly later start but we were still up at 6.00 for 6.30 coffee and a 7.00 departure.

We then spent all day in the park! The morning was great. We saw lots of birds, some new to us and others clearer sightings than previously.

Our morning sightings included:

Two Crested Serpent Eagles
Asian Wild Water Buffalo
Land Monitor Lizard
Peacock
Crested Hawk Eagle
Baby Crocodile
White Throated Kingfisher
Little Green Bee Eater
Yellow-wattled Lapwing
Painted Stork
Blue-tailed Bee Eater
Peacock
Stork-billed Kingfisher
Open-billed Stork

We enjoyed breakfast in a scenic spot and later stopped at the one place where it is safe to get out of the vehicle to use the loos. The parking area was full of Torque Macaques (endemic to Sri Lanka) trying to raid the jeeps for food and keeping everyone amused with their antics. Namal told us a bag had been taken from one vehicle and it and its contents, including passports, ripped apart! He stayed by ours the whole time, keeping guard.

During the second half of the morning we saw lots more birds:

Another Painted Stork
Eurasian Thick-knees
Black-winged Stilt
Whiskered Tern
Common Greenshank (more grey than green!)
Wood Sandpiper
Mongolian Plover (aka Lesser Sand Plover)
Chestnut Headed Bee Eater
Another Crested Serpent Eagle, which posed beautifully right by the track for ages
Lesser Whistling Teal
But of leopards were there none!

Later we stopped by one of the lakes to eat a packed lunch of rice with chicken and egg, and yoghurts. Soon after this, on one of the quieter roads in the park, we saw someone on foot and stopped to investigate. It turned out to be a guide from another vehicle seeking help after getting stuck in the mud on a side track he should never have attempted, according to Namal. We went to see if we could help but although our driver Sam had a chain his jeep wasn't powerful enough to budge the other one. Instead ours got stuck but only a little, and the Dutch youngsters from the stranded jeep soon pushed us clear. Meanwhile another jeep had arrived and that one was able to pull the jeep free.

That was almost the last excitement of the day. With rain during the afternoon and fewer sightings the time started to drag, and I think we were all quite pleased to leave at the end of the afternoon. Indeed when we got back to camp Wendy and Mike asked to do separate ones tomorrow, and we would have done the same had we not been leaving.

There were new guests in the camp, young people from China, but they kept to themselves. Namal arranged for them to have dinner first while we had our pre-dinner drinks, then the four of us ate with him. It was Western style again, mushroom soup and chicken. We sat chatting for a while afterwards and Wendy and I connected on Facebook, then we said our goodbyes to them and Namal as they would have left on their safari drive before we got up.