Trains and train journeys have fascinated both children and adults ever since they were invented. Likewise railway lines on which they run have posed challenges to engineers and surveyors when laying them on difficult terrain. Railways are far more different to highways; they cannot negotiate sharp bends and inclines, and the specified gradients for railway lines have not changed much ...
Field Ornithology Group of Sri Lanka [FOGSL] was the need of the time for a group of academics of the Zoology Department of the University of Colombo, to promote and to receive scientific knowledge of our avian fauna by attracting the general public of this country for its conservation.The organization was started with a few likeminded academics and professionals in ...
A Stroll Down Memory Lane S Thomas' College Gurutalawa was founded in 1942; in order to re-locate S Thomas' College Mt Lavinia, when the military issued notice to vacate the school in five days subsequent to a Japanese bomber being downed at the collage grounds on 5th April 1942. The WW II had come to Ceylon.Mr. & Mrs. Leslie de ...
Ever since the 30 year political unrest in the North of Sri Lanka came to an end in May 2009, people have been travelling to Jaffna and its islets on pilgrimage and for leisure. With the A-9 road, the primary motorway to the peninsula being rehabilitated in 2013 and the railway line re-laid in 2014 the visitors to the peninsula ...
Sri Lanka Jungle Fowl Gallus lafayetti Just into a good read “Why did the CHICKEN cross the world?” by Andrew Lawler ….it is so strange that we who are interested in birds seem to have just forgotten the most closely associated bird in our everyday life…..There are 20 Billion chickens living in our planet at any given time. The closest ...
Follow my Photo writing after the description below.........Jaffna today is one of my favourite leisure haunts and a preferred travel destination and will be always longing to be there when time permits.I have been here twice before in 2011 and 2014. Both trips have been recorded in this Blog as well. The first in 2011 was just for eight hours ...
It’s a long time since I hung my boots from government service and now serving a private sector consultancy in Architecture and Engineering. A young colleague working with me on two hospital projects in Hambantota and Nuwara Eliya is Architect Danajaya Bandara [Dana]; a product of S Thomas’ College Bandarawela and is 20 years my junior. We are of two ...
It was the beginning of the 6th decade of the 20th century. Year 1961 January to be precise, around 50 tiny brats mainly boys just completing the 5th year in life are entrusted to the care of a dedicated group of shepherds at St Thomas’ Prep School, Bandarawela [STPS] to be moulded into responsible adults in lifeBoarding schools then were ...
The conventional birdwatching is related to a science of identifying unknown birds in the field. Most books on the techniques of bird watching to beginners did convey this scientific approach to identify birds in the field. However with the advancement of the digital camera the theme for identifying new or unknown birds in the field is no longer in practice. ...
Bridges generally span waterways providing pass-over links to roadways. But this particular bridge in Fort Kearney in Nebraska built over the river Platte River is to nowhere, but to watch cranes. The Sandhill Crane stopover here on its back migration from Mexico and Texas to Canada and Alaska. Central American FlywayThe arrival of the Sandhill cranes and millions of other ...
Dambulla a town situated in the border of the Central and North Central Provinces of Sri Lanka has been in the limelight from ancient times. Today it is a bustling commercial hub ‘The Awakened City’ attributed for its banks being kept open 24/7 for business. The transit point for all agricultural and farm produce coming from the central hills ...
This is Alagan Subramaniam [Subra]; descendents of South Indians brought to work in the Tea Gardens by the Colonial British. He is from the seventh generation and is now a Sri Lankan. Subra lives in a state owned estate in Walahanduwa Galle, where his parents, grandparents his siblings all worked, tending the tea and rubber ...
I was invited to contribute to the commemorative souvenior of S Thomas' College Gurutalawa on its completion of 75 as a special academic institution in this country.Much of the material here is gleaned from the book published on the First Fifty Years in 1992 and as recorded by Mr. O. E. J. de Soyza. The writer has documented much of ...
If there is anything that I like of the American,,,,, it is their liking for outdoors. This said…… it’s not that the Europeans and the British do not like outdoors, but the American is more adventurous. They hike and camp in the rough rugged terrain of America in groups or as loners frequently and document their personnel experiences.Camping in the ...
It was my third trip to Miami Florida. A trip undertaken with much financial constrains; to witness my son being conferred a Ph.D. I had been to Miami twice before and seen much of its wildlife, camped many a times in the Everglades and been out birding in the parks. However it was this time that I had been there ...
Wilson , Amudesh and my wife Hemamala have been long time friends and are likeminded when it comes to nature and the wilds. We are a set of ardent birders while Hemamala has a passion for butterflies as well. Both these pastimes being activities on land we wanted to try out the latest naturalistic hobby of ‘Whale-watching’ that is being ...
Those of us who went to school before 1972 would recall when many specimen applications for government employment [self made Bio-Data’s was not the order then] had a question asking if you belonged in the “Up-Country or Low-Country”.This confused me ever since a schoolboy; I was born in Kandy in the so called Up-Country and my father too was born ...
Of all Sri Lanka's development projects considered…. it was the Upper Kotmale Hydro Power Project (UKHP) in Talawakele that had to face so much dissidence. The project had to be shelved at least on three occasions due to relocation factors, environmental factors and political factors.However the euphoria that was to stay with the ending of the 30 year conflict in ...
Horton Plains and its immediate of Ohiya and Idalgashinna has fascinated me ever since my schooldays at Gurutalawa; located at a distance of about 5 to 8 miles from these localities. None of these places were inhabited then in the 60’s as today. S Thomas’ College Gurutalawa was the only outbound boarding school in the country and these serene hillsides ...
