Common Kingfisher photographed at Thalangama this morning. The bird was far away and I had to crop the image a fair bit. It was pretty quiet from a birding perspective but Cinnamon bitterns have made an appearance.
The barbets are regular visitors to our garden, specially when there is fruit on the trees. I photographed this guy from about 10 feet away. I was on a balcony and was glad that I had a clear line of sight to it and sufficient space between the bird and the background to get a nice blur.
Covid lockdowns have resulted in the macro lens being brought out more often than usual. This shot of a jumping spider was taken at home when I found it perched on a branch at eye level. Lighting was form high camera right using a speed light defused with a small soft box.
We watched these elephants having a bath and rolling around at the waterhole for a few hours and they provided us with plenty of photographic opportunities. The herd was not bothered by our presence as they didn't seem to change their behaviour which included lying down in the waterhole. There were more elephants in the herd but they are out ...
Barana was in musth when we decided to visit the Kala Wewa area a few weeks ago. We got there around midday and had to wait a few hours until he made his appearance. Fortunately there was a herd of elephants at a water and they provided us with a number of photographic opportunities while we waited. Barana's presence ...
Seeing Sloth Bears in Sri Lanka is relatively rare. I hadn't had a clear sighting for ages but that changed on my last trip to Wilpattu. We came across this bear while we were on a quiet morning drive. Fortunately there were only a handful of vehicles in the park and we were able to observe the bear without ...
Wilpattu was quiet last week with all the Covid-19 scares and fortunately, we were in the park. I'd have seen about 4 different vehicles within the park on our different drives. It was avery different experience from Yala with drivers cooperating with each other and actually tracking animals instead of being on the phone. We came across this pair ...
I came across this little stupa at the end of a corridor near the entrance to one of the caves. I thought the row of windows made the composition a bit more interesting. Thoughts?
Dambulla on a quiet day is great experience. These statues were in the second cave (from memory) and I was fortunate to be able to take my time photographing them as there weren't too many other people around. A tripod is essential and flash photography is not allowed. The main statues are lit but the paintings on the walls are in relative darkness.
The cave temples in Dambulla are on almost every tourist route within Sri Lanka and they deserve to be. The artwork and statues are stunning and are a welcome reward after the climb up to the caves. I visited the temple early one morning with the aim of photographing it without other visitors walking across my frame. I got ...
While driving through Lahugala, we came across this stunning tree in the middle of a dried up lake bed. Fired off a few frames with a telephoto lens and decided to process it as a black and white image as I felt the contrast between the tree and the clouds and surroundings made the image "work".
We stopped at Buduruwagala on our way to Arugam Bay a few weeks ago. I hadn't been there in a number of years and was a bit disappointed to see that the area had changed. I guess it was inevitable given the increasing number of visitors to the area. The statues though are still stunning and well worth a visit.
We spent the weekend down the coast in Galle and were fortunate to witness an amazing sunset. There aren't too many people visiting the area due to covid and the season for the south coat doesn't get underway for a month or so more. God knows when more people will head down south so may as well enjoy it while it's quiet.
We were fortunate to come across this leopard during an early morning round in Kumana a few days ago. It was nice to be in a park where you didn't have to deal with over crowding and noise at a sighting. We had this more or less to ourselves with a couple of other jeeps turning up as the leopard finished drinking and walked into the bush.
The Brown Fishing Owl is one of the larger species of owl found in Sri Lanka. We found this owl perched on a branch by the side of the road in the Kumana national park. We had clear views of the Owl for about ten minutes before it flew off. I have seen this owl on a number of occasions but they have been perched on branches higher up in trees. This sighting was different as it was at eye level.
On a recent trip to Kalthota we stayed at a place in the middle of the jungle with relatively little light pollution. An early evening shower ensured clear skies and resulted in this photograph. I wish I had a wider lens with me though. This was shot at 24mm.
We were out glamping over the weekend and decided to visit Duvili Ella on the way back home. A 2 hour stop and a 400 step descent were not what my travel companions had in mind when we stopped but the sight of this waterfall was definitely worth it. We were fortunate to have the place to ourselves and I spent a bit of time photographing it from different vantage points.
The Black Eagle (Ictinaetus malaiensis) is seen regularly around the Galaha area near Kandy, Sri Lanka. I've been trying to photograph it while perched for about 20 years but have had no luck so far. This weekend was no exception. We saw the birds at quite a close range but unfortunately they didn't perch on any of the trees in ...
I came across this house fly in the garden over the weekend. It was relatively easy to photograph as it stayed still on the leaf while I lit it from different angles and fired off a number of frames. The hardest part of this shoot was waiting for the breeze to die down and the leaf to be still. Got there in the end.
I came across this little snail in the courtyard at home. Fortunately they are a lot easier to photograph than jumping spiders! I fired off a few frames and then took him out to the garden. I'm not sure what species of snail this is but it might belong to the macrochlamys family. If you know what species this is, please let me know via the comments?
