As the Covid-19 lockdown continues, I've found myself using the macro lens on a regular basis. The kids were playing in the garden last afternoon and called me when they came across this tiny Lynx Spider. I managed to get my gear ready and photograph it for about 30 minutes. I was able to get a number of shots that I'm quite happy with. It was a decent way of keeping myself occupied for a while.

I found this Jumping Spider in the garden this morning. I'd been keeping an eye out for one of them to photograph and ran for the macro lens as soon as I saw it. I was able to fire off a few frames before it decided to hop away and disappear into the foliage. Overall I'm happy with this image but would have liked to have had a bit more time to photograph it.

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 ...

The Vatadage at Polonnaruwa is said to date back to the rule of King Parakramabahu in the 12th Century. It is one of 10 Vatadages that can be found in the country. This photograph was taken on an overcast morning and shows one of 4 entrances to the inner section of the building.

I thought I'd get to the temple early in the morning and photograph it's exterior before pilgrims and tourists started arriving. I was surprised when I had issues finding parking after a 5.00am start! It was impossible to compose a shot of the building without including people so I had no choice but to come up with a composition that included pilgrims.

The Chestnut-eared Aracari was the first bird I photographed in the Pantanal. We had just got to the place we were staying at and I saw it perched on a small tree in the garden. I grabbed the camera and took a few photographs of it before it moved on. It was a great start to what turned out to be a memorable few days.

I found this Green Tree Ant on an indoor plant at home. This resulted in the macro lens, a flash and a small diffuser being pulled out and the poor ant being photographed for about half an hour. I'd never refuse a bit of entertainment during the lockdown!

Red-vented Bulbuls (Pycnonotus cafer) are quite common in Colombo and they are often seen feeding on fruit trees in people's gardens. I was setting up a hide to photograph a Brown-headed Barbet when one of them perched on a branch close to me. It was feeding on some fruit which I thought was a bit too big for it to ...

The moonstone at the Lahugala temple is unique as it is the only moonstone in the country that has a human figure included in the carving. The human figures can be seen on the backs of 4 of the elephants. The people of this area were supposed to have been known to tame elephants and it is said to be ...

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.

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.

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 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?

Ambalama's are old buildings that were setup as wayside rests to be used by travels and can be found throughout the country. The ambalama in Godamunne is said to have been built using pillars from the Hanguranketha Palace which was destroyed by the Dutch in the 17th century. The pillars themselves have ornate carvings on them but they have been damaged over time.

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 Brown-breasted Flycatcher is another migrant that visits our garden in Colombo. It was perched on a dead branch quite close to the ground and I was able to shoot it eye level. Due to the fact that I was quite close to it, the out of focus background turned out pretty well.

I came across another Jumping Spider at home yesterday. Ended up photographing him for about 20 minutes and got some decent shots. There are more of them on my instagram profile. The setup was similar to last time with a flash in a small softbox positioned to the left of the camera. The lens was a 100mm macro.

I had been trying to get a decent photograph of the Pied Kingfisher for some time but hadn't had much luck. I'd seen several of them on the east coast as well as around Thalangama but they were never close enough to photograph or they were on an unnatural perch. My luck changed when I visited the biodiversity park in ...

The Pale-billed Flowerpecker (Dicaeum erythrorhynchos ceylonense) is the smallest bird in Sri Lanka. It is a common resident found throughout the island. This bird was photographed in Thalawathugoda while it fed on a bowitiya plant.

The reclining buddha statue at the Ras Vehera complex in Anuradhapura. This was another ancient temple that we were fortunate to be able to explore on our own. It was about an hours drive from Anuradhapura and we found our way there thanks to GPS coordinates that I found in a book. It was well worth the drive!