35 years ago every Friday after the last lecture at uni; I walked up to the Katubedda junction in Galle road Moratuwa; hang around for 20 minutes the most to take a bus home to Galle; 116 km away, in 2 hours and 30 minutes. That was an average speed of 50 kmph. This then ...
April is the holiday month in Sri Lanka; the Sinhala/Tamil New year. It’s more like the Chinese New Year in East Asia, everything comes to a standstill. My work-site in Ratnapura closed for the New Year on April 10, 2011; we agreed to come back by the Monday April 18, 2011. My staff was back as agreed; but for the ...
Uditha Wijesena recalls the ancient form of carting The dry eastern mountain slopes of the Badulla district still have some remote areas that need the service of pack bulls. Though carting has all but vanished in most parts of the country, these villages still hold clans of traditional upcountry carter families that practise the ancient form of carting which is ...
Reap What You Sow; The Conservator of Forest is right now harvesting acres of Pinus cultivations that have matured in the Haldummulla range of Haputale. Large extent of land is made bare after felling the trees. There definitely is a programme for replanting and I guess it would be of exotic Eucalyptus gum varieties or Pinus; as indigenous forest plants ...
My daughter telephones me on Friday, August 5, 2011 inquiring if we could go to Jaffna in the weekend. Her cousin Prabudha a small time tour operator is sending a bus to Jaffna for the use of a party of tourist who are flying in to Jaffna. We only have to go in the bus and come back by SLAF ...
Hemamala, Uditha, Naveen & BhagyaThe Everglades located in the state of Florida USA is said to be the largest mangrove ecosystem found in the western hemisphere. Therefore a major land mass of the State of Florida is covered by this unique marshland. This is a very slow moving water body fed by the river Kissimmee and the Lake Okeechobee. The ...
Uditha WIJESENA Common grackle Birds on Miami beach Old world and the new world are two geographical differentiations that is referred to when discussing the land mass of the earth. The term new world does not relate to the term modern world as the latter refers to ...
The Spotted Deer ( Axis axis ) is a deer species that has a historical record in Sri Lanka based on the arrival of Arahat Mahinda and his disciples and their meeting with King Devanapethiss. This meeting of the two at Ambastale brings the first ever recorded declaration of a sanctuary for animals in Mihintale. The flagship species of ...
It’s time for the call of the Koel By Uditha Wijesena Very soon it will be time for the Sinhala and Tamil New Year, a cultural event celebrated through the ages. The annual inter-monsoonal rains occurring in March / April trigger off natural instincts within the fauna to breed, for flowers to bloom and fruits to ripen. Thus the ...
Strictly for elephants: by Uditha Wijesena The slogan "Only Elephants Should Wear Ivory" was the climax in calling for a total ban in the trade of ivory and other elephant products by the elephant loving masses to the delegations at CITES [Convention of International Trade in Endangered Species] in 1989. Ivory is a ...
December - FOGSL’s bird count month: By Uditha Wijesena Archeological evidence shows that humans have been in the habit of counting for at least 50,000 years or more. This has been primarily to keep track of their livestock and economic data of farm produce, debts etc. In modern times counting ...
Naming of birds in the orient region: By Uditha Wijesena uditha_wijesena@yahoo.com Birds in the Orient were scientifically studied and classified by British ornithologists. The British Empire having ruled over most of the Orient became the authority in the Natural History of the region. Though much of the taxonomical problems encountered in the scientific naming have now been resolved by ...
Saga of the city crow By Uditha Wijesena Birds are the only animal form found in any climatic condition, anywhere in the world. They have no geographic barriers. Colombo, 50 years ago used to have large populations of crows, feral pigeons and house sparrows. The house sparrow and the pigeon population declined with the closure of the granaries in ...
by Uditha Wijesena Field guides written for birds outnumber those written for Mammals. Sri Lanka lacks a mammalian guide. The last complete work probably is W. W. A. Phillips Manual of the Mammals of Sri Lanka in three volumes. But this is not a field guide as such. Vivek Menon has done a ...
by Uditha WijesenaThe simplest definition for an ornithologist would be to say a zoologist who studies birds. The origin being from the Geek word 'orni's "bird", and the term is said to be in use in the popular English literature from sometime before 1839. The most known ornithologist closer to us was the late Dr Salim Ali, India's greatest birdman. ...
by Uditha Wijesena An iguana lies frozen, or possibly just in suspended animation, on the ground at a Florida Keys park following a cold snap. It was only the other day that I saw a news feature on the BBC World Service that USA's Sunshine State, Florida is raining of iguanas. (BBC World Service ...
Why thousands of Barn Swallows choose Ratnapura town to roost from September to April, will always be a mystery, says Uditha Wijesena “Now the island of Serendib lieth under the equinoctial line, it’s night and day both numbering twelve hours. It measureth eighty leagues long by a breadth of thirty and its width is bounded by a lofty mountain ...
by Uditha Wijesena Bats in their mythological role are famous as symbols of darkness and ghostlike mystery. In Europe and many other cultures demons are pictured with the wings of bats while fairies and angels are adorned with wings of feathers. The electricution of the flying foxes Bats are victims of many more superstitions in the west, ...