Alysse's Travel and Birding Adventures: April 2019

Yala National Park was such an amazing experience with so many photo opportunities that I had to split it into two blog posts! This is the second part - the second full day, and the morning safari on the the day at Yala before we left for Wilpattu National Park.

Purple Swamphen

Another super early start and entry to the park, and we were all excited to see what we could find after an incredible first day and a half in Yala. It was decided that because we had already had such good luck with the leopards and gotten some great photos already, we would spend the morning focusing more on getting some good shots of birds and other creatures in the good morning light.

So we headed into the park, and went to a wetland area of the park. We immediately started seeing new birds - Pheasant-tailed Jacana, Purple Swamphen, White-breasted Waterhen, Grey-headed Fish-eagle and more.

Pheasant-tailed Jacana

Purple Swamphen

Purple Swamphen

White-breasted Waterhen

Pale-billed Flowerpecker

Plain Prinia

Purple-rumped Sunbird

Long-billed Sunbird

Red-wattled Lapwing

Asian Openbill

Grey-headed Fish-Eagle

Little Ringed Plover

We stayed around the wetland area for a while, moving between a few different lakes. At one large and very active lake, we saw Blue-tailed Bee-eaters, Lesser Whistling-Ducks, Purple Heron, Oriental Darter, and even got a quick glimpse of a Pied Kingfisher - a stunning black and white bird, diving from a great height into the water, out again and off into the distance. We watched a Pond Heron feeding on some sort of amphibian looking creature, and watched giant dark bees hovering around the flowers.

Asian Openbill

Lesser Whistling-Ducks

Oriental Darter

Indian Pond Heron

Spot-billed Pelican

Common Tern

White-breasted Waterhen

Blue-tailed Bee-eater

We stopped for a bathroom break in the other rest area we hadn't been to yet. The one I would personally avoid in the future - because of the monkeys. Toque Macaques, an endemic species to Sri Lanka, have gotten a bit too used to tourists in this area, and will steal EVERYTHING. They are brazen thieves, and are not deterred by zipped up bags, they can easily undo them. They are not scared of humans, and will steal things right out of your hand, and they are so quick you don't even see them coming. They will swing in from nowhere, grab them, and scurry up the nearest tree.

So we arrived at this rest stop, someone said "make sure you don't leave any food lying around or the monkeys will take it!" So I zipped up my backpack, even secured it around a metal seat support in the Jeep, and went off to the loo. No more than two minutes later I came back and my travel buddies said "The monkeys got your snacks!" Sure enough, there was my backpack in the bottom of the Jeep, still secured to the seat, but zips wide open and snacks gone! A macaque sat up in a tree nearby, staring me right in the eye, eating my potato crackers. A few minutes later, a wrapper from a packet of biscuits came drifting down from the tree. Another Jeep arrived, and as a tourist was climbing down, a macaque swooped in and grabbed a bunch of bananas right out of his hand! There are signs everywhere saying not to feed the monkeys, and we really tried not to, but they just help themselves!

Toque Macaque

Banana Thief

Toque Macaque family

Toque Macaque, mum and baby

We stayed for a while taking photos - one good thing about these macaques not being afraid of us AT ALL meant that we were able to get some great close up shots! Since they had already taken all of my snacks, I wasn't worried about my bag anymore. It turns out they weren't done yet. Someone called out, "The monkeys were in the Jeep and they've grabbed a small brown bag and taken it up that tree!" It took a few minutes to work out what it was they had taken - it was my first aid kit!

We could see the culprit sitting right up the top of the tree inspecting it. Naturally, it had no trouble opening all of the zipped compartments, and began examining the contents, one by one, and discarding them once it realised they were not edible. Band-aids came raining down from the tree, a tube of saline solution, a card of Panadol tablets - chewed a bit and missing one tablet, Gastro Stop - chewed but intact, tweezers, a tube of Stingose - pierced by monkey fangs and oozing out... Eventually everything came down, including the case (needing a wash but still usable), and my friends helped me gather everything up. At least it gave everyone a good laugh, especially thinking about the monkey that wouldn't have a headache for a while!

Got it all back!

So the moral of that story is to leave everything locked in the cab of the Jeep. And to never under-estimate monkeys! After a while we headed off to keep looking for wildlife - the truly wild kind - and were treated to the first and only Eurasian Spoonbills of the trip.

Eurasian Spoonbill

Asian Openbill

Water Buffalo, living up to its name

The most common bird we saw in Yala National Park would be the Green Bee-eater, and I wasn't complaining! I adore Bee-eaters! At one point (might have been in Wilpattu, not Yala) we saw one cough up a pellet! I had no idea they even did this! Looks like they form a pellet from all of the indigestible parts of the insects they eat and cough them up later, much like an owl does! Nico, always ready, even managed to get slomo footage of the exact moment!

Green Bee-eater

Crested Hawk-Eagle

Cool Lizard hanging off a tree :-D

Long-billed Sunbird

Marsh Sandipiper

Male Indian Peafowl displaying

Jungle Prinia

Scaly-breasted Munia

Spotted Deer

Streaked Weaver

Streaked Weaver Nests

Common Iora

On our travels around the park, we came to a part of the road with a diversion, as a steep hollow had filled with water. This water buffalo was quite happy in its private spa... but upon closer inspection we saw it wasn't actually on its own...

Water Buffalo

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Frogs!!!

That was all for our second full day safari in Yala, and we returned to our beautiful accommodation at Lalan Yala Villas, had a swim in the pool, a delicious dinner, and another early night, ready for another early start!

Dinner with my travel buddies!
Angus, Me, Maggie, Barbro, Nico, Craig, and Karen (front left around to front right)

The next morning we were up and in the park early, one last time. We saw a few more birds, and were joined for breakfast by an elephant family including a young one who came quite close to us, a beautiful send off from Yala National Park.