House Crow (Corvus splendens)

immature Grey-headed Fish Eagle (Haliaeetus ichthyaetus)

Brown Fish Owl (Ketupa zeylonensis)

Sigiriya (Lion Rock) PHOTO: Mike Birkhead

Sigiriya PHOTO: Mike Birkhead

Sigiriya PHOTO: Mike Birkhead

White-bellied Sea Eagles (Haliaeetus leucogaster) PHOTO: Mike Birkhead

We saw several solitary male elephants foraging on aquatc vegetation. The females and young were elsewhere and invisible in the park.

Green Bee-eater (Merops orientalis)

Leopard. Wilpattu National Park is renowned for its leopards. This one was a large male that we saw lounging about on a sand bank beside one of the many lakes. After a while he walked along the edge of the lake and our tracker guessed (correctly) that he would cross a track. We drove a high speed, reaching the track just as he emerged from the forest and disappeared. We could hear the langurs and macaques barking in alarm as he walked away from us.

House crows: There are no vultures in Sri Lanka, as there once were in India, and the crows must fill the vulture niche. They are numerous, quick-witted and as our guide told us, tolerated and even welcomed because by eating all the garbage (of which there was an abunance) they kept the place clean(-ish)