Leopard Spotting (Tissamaharama ~ Sri Lanka)

January 2020

There's only one reason for tourists to stop at Tissamaharama and that is to go on a safari in one of the nearby national parks.  Yala National Park was our choice as we were after leopards.

Decided to opt for a full day tour so as to better the odds of seeing a leopard. This means we were picked up from our hotel at 5:00am and driven to the park entrance to join the queue with the other early risers and hopefuls as the park opens at 6:00am.

We got very lucky as it was about 20 minutes into the park when two leopards were spotted and crossed the road about 20m in front of us.

The standard safari vehicle is basically a ute with six seats in the back at various levels and good for viewing wildlife.

Along with leopards the park is full of birdlife such as peacocks...

very colourful jungle chickens....

pelicans ....

spoonbills...

painted storks...

herons...

weaver birds

ibis's....

blacknecked storks....

parokets....

and bee-eaters....

Other wildlife included elephants (mind you the view we had was of the elephants bum as it disappeared into the bush - not the most photogenic), lots of water buffalo and some wild boar.

It was late morning when our driver heard reports of another leopard not far from us so we joined a cluster of about ten jeeps and waited for the leopard to get up from its mid mornings rest. This took about 45 minutes but eventually it sat up, yawned and strolled off I assume in search of game.

Prior to lunch more leopards were spotted lazing in a tree. The only issue was that they were on the other side of a very boggy sector of road. Getting across it relied on a ute with decent four wheeled drive and a winch. This got across halfway and winched itself the rest.  Our jeep attempted the same and after fishtailing wildly got stuck in the middle and was then winched the remainder.

Few days later and still have very sore ribs from being tossed about in the back but on the plus side managed to see more leopards.

It was late in the day and we were on our way out when the driver received a phone call and he booted it. Apparently a sloth beer had been spotted a kilometer or so up ahead. Five minutes later we spotted this little fellow wandering along the road and sniffing the tyres of the safari vehicles.

From Tissamaharama we head inland towards the cooler climes of the hill stations of Haputale and Nuwara Eliya.