Blue-Bearded Bee-Eater
Sri Lankan Kingfisher
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Udawalawe National Park was created to provide a sanctuary for wild animals displaced by the construction of the Udawalawe Reservoir on the Walawe River, as well as to protect the catchment of the reservoir. The reserve covers 30,821 hectares (119.00 sq mi) of land area and was established on June 30, 1972. Before the designation of the national park, the area was used for farming. The farmers were gradually removed once the national park was declared. |
Blue-Bearded Bee-Eater |
The reason to include this destination in your Sri Lanka adventure is the safari drives within the park. Our guest house arranged a half-day safari Jeep Tours in his Mahindra jeep. And, the safari guide who worked for the guest house had 16 years experience and provided a top notch safari experience — eg) we rarely saw other groups. The park has large herd of Sri Lankan elephants (estimate: 250) that are very visible to park visitors — elephants are relatively hard to see in other parts of Sri Lanka (we only saw one with a mahoot being washed in a stream near Sigiriya). Also inhabiting the park are Sri Lankan sambar deer, Sri Lankan axis deer, Indian muntjac, Sri Lankan spotted chevrotain, wild boar, water buffalo, Golden jackal, Asian palm civet, toque macaque, tufted grey langur and Indian hare. |
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Sri Lankan Kingfisher |
We did not see any rusty-spotted cats, fishing cats, crocodiles or Sri Lankan leopards. In addition to dozens of elephants, we spotted many water buffalo, Asian water monitors, Bengal monitors, macaques, sambar deer, peacocks and many other varieties of birds. The park has a huge variety of birds including painted storks, spurfowl, red-faced malkoha, Sri Lanka grey hornbill, brown-capped babbler, and Sri Lanka junglefowl. White wagtail and black-capped kingfisher, cormorants, spot-billed pelican, Asian openbill, black-headed ibis and Eurasian spoonbill sea eagle, crested serpent-eagle, grey-headed fish eagle, booted eagle, hawk-eagle, Indian roller, Indian peafowl, Malabar pied hornbill and pied cuckoo. |
The park’s most famous resident
We startled this bull elephant and it charged us — our guide knew how to handle the situation
Water Buffalo are constantly accompanied by at least one cattle egret which cleans its ears of insects (the beast barely notices the bird which constantly worries about being trampled)
Water Buffalo doing what Water Buffalo love to do
Water Buffalo cooling off
Monitor waiting for a meal at the entrance of a termite mound (Good News: these Monitors are completely harmless to humans)
Other Safari Tourists
