Udawalawe National Park

Udawalawe National Park was created as a sanctuary for wild animals displaced by the construction of the Udawalawe Reservoir. The reserve covers 119 square miles. It was established on the 30th of June 1972.  Udawalawe lies on the boundary of Sri Lanka's wet and dry zones. Its habitat includes river, marshes, forest and grassland. 

Species recorded include 94 plants, 21 fish, 12 amphibians, 33 reptiles, 184 birds (33 migratory), 135 types of butterfly and 43 mammals. Udawalawe is mostly famous for being one of the best places in the world to see Asian Elephants!

Encroachment by human settlements, poaching, logging, gem mining, overgrazing and chena farming are all major threats to the area. There are also some invasive weeds affecting the food plants of the elephants.

Lahiru was brilliant. He has been a guide for 11 years and knew all the best parts of the reserve, where we were undisturbed by other tourists and we saw loads of different animals and birds. 

Asian Elephants

Some interesting facts about Asian Elephants:

* There are only 20,000 to 40,000 Asian elephants still alive at the moment. Numbers have gone down by 50 % over the last 75 years mostly due to illegal poaching.

* Poachers have killed elephants for their ivory tusks for centuries now.

* Across the world, ivory is viewed as a status symbol. Historically, it was used to produce ornaments, figurines, and small carvings, as well as items like jewellery, piano keys, and chess sets. Traditional medicine also views ivory as a healing element, using ivory powder to create medicine for a variety of illnesses.

* More than two-thirds of an Asian elephant’s day is spent eating. 

* Asian elephants have a diet of leaves, tree bark, grass, roots, leaves, small stems, bananas, rice and sugarcane.

* If there is a herd of elephants then you know that there are four generations in that herd. The adults in the herd are all female.

* Male elephants live on their own. They only mix with a female in order to mate. They do not stay with the female or look after their children.

* When a female elephant is pregnant, it takes 22 months gestation.

Click https://www.worldwildlife.org/species/asian-elephant for more information

Spotted Deer

It was hard to photograph the spotted deer as we'd see them gallop off as soon as they heard the jeep approaching, but Lahiru managed to find an area where the deer were a bit less scared. Absolutely gorgeous deer. Exactly like Bambi!

Birds

Lahiru pointed out several birds to us, but many of them flew away before we could photograph them. Egrets, Brahimini kite (King of the Raptor), the beatuiful blue tail bee eater (Indian bird which only comes to Sri Lanka for 2 months of the year), grey headed fish eagle, pelican, hornbill, peahens and peacocks, little green bee eater, black headed oriel, crested hawk eagle, huku, stork, and jungle fowl (national bird of Sri Lanka)

Freshwater Crocodiles

We saw some great crocodiles, sunbathing and swimming in the lake :)

Other Animals

We saw several other animals and birds which we didn't get photos of, such as....

And THEN the MOST EXCITING THING that happened was that right near the end of the tour there was a LEOPARD just lying in the road. Daddy and Lahiru saw it but the rest of us sadly missed it. And the leopard casually moved off when it heard the jeep. We had no idea how rare it was to see a leopard at Udawalawe until Lahiru told us he hadn't seen one here for 6 years!