Celebrating Avurudu with Whales

Being a naturalist I have a firm believe that new opportunities will boost your knowledge and experience in this field. Having an opportunity to play the role of a naturalist for the Sri Lanka’s latest aquatic adventure tours organized by the Walkers Tours in collaboration with Ceylon fishery harbours corporation, was privileged to gain this new experience of observing the giant whales and the dolphins roaming in our tropical waters. Surely, this allowed me to read a lot about whales, their migration patterns, and surface characteristics on how to identify them and lot more.



On 11th of April another tour of whales watching with 12 guests came under my purview, which we started sailing around 07.20, am from Mirissa harhour with gloomy weather conditions. Continued roaming around Matara in search of whales till 09.30, am but no sign of a whale other than the few bottlenose dolphins we observed. Everybody seemed disappointed but I had a strong feeling that we will be successful before we end the journey. In fact Mr. Phil Sheldrake, a Project Manager from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds of United Kingdom with his two daughters seemed to be very anxious of seeing a whale. Suddenly our sailor, Thuduwage saw a blow of a blue whale and we were able observe our first blue whale with a distance of about 100 meters before it raised the fluke and take a deep dive. Quenching the thirst of seeing whales eight blue whales came in our presence allowing us to observe all the surface characteristics including few exhales, dorsal fin before raised their flukes and take a deep dive. Everybody of the boat was thrilled with this lifetime aquatic adventure experience they cumulated before we end our journey around 11.15 am to the Mirissa harbour.




The same journey but with different set of clients on 12th April almost on the same time but with better sunny weather conditions. Almost the repeated story of the previous day, roamed till 10.00 am in search of whales up to Dondra point but no sign of a whale other than a herd of bottlenose dolphins and some spinner dolphins. Repeating the previous day’s story a blue whale came in our presence but with quite a distance without leaving much space for us to observe. Without satisfying the observation of the first whale we were looking forward to see another one or two whales before we start proceeding to the destination again a blue whale came in our presence to observe all the surface characteristics with a safe distance before it raise the fluke and take the deep dive as usual. Before we end up the journey around 11.45 we spotted another blue whale and a humpback whale. To mention, the return journey to the harbour was not smooth as previous day due to the rough sea conditions. Everybody were compelled to have a nice bath with sea water because of the sea spray blowing through the boat due to heavy waves kissing in front of the boat.

Wish all my blog viewers a Very Happy & Prosperous Sinhala & Hindu New Year……!

Kosgoda Beach Resort - A Tranquil Location for a Charm Holiday

With its own beauty of the property surrounded by the picturesque Kosgoda River and the Indian Ocean, Kosgoda Beach Resort provides incomparable holiday experience boasting with 29 villas, 12 duplex villas and one suite scattered under the lush vegetation on the southern coast of Sri Lanka.



Every villa ensures its luxury provided with air conditioning, open air spacious bath room with shower Jacuzzi, Television, Safety locker, Mini bar, hair dryer, tea & coffee making facilities. Pool lounge with billiard facilities, Volleyball courts, table tennis facilities, GYM, Internet facilities are some of the main facilities that this resort offers.



Picturesque swimming pool with kiddie’s area spreads almost over one third of the property provides an invigorating swim while two restaurants offers an array of eastern and western dishes with fine dine options.

Richmond, a local fisherman from the area is now ready to take you around the Kosgoda lake by his traditional hand driven boat to explore the natural beauty of the area including some bird watching where you could observe White Bellied Fish Eagle, Brahminy Kite, Stork billed kingfisher, Common Kingfisher, Pompadour Green pigeon, green imperial pigeon, Purple heron, Little egret etc.

If you are in the mood you could try number of holistic therapies to nourish the soul by using leaves, herbs, flowers and greenery at the Spa and Ayurvedic Center.

Some of the other attractive features the resort offers are

• Bird watching with boat rides at Hiyare sanctuary
• Birding tours to Sinharaja Rain Forest


Reservations: kosgodab@sltnet.lk

Web site: www.kosgodabeachresort.lk

Telephone: 0094912264848, 0094912264849

Picturesque Kosgoda River

Bird Portraits - Little Egret

Dolphins & Whale watching

Seeing a whale of its natural territory is what an exciting moment? Joining the marine mammals watching tour Sri Lanka’s most latest marine adventure tour organized by the Walkers tours with the Ceylon Fisheries Corporation on 22 March this precious moment came alive with me after watching 03 blue whales off Mirissa Sea.




Started our journey around 7.40 am in the morning from Mirissa harbour and around 08.43 am we witnessed our first sighting of a blue whale exhaling and diving into the deep sea about 5 miles away from the shore. Taking further we were traveling through the deep sea in search of whales around 09.15 am we observed our second blue whale with the same behaving patterns. The sighting of this whale was about 10 minutes before it dives in the deep sea.



The longest sighting came alive around 10.30 am when a giant blue whale was passing us around 100 meters away from us. Everybody of the tour had a good observe more than 15 minutes before it raised the fluke and dive into the deep sea.




Then the dolphin session started when we observed few dolphins swimming ahead of our boat. Just after few minutes of traveling further the real pageant started when over 100 of dolphins were present in front of our eyes. They were surfing, swimming, throwing themselves out of the water. This show was continued until we decided to turn back.
Undoubtedly this is the most lifelong adventure experience I have ever had in my life.

Unforgettable Safari at Yala

Accepting the request at the last minute to join the camping site organized by the Eco team on 11th of February to host Mr. John and his spouse, I got the opportunity of visiting Yala National Park on the same evening which filled with full of great experience in my wildlife experience. As soon as we entered the park, the first sight was the tusker about 20 yards away from us allowing us to have a good observation on it. Our host Mr. John had five or six nice photographs of it.

While proceeding further, we spotted the most elusive leopard resting near a small pond and had a good look over 20 minutes of it. Quenching the thirst of seeing leopards another two leopards were present for us to have a good look over 15 minutes. In the mean time, we were fortunate to see another two tuskers adding the total numbers of tuskers up to three we observed during this safari. This was the first time I observed three leopards in a single visit to Yala National Park.

Mugger crocodiles, water buffalos, jackal, black naped hare, spotted deer, sambur, wild boar are some of the animals we observed during this visit and Brahminy kite, grey headed fish eagle, Malabar pied horn bills are some of the birding highlights.

Bird Portraits – Sri Lanka Blue Magpie

Jerdon's Nightjar

I observed this rare sight while I am on a safari in the Yala National Park. A rock python was hanging around this bird presumably to attack it.