Wirawila Bird sanctuary

At last it was a trip to the dry zone. We left Maharagama on Friday at around 5p.m.and had dinner at Rathnapura, when we reached our rest place at Wirawila it was 11.30 p.m. Saturday early morning after enjoying the scenic Wirawila lake behind our rest place we left to Bundala!

Bundala National Park is an internationally important wintering ground for migratory water birds in Sri Lanka. Bundala harbors 197 species of Birds, the highlight being the Greater Flamingo(WHICH IS NOT SEEN RECENTLY), which migrate in large flocks. Bundala was designated a wildlife sanctuary in 1969 and redesignated to a national park on 4 January 1993. In 1991 Bundala became the first wetland to be declared as a Ramsar site in Sri Lanka. In 2005 the national park was designated as a biosphere reserve by UNESCO, the fourth biosphere reserve in Sri Lanka.The national park is situated 245 km southeast of Colombo.

1.6km to Bundala

From the entrance it was all about wild life, majority of our group members were bird lovers (addicts) and I was the rookie. Here are some photos taken at Bundala.

Little Green Bee Eater	Rosy Starling
Indian darter	Painted Stroke
Asian Openbill	Red-wattled Lapwing
Barn Swallow	Black winged Stilt
Take off .......	Whiskered tern

Egret	Hawk Eagle
Crocodile	Grey Langur
Bubalus bubalis - Wild Water Buffalo	Grey Langur in thirst!
Coelognathus Helena or Trinket snake - Kata Kaluwa	Try and name them :-)
Black headed ibis	Spotted Deer
Brown Speckled Whipsnake	The crew

Pelicans

shooting the eagle!

The Crested Serpent Eagle (Spilornis cheela)

The Crested Serpent Eagle (Spilornis cheela)

After some bird watching at the salt lagoons we came to the Bundala beach which was simply fantastic & we had our prepared lunch here. But unfortunately we ran short of water so had to exit the park bit early.

Bundala beach and Lagoon

Bundala beach was simply fantastic

We came back to the ticket counter and went through the specimens at the museum & had a rest at the observation centre near the ticket counter. I personally think that if they develop this place it would be a great tourist attraction! The view was marvelous from this point. After having a rest we decided to travel along the Kirinda road in search of a rare bird(not documented recently) and guess what we were so lucky to have a glimpse of that bird(Name cannot be stated). We also walked around few lakes in search of Water Birds and returned back to our rest place at Wirawila.

Resting @ the observation centre	View of Embilikala Kalapuwa from observation centre
Museum at the ticket centre	Life at Bundala
More beautiful scenary	Moments

Next day it was all about scenery so we got up early and walked about 1 km towards Wellawaya side and we came across the Wirawila Lake and the scenery was magnificent, the Kataragama Mountains were seen clearly and yes those brought about a special meaning for the Landscape mode photographs. After doing some early morning bird watching at Wirawila bird sanctuary we left to Tissa wewa and found a nice place to have a bath.

We returned back to our rest place for lunch and left Wirawila with some wonderful memories.

Life @ Wirawila

Wirawila Wewa

Choose the odd one!

Early morning reflection

Macro

Cattle Egrets attending a presidential meeting :-)

Salmon Arab

Tissamaharama Stupa

Tissa Wewa

Joy in water

The Crew

Part of Bundala that we visited

Wirawila Bird sanctuary