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(I have had difficulties connecting to the internet this last few days, sorry for he lack of posts). Thursday saw us going up the coast to Kalpitya, to look for Dolphins which are close to the Continental shelf at this point and the sea is rich in life and supports vast pods of Dolphins. We were told that a sighting is absolutely 100% guaranteed, well it isn't because we had to stay an extra night in the beach side camp ….. they called it a hotel but its basically 7 little sheds on the sand with facilities. It was fun but basic, some would say exotic and romantic but a sheds a shed. I suppose location is everything but you can't call a wooden hut anything else than shed can you. Having failed on the Thursday we negotiated another trip with the manager to go out next day at a reduced price where we were assured that "it's 100% guaranteed my friend", funny didn't you say that yesterday. 4 hours on the Thursday was followed by 2 on the Friday and eventually there they were. The magnificent sight of perhaps 500 Dolphins. They were in the vicinity of a few  small boats, way out at sea.  They were fishing for Tuna and other ocean going pelagics with hand lines. I assumed that the fisherman and the dolphins were there because of the abundance of bait fish and the dolphins were certainly following the small boats…… and us once wehad  joined the mini-fleet.

 What a sight, the water was boiling with them in all directions and it was certainly a great spectacle that I will remember for the rest of my life. Photography was nigh on impossible so to finish up with a dozen or so shots was nothing short of divine intervention!  A picture paints a thousand words?  No it doesn't because it doesn't show the extreme amount of effort that we endured  to get to see this pod. It doesn't show how rough the sea was and it doesn't show how wet we got, nor how shaken, rattled and rolled we were!   But, unequivocally it was worth every bone crunching bounce of the boat, every thorough salty spumed soaking, and every pound extracted from our wallets by the local Sri Lankans who are masters in the art of stripping the rupees from every travellers wallet, by subterfuge, argument, bribe or simple begging!!!!  The money for this expensive outing was my Christmas present from my lovelly wife Jenny, so thanks Jen my best Christmas present ever!  What kind of wife allows you to go away to Sri Lanka to photograph wildlife and gives you money towards it?

 

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Spinner Dolphins are smaller than Bottle Nose, they seemed to be the size of the Common Dolphins that I have seen before in the Bay of Biscay. It was really good to see that there were lots of young calves that left the water to jump along side their parents. A wonderful treasured sighting.

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We arrived back on the shore after a great 3 hours, I tried to persuade the boat to stay longer ever hopeful of better shots……I always am. It seemed odd to spend 6 hours looking for them and when we had found them, leave after 20 minutes, why couldn't we stay for 3 hours? But others wanted to return including the boatman so thats what we did. At the point I ought to mention the young lad acting as a guide, (the owners son),  he was a gobby little (privileged) boy who almost spoiled the trip. He would have made good shark bait!  Our trip back to Waikkal was great. We travelled all the way by Tuktuk stopping regularly to photograph birds of interest. There simply isn't time to post today but we saw, and all very close. Stork Billed Kingfisher, Pheasant-tailed Jacana, Open-billed Stork, Ibis, Purple Heron, and two lifers for me (with photographs), Green Bee-eater and White-rumped Munia. All in all a fabulous and rich 2 days. Here's a record of he Green Bee-eater.

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