Uda Walawe never fails to deliver

Last week Srilal Miththapala described his unique experience, where a rare sighting of a black-necked stork took precedence over the elephants, which the Uda Walawe National Park is famous for. Just when he was thinking that this was the highlight of his visit, the park sprung another surprise at him 

By Srilal Miththapala

For both my friend Ashoka Ranjeewa and me, it was sheer ecstasy. We had seen what perhaps could be a very unique sighting of the rare black-necked stork at the Uda Walawe National Park (UWNP). Returning to the Thimbiriyamankada bungalow around 6 p.m. after this encounter, tired but happy, we were thankful for bungalow keeper’s steaming hot cup of tea.

Still excitedly talking about our sighting, we had a quick cool shower, and sat down for a drink. The special occasion demanded that I open the 18-year-old Chivas Regal I had brought, and with some peanuts for bites, we enjoyed the cool evening, listening to the sounds of the jungle in the darkness. Solar power is available for the small LED lights of the bungalow from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m., but I prefer to have the bungalow in darkness, because in that way you can ‘feel’ the jungle atmosphere better. The lights are switched on only for essential use.

Trading stories

So Ashoka and I spent a lovely evening trading stories in the dark, reminiscing about the good times we had when I was doing my project at UWNP over a decade ago. We remembered the elephant personalities we had recorded and interacted with, during those eventful days. We recalled Long John (the gawky tall male), Scallops (with his neatly torn half-moon ears lobes), James Taylor (with his damaged crinkly tail), Magic (Johnson) (the largest elephant in the park at that time), Rudy and Randy (the two massive males who were always together), Arsas (the ill-tempered matriarch), Lumpy Knee (the young feisty male who had a tennis ball size cist on his front knee) and of course the late majestic Walawe Raja (one-time king of UWNP).

Not being a pure academic, during my studies I always identified the elephants by a specific nickname, which in some way identified with its physical characteristics or personality. I always believed that these intelligent giants have a mind and personality of their own, and as such have to be treated like that.

Ashoka and I chatted away deep into the night. Good company, enhanced by the wonderfully-peaceful surroundings, punctuated only by the sounds of the jungle, demanded that justice be done to the Chivas, until the smell of noodles, salmon curry and onion sambol, wafting from the dining room below, was too tempting to resist, and we slowly made our way down for dinner. The sumptuous meal was topped up with fresh curd and treacle, and then it was time to hit the deck.

I was totally satisfied with the day, and told Ashoka that I would give the early morning drive a miss, and sleep in late. The moment my head hit the pillow I was ‘out for the count’, and it was a deep and restful sleep. I was not aware of Ashoka waking up at 5:30 a.m. and leaving on his morning observation drive. I only woke up around 6:30 a.m. when the bungalow keeper came upstairs with my ‘bed tea’. I pottered around the bungalow alone, watching the Brahimi kites, painted storks, and serpent eagles begin their morning hunting, through my newly-acquired Nat Geo spotting scope. I saw some spotted deer on the opposite back, as well as peacocks in abundance. Unfortunately I had missed the sunrise, but did get some good pictures of the morning sun.

A disappointed Ashoka returned around 8:45 a.m., not having been too successful in spotting anything of value, not even a single elephant! (The UWNP is usually an ‘evening park’ where most sightings are made in the evening.) So we sat down to another tasty meal of roti, katta sambol, dhal, and meatball curry. 

After breakfast we slowly packed our things and loaded the jeeps for departure. Ashoka was going off on his own, in his vehicle for more rounds in the park, to conduct some observations. So while Ashoka was still loading his stuff, I bade goodbye to everyone, and left the bungalow. 

Reflecting back on the previous day’s unique sightings, I was quite content with the trip, and told Manju to drive straight to the gate. 

Sumedha

But as always Uda Walawe never ceases to surprise. We had not driven more than half a kilometre from the bungalow when we saw in the distance a massive dark shape of a large elephant walking along the road towards us. On hearing the jeep he immediately veered off on to a side, into the bushes, but not before Manju and I caught sight of the white glimmer of tusks. Excitedly both of shouted, “Looks like Sumedha?!”

Now I guess I need to pause here and explain a few aspects to those who may not be that familiar with elephants and the UWNP. Sri Lankan elephants do not show great abundance of tusks (only male elephants have tusks), unlike their African counterparts. So sighting a tusker in the wild is a rather special event. The UWNP had only a few big mature tuskers, who are transient visitors to the park.  To my knowledge there is only one such tusker who visits the park now, named Sumedha. He played second fiddle for many years to the mighty tusker Walawe Raja who was the undisputed ‘King’ of UWNP, until Raja went missing about five years ago, and is now presumed dead. Since then Sumedha has had no real threat and is the monarch of UWNP.

These tuskers usually come into the park usually when they are in musth, in search of receptive females. Musth is a periodic phase mature males go through, when their testosterone level reaches gigantic proportions, and they become very dominant, aggressive and unpredictable. The usual period when this phenomena occurs in the Uda Walawe region is around June to October of each year. 

So this would explain our excitement. This was not the ‘usual’ period for sighting a tusker in the park. We promptly stopped the vehicle and switched off the engine. In a few minutes the large grey shape slowly emerged out of the jungle on to the road. And yes we had been right, it was Sumedha all right. Quickly we called Ashoka on the mobile, as Sumedha, now confident that there was no threat, started walking determinedly along the road towards us. Within minutes Ashoka’s jeep also was abreast, as we watched this majestic animal calmly walk straight at us.

As he came closer I realised that he had grown larger since I last saw him. He was in superb condition, towering above us. I reckoned he must be about 25-30 years now, in the prime of his life. His tusks were perfectly shaped, but he did have two blemishes which were his main distinguishing characteristics. He has a very large tennis ball size hole in his left ear, and a badly broken tail stump, with no hairs at all at the end. 

We were quite confident that he would veer off the road when he came close, as there was adequate clearing on either side. He came right up in front of our jeep within a meter, and stopped and looked at us. It was a look of sheer authority, calmly assessing the situation. There was pindrop silence, punctuated only by the click of my SLR camera shutter. (In fact, as he was walking towards us, I found that it was impossible to frame him in the field of view of my 300 mm telephoto, which I had to hastily change.)

After what seemed ages, (but may have been not more than half a minute in reality!) he moved across, and walked along the side. He was so close that I could have reached out and touched him as he walked by me. At the rear of the vehicle, he once again turned, and looked hard at us. Deciding that he could not waste time with us anymore, he ambled along back into the jungle, heading for the north-western side of the park. 

At such close quarters we could see every wrinkle of his body. He certainly was not in musth, (the tell-a-tale dark patch of oozing secretion from the gland between the eye and ear not being prevalent at all) and were a bit intrigued as to what he was doing inside the park at this time of the year. 

A quick couple of calls around indicated that no one else had seen Sumedha in the park. So he must have just made his appearance. Ashoka’s records also indicated that he had only a very few sightings of him in the park during this time of the year, in his post-musth period. 

So once again we had been lucky. The day before we had a unique sighting of the black-necked stork, which in all probability, had never been sighted before in the UWNP. And today we had a very close encounter with this rare and elusive ‘Giant tusker’ of UWNP, normally not sighted during this period. 

Did we have some special luck during our visit to the UWNP this time? Not once but twice we were at the correct place at the correct time. Who knows?

But we weren’t complaining!