Wildlife in Sri Lanka
Painted Stork (more information within blog post)
Sri Lanka is known for is beautiful beaches, incredible food, and amazing people. Another main aspect of Sri Lanka is the diversity of the wildlife. Sri Lanka hosts many endemic species that are studied around the world, with new species being discovered in the country as late as 2022. At least 50 new species of animals were found on the island in 2019 alone. [Source]
During our trips there, we were lucky enough to stay within the jungle and experience just some of the wildlife daily. We were also lucky to be able to experience various wildlife trips, which we will talk about within this blog post.
Contents
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Jungle/Rainforest (Birds, Monkeys, Squirrels, Lizards)
Safari (Elephants, Deer, Leopards, Monkeys, Birds etc)
The Jungle & Rainforest
Overall, we have spent 21 days staying within the jungle itself. Our favourite thing to do in the morning was to make a coffee and some toast, sit out on the balcony or the terrace and listen to the soundscape that the jungle created. We did not have to worry about an alarm clock as the Peacocks would jump onto the roof of the house most mornings and make quite a ruckus! Mind you, the Peacocks were not the main culprits, certainly the Monkeys enjoyed a morning call or two, as well as the palm squirrels burrowing their palm husks into the roof!
The main tone of the jungle soundscape was the wind through the trees, combined with the variety of birds:
THE BIRDS:
Below are some of the birds we photographed whilst staying in the jungle and around Sri Lanka (Scroll through to read descriptions). We have attempted to identify them, please let us know if we are mistaken with any! Contact Us
That is just a small snippet of the birds that can be found in Sri Lanka. There are 452 species of bird found on the island, 33 of which are endemic to the country.
The other prominent animals that we spotted whilst staying within the rainforest were palm squirrels, monitor lizards and monkeys:
The video above depicts us walking down a busy road where we came across a large monitor lizard strolling along the drain passage.
Fun Story from My Perspective:
There are two main types of Monitor Lizard in Sri Lanka, the brown one in the video is harmless and chilled out. However, the black spotted Asian water monitor (V. s. salvator- restricted to Sri Lanka) is a larger species that are venomous and dangerous if confronted. One of our favourite stories of Sri Lanka is when we were walking the path through the jungle back to our accommodation and I looked at my phone for just a few seconds… Carl alerted me with a “Oh my god!” and as I looked up there was nothing there… Carl then explained he had seen a black spotted water monitor lizard, around 5 or 6ft in length! When we go around the corner where he had seen it scuttle away, it was gone- nowhere to be seen!
I just wish I hadn’t been on my phone for that split second!
Safari
We had so much fun on a 4-hour Safari trip at Yala National Park. Yala is in the south of Sri Lanka and spans 378 square miles. It is home to 44 varieties of mammal and 215 bird species. Common sightings are the majestic Sri Lankan Elephants, monkeys, many species of birds and crocodiles. The park contains the highest leopard concentration in the world (Sri Lankan Leopards- a vulnerable species, there are only 800 in the world, 102 of which dwell in Yala)- they are rare to come across and we unfortunately did not come across any on our drive.
We still consider this experience to be one of the best days of our lives so far and would highly recommend it to anyone visiting Sri Lanka. Below are some of the animals we managed to photograph throughout the day:
That concludes our Safari trip. Our biggest regret was not having a better camera… My main camera was glitching and automatically turned off anytime I tried to zoom in, so most of the photos were taken on a phone. In the last couple of years, I’ve has started to teach herself photography and is getting some better shots on our more recent trips!
Other Animals Spotted
The leatherback sea turtle (pictured above) is a vulnerable species, unfortunately due to humans and natural environment/predators. In Sri Lanka you can visit Turtle hatcheries where the organisations help the turtles have a strong start in life… they also look after rescued turtles that would not survive in the ocean due to their injuries. Through companies such as ‘The Great Project’ you can pay to stay with a turtle rescue centre for a week all the way up to 84 nights and be part of their turtle rescue mission.
DOGS
Another animal found in abundance on the island are dogs! Most of them are strays and have only recently been recognised as their own species (Sri Lankan Hound). They are similar in appearance to the African Basenji, the New Guinea singing dog, the Carolina Dog and the Australian Dingo. They are often found scavenging for food and are quite friendly. See photo below of Carl strolling on the beach with his newfound friends!
Speaking of dogs… we had two semi-domesticated dogs staying with us in the jungle, fed by the housekeeper but free to roam and they slept outside… they were guard dogs as such. Shout-out to our wonderful jungle dogs Bumbi and Pepper- they were the best!
As you can appreciate, we have not been able to cover even a small amount of the amazing wildlife found in this beautiful country. The wildlife here is so important to conservation and studies. We are always thankful that we were able to experience the wildlife here in such an organic way.
All photos on our website are property of Georgia-May Davies of DandY Adventurers, unless stated otherwise.
Thank you so much for reading, we hope you enjoyed learning about the wildlife we came across in Sri Lanka, if you feel we have missed anything or have further questions, don’t hesitate to contact us. We would love for you to subscribe to keep up to date on future trips and blog posts.
