April 29 Culture, Butterflies, Birding and Tuskers

Birding visit to Polonnaruwa (A UNESCO World Heritage Site), the medieval capital of Sri Lanka. Visit the world famous rock-cut Buddha statues of Gal Vihara and the Parakrama Samudra (‘Sea of Parakrama’) a 2500-hectare man made reservoir built by King Parakramabahu I (1153 –1186 AD) with a capacity of 134 million cubic metres. Birding highlights include Wooly-necked Stork, Sri Lanka Grey Hornbill, Large Cuckoo Shrike and Coppersmith Barbet. On the way see large number of Flighters and the following butterflies: the Zebra Blue, the Monkey Puzzle, the Plain Cupid, the Common Guava Blue, the Peacock Royal, the Common Shot Silverline, The Spot Sword Tail and the Red Spot Duke. Afternoon, visit Minneriya National Park for Elephants

 The day began early with a stroll around the village outside the hotel.  We scored two additions to the trip list (White-rumped Munia, building a nest just outside the lobby, and Banded Bay-cuckoo).  As we got back towards the hotel there were many cops standing around.  As expected these were thought to be waiting for a Minister or such like to be in the area.  

The cops were not photographed (this seems to be frowned on just about anywhere except New York) but this guy heading off to collect the laundry was quite happy to pose.  

I am not sure of the terminology in "Ceylon" but in Raj days I am sure he would have been a dhobi wallah.  He, and his ox, star again tomorrow morning!  Back at the lobby of the Hotel I photographed the floral designs that were strategically placed around the area:

This has been taken on board as something pleasant to do around our house in Carwoola.  We haven't gone so far as to decorate the bed, in the way we found last night:

As we headed off to Polonnaruwa we were distracted by a very large standing Buddha statue

accompanied by many statues of monks - all the statues were named according to the monk they represented and indeed they are all quite different in appearance when looked at closely.

As seen in the RH of the first image the one closest to the Buddha was coloured blue, indicating that this was the Buddha's principle assistant.

As we moved further along the road we noticed that there were electric fences beside the road.  Nanda explained that these were erected to keep elephants in the wilderness area and out of the village vegetable gardens.  (In other areas there were towers in the gardens where the farmers stayed over night with a series of bonfires and rattleable cans over the fields to scare the elephants off. )  This led Rob to contemplate Elephants as the ultimate garden pest and to speculate whether, if they were in Australia the garden centres would be offering giant Jumbo Swatters or 200l kegs of Tusker repellent!

Getting on to the main road we paused briefly to check out some cormorants.  A couple of them were Indian Shags - the same species that got me arrested in Burma in 1984!

After crossing a dampish section supplied interesting roadside hazard signs 
we came to an area well supplied with military establishments but ignoring the risks of revisiting Burma I took a photo of another standing Buddha.

It being a main road in Sri Lanka there had to be a bike race happening!

The first bit of the site we visited was a museum with many interesting artefacts.  Photos were not permitted so as to not interfere with sales of books. As with the other archaeological sites visited most of my photos are in a special post.

After that we headed off to see a controversial statue: some authorities reckon it is a King with an interest in farming holding a hoe, while others saying it is just a monk holding a prayer scroll.  Nearby were some very active monkeys enjoying playing games and doing a little proctology (without a headlamp).

When we got to the ruins of Polonnuruwa we noted a sign that "Chorus may provoke wasp attacks".  The area was generally devoid of Sri Lankan visitors and the early highlight of this visit was a young couple of hawkers  (who had reluctantly given up trying to sell us tacky souvenirs) showing us a juvenile Brown Fish Owl. 

A few rupees changed hands in the hope that this would encourage them to adopt eco-tourism and care of wildlife as a trade rather than tourism hassling!

Our final spot was to look at a large reclining Buddha 

 near which was a public lecture by an eminent monk.  Most of the audience were elderly ladies who had partaken of lunch.  As they were sitting in the sun this combination of circumstances was causing a few Zs to get emitted.  This led the eminent monk to give them some advice about staying awake!  I think by the time I took this surreptitious shot he had moved back to other aspects of acquiring good karma!

 As a result of this we were a bit behind schedule and it was agreed we would swap the planned visit to Minneriya National Park to the following day and head off to Dambulla Cave Temple on this day.  En route we called in to a restaurant so that the workers could get some lunch.  Rob and I visited a nearby small shop to acquire water and in my case a packet of biscuits: the latter cost a whole 25 rupees and as Rob said I would happily have paid 100R for them.  I also got a nice picture of a roadside Ganesa (as usual carrying a bit of condition, but pretty happy in his work).

The Cave Temple proper was rather good in contrast to the very tacky modern structure (funded by Japanese aid) at the bottom of the hill.   I thought these cave-resident Buddhas were particularly interesting.

 For the first time a local gent - presumably of the Hindu persuasion - was spruiking snake charming skills.  Another entrepreneur sold Rob a rather snappy shirt.

Back at dinner we requested a table upwind of yesterday's smokestack.  Not needed as he had been positioned out in the lawn well away from other diners.

Bird of the Day: Brown Fish Owl
Other Vertebrate of the Day.  Monkeys being monkeys (ie mischievous)
Pattern of the day Statues of monks.
Bad taste of the Day New Dambulla Temple

A couple of other birds got to stroll down the carpet:

• a Grey hornbill (for a reason I can neither remember nor decipher from my notes;
• Wooly-necked Stork seen feeding in a lake (new for trip and quite unusual for the country)

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