Sinharaja rainforest

Sinharaja is the last remaining stand of rainforest in Sri Lanka, it is but a fragment of the forests that previously covered the island but the excess of life it contains is still impressive.

On a recent road trip around the hill country we stopped off at Sinharaja – perched in the southern foothills. Thanks to the inimitable Rough Guide we were put onto the jovial Palitha Ratnayake, who runs a local guesthouse and provides guided tours of the reserve. Sinharaja is dense and only accessible by foot and it soon became clear to us why a good guide was invaluable. 

Despite having read and written extensively about biodiversity over the last seven years, I realised on entering the forest that I had never really seen the density and diversity of wild life that inspires tropical conservation biologists. Sri Lanka is a lively place but the wealth of living forms increased tenfold within this teeming sanctuary. As we left the tea plantations that buffer the forest, the canopy closed over us. Like an eclipse the sky darkened and as the light receded so the smells and noises increased.

The air was filled with the rich and putrid odour of rotting vegetation, punctuated by the sickly sweet aroma of vivid flowers. High up in the canopy monkeys laughed their haunting belly laughs, myriad birds chirruped, craked and trilled, while tree-frogs gasped and croaked. On either side of the narrow path unseen creepy-crawlies crept and crawled with sinister rustlings. 

Leopard hunt

On our recent trip to the South we went on safari, tracking and spotting leopards in Yala National Park while jostling with a dozen other jeeps.

Ever since European visitors starting coming to Sri Lanka, the leopard has been up there with the elephant as a must see/must shoot icon of the county’s wildlife. Its elusive ecology, beautiful appearance and skilful hunting are the sources of legends and compel many people to spend long dusty hours in parks and jeeps to get a first hand impression.

We spent an evening and morning in pursuit of leopards and other wildlife in Yala National Park, in the South-East corner of the country. Along with Wilpattu in the North, Yala has the highest densities of leopards in the country and a fair number of desensitised animals likely to appear for the time-pressed visitor. Although tourist numbers are down in Sri Lanka, the park was still busy and we made our way to the entry gates amidst a long convoy of battered Land Rovers.

On entering the park there is a clear air of competitive collaboration amongst the drivers and trackers that accompany each vehicle. They really want to show you the animals you are after, believing that their tip depends on it. They are also proud of their own expertise. It is, after all, quite a skill to drive a 40 year-old jeep along muddy roads, avoid potholes, look for animals of different sizes on land and in the air, and give a commentary while chewing and spitting out bettle nut.

Our driver was an anarchic past master. He drove at breakneck speed, spotting and identifying a dizzying diversity of wildlife unaided by binoculars. He had superb vision and the sixth sense for where animals would be that comes from long experience. He was also scathing about new comers in flash jeeps, and his glee was palpable when we encountered a collision between two upstarts a few hundred yards into the park. A mile further down the road we had seen crocodiles, wild boar, innumerable birds, mongooses, big lizards and elephant. Happy with our progress he set out for leopards.

Infestation

Sorry to keep banging on about bugs, but the Sri Lankan invertebrates continue to amaze and predate. Last night out flat was infested by a vast swarm of flying termites. These are about an inch long and have four detachable wings. They come out in the evening during the rains and head for lights. Foolishly we had left lots of ours on, and they streamed in through every crack and crevice. I came back to the house to find Magali cowering in the bedroom, with a vast swarm of winged beasts making merry in the kitchen (the photo doesn’t really do it justice). Apparently they are good fried with chilli, but the chef was having none of it.

Aspivenin

We left the UK with a multitude of different methods for repelling bugs and dealing with the after effects of their affections. In fact the customs official at Colombo could have been forgiven for thinking that we had come to Sri Lanka specifically to wage war on her country’s buglife.

Amongst the many devices we were issued with by concerned friends and family was an Aspivenin. This ingenious French gadget works like an inverted syringe, drawing out the poison from unwanted bites through a manual suction pump. The company recently released this hilarious flash movie explaining how it works. The device was invented in 1977 by the Gallic eccentric, André Emerit, whose deep green principles lead him to design a non-lethal, reusable and non-polluting form of pest control.

The Aspivenin website gives us the slightly terrifying news that their product has been tested in “real conditions” for three years by Pharmacists Without Borders (pharmacy’s equivalent of Medecins Sans Frontieres, I guess) in Ecuador’s Amazon basin. Apparently, 97% of the Shuar-Ashuar people it was issued to were happy with its effectiveness against “giant ants, scorpions, tarantulas and even snakes”.

We have been giving it a less rigorous work out, but as the following pictures testify, it worked wonders on a mosquito-bitten Magali:

Before:

After:

 

Clearly it is a miraculous device that should be in everyone’s stocking this Christmas

The Peradeniya fruit bats

I am sitting on the small terrace outside our guest house at about 6pm on a Saturday night. The sun has just set and its fading light catches the underside of the heavy rain clouds that have been lurking overhead all afternoon. There is a lowering, orange glow to the quickly darkening jungle and the air is humid and expectant. Invisible yet omnipresent, the tree frogs are starting up their chorus. In the distance sheet lightning flashes through the mahogany trees, it is a truly gothic scene that could have come straight from the Temple of Doom.

Overhead stream hundreds and thousands of fruit bats. They are dark black and some fly so low their iconic profiles are silhouetted, others are mere specks against the dark clouds. They fill the sky and give the evening a sinister air. I am not sure if it is too much Batman as a child or something much more primeval, but they send a shiver down my spine.  

Like satanic snow geese they are all flying North on their diurnal migration, driven by some seemingly ominous purpose. By day they roost in silent clumps in the tall trees of the Peradeniya botanical gardens but as the sun starts to set they drop out of their branches and head up country, flying low along the Mahaweli gorge, following the course of the river. As the reach Kandy, some five miles away, they are still closely bunched and from here they spread out to feed, the majority dropping into the palace gardens behind the Temple of the Tooth, though apparently a few are more adventurous and cover over 50 miles in a night’s flying.  

The evening flight of the fruit bats is already a daily fixture and may well become the accepted moment for legitimate tropical drinking.

Urban wildlife

Sri Lanka is urbanising rapidly and Kandy, its second city, has recently experienced significant urban growth. New houses are being built in the jungle, encroaching on the territories of more established residents.

The guest house where we are staying is located up a steep valley on the south side of
Kandy lake. The building offers spectacular views and was, until recently, located at the highest permissible altitude for local urban development. However, such restrictions are flexible in Sri Lanka and money has been changing hands. As a consequence new guest houses and private residences are springing up higher up the valley in amongst the jungle.

This area being developed is also home to a large troupe of monkeys, who seem to be welcoming the intrusion and the new opportunities it affords them. Like a group of simian base jumpers or hairy urban performance artists they leap from building to building, swinging off telephone wires and clambering around advertising hoardings. Their activities make the human encroachment into the jungle a two-way process, street wise monkeys are also making new spaces for themselves.

Most obviously the gardens and refuse collections of elite Kandy neighbourhoods afford rich pickings in the form of mangoes, durian and assorted domestic detritus. Monkeys compete with crows and feral dogs to be the first at the bins and their anthropomorphic dexterity gives them a headstart in opening human contraptions. Within our building the monkeys have learned to open external doors and to flip window catches, helping themselves to tourist fodder and rearranging the furniture. One wet day this week, the monkeys started reorientating the television aerial, much to the dismay of the gathered Sri Lankans happily watching the national side beat the West Indies in crickets Champions Trophy.

I have to admit that they are very charismatic animals and it is difficult not to enjoy their cheeky shenanigans. However, our wondrous gasps and muttered encouragements find little sympathy with local inhabitants for whom they are clearly an unwelcome nuisance. This being a largely Buddhist country, people appear unwilling to employ any lethal solutions and the monkeys are moved on with ineffectual stone throwing, broom waving and cursing.

The manager of the guest house explained how she once employed chilli powder as a form of natural deterrent, scattering it around their favoured playgrounds. This spicy solution seemed to have been locally effective but only sent the victim scurrying to a nearby swimming pool for bathing relief. She was so perturbed by the screams that the poor curried animal gave out that she has never done it again.

The city is also home to a colourful host of birdlife and a multitude of buzzing insects, that leave little red kisses as they visit day and night. Less visible urban nonhuman companions include assorted snakes, scorpions and spiders, though we have had no encounters so far (watch this space). A few nights ago we had a nocturnal visitor. I awoke with a start to a loud rustling by my ear. Flailing helplessly I scrabbled for my glasses and the light switch. By the time I had found them and woken most of the guest house, whoever or whatever was visiting had scarpered. However, a tell-tale bag of mangoes had been dragged across the room towards the half-open patio door.

In the morning we discovered that we had been visited by a polecat, another jungle resident moving down into the city to feed and play. Little is known about these elusive felines and the guest house is taking part in a study being carried out at the University of Peradeniya. This means that they have a large cat trap on the roof. This non-lethal contraption shuts fast when a food platform is triggered and looks a little like a long rectangular lobster pot. While we have been staying they have caught a crow, a monkey and two domestic cats. Given that these animals are generally left out all night, they emerge looking pretty bedraggled in the morning. To date no polecats in the trap – clearly our mangoes (or my snoring) is more tempting than the chosen bait.

Leeches

These versatile parasites come out in the rainy season to prey on passing mammals. They are a common complaint amongst travellers past and present, your truly included.

When the famous German biologist Ernst Haeckel came to Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) in the middle of the nineteenth century he made a beeline for the recently established botanical garden at Peradeniya. In so doing he would have followed a similar route to that detailed above, albeit at a slower pace. He would also have arrived just down the road from where I am now working.

While Haeckel was full of praise for the gardens and their burgeoning plant collection, his account has a long and uncharacteristically vitriolic rant about leeches. He clearly had a bad encounter with these opportunist parasites and had little respect for their feeding strategies as they worked their way through his breeches.

Leeches also frustrated the manly endeavours of other nineteenth century hunters and explorers, whose popular accounts are full of gory and sensational tales of surprise predations and blood-letting. Samuel White Baker, the notorious Victorian elephant hunter and African explorer, was particularly appalled on finding bloated suckers in his underpants.

Seeking to emulate their European antecedents, yours truly and his able assistant set off to climb a hill last Saturday. It is the rainy season in the hill country and the leeches are out and about. Less heroically than Baker, we were only taking short stroll up a clear path that climbed gently from behind our smart hotel, and we were well clad in gortex. We first got lost. Sweating heavily we got back on the path and soon encountered a host of squiggling, crawling beasts hell bent on climbing our trousers and sinking their teeth into our tasty European flesh.

Those of you are familiar with Magali’s affections towards invertebrates will not he surprised to hear that she turned white, then red, screamed and moved swiftly down the hill. I was close behind her, struggling to keep up. We gathered our breath at the bottom and took stock. Trying to be brave we decided to try again and go fast through the danger zone. We edged gingerly back up again, sped through leeches and, feeling pleased with ourselves, got to the summit.

We returned again at pace, hoping to fit in an other cup of tea and met Jayasinge, our tuk-tuk driver at the bottom. We excitedly explained our close shave while taking off our boots and gaiters and noticed his quiet smile. As I removed my top of the range gortex accessories I revealed a bloody mess, one of the buggers had got through, gorged himself and was now lying at my feet in the car park leaking my blood. I hadn’t felt a thing as he drank his fill but nearly swooned as he lay bloated in front of me.

Sheepishly we went up to the hotel reception, where they produced their jar of plasters for foolish tourist leech-fodder. Invertebrates 1 – post-colonial adventurers 0.