Thursday, 16 October 2025

Jackal Jackpot


It is dawn at Bowila Wetland.

The rain falls with quiet persistence, turning reeds into silver threads. Birdsong is muted; the air heavy; the world half-asleep.

One lone bird watcher, braving the drizzle, scans the landscape—hoping to spot new arrivals from the north.

But what unfolds before him today is no tale of wings…It is a story of fur.

Through the rain’s shifting veil, a familiar figure appears—a Golden Jackal, lean and deliberate.

Its mate lies low nearby, hidden perfectly in tawny grass.

The restless partner roams, snout to the ground, its hunger unsoftened by the weather.

Even as the downpour thickens, they do not yield. They pace the embankment, their golden coats darkened by rain.

A glint catches one’s eye—a plastic cup, discarded, reeking faintly of something edible.

It sniffs, inserts its snout—and for a moment, the hunter wears a human-made muzzle.

Finding nothing, it shakes it off, leaping gracefully across the canal with its mate lagging behind.

The female halts. Her ears sharpen. A faint rustle betrays life beneath the earth.

She leaps—no luck.

Then—she digs.

Chunks of soil rain behind her hind legs.

Moments later—she pauses to listen—faint vibes from ground below sound promising than ever before.

With snarled canine linguistics, she alerts her mate that it is breakfast time.

With her mate lured in to close proximity for moral support, she digs fervently—this is really the business end.

Her entire body vanishes into the ground—into a very compromising position—only her tail twitching above the surface like a golden metronome.

For several feeding episodes, the item of prey reveals no visual confirmation to the observer. 

Again, in the frenzy, the jackal seems swallowed by the earth.

Then she wriggles free—a mouse dangling from her jaws, its limp form a testament to the relentless efficiency of the wild.

The male steps forward, hopeful—but the meal is already claimed. At the Bowila buffet, it seems, ladies eat first.

As the pair settles, a new presence shuffles into view.

A juvenile Ruddy-breasted Crake—no more than six feet from the motionless observer.

Still too young to understand its own cautionary instincts, it struts about boldly,

apparently unaware that it is—a crake, for heaven’s sake!—and not meant to be socialising with us bipeds.

The birder watches, motionless, resisting temptation—for to ignore a crake at point-blank range is to invite the wrath of the Birding Gods.

But then, the marsh’s spell is broken.

Out of nowhere comes the electronic chime of the “Chune Paan” tuk-tuk—the roving bread seller, its tune echoing eerily across the wetland, that strange, human melody of commerce drifting into a world of predation.

The jackals pause—ears perked, eyes fixed—momentarily disoriented by this foreign intrusion into their ancient hunt.

Beyond them, life continues as if in another film entirely: children in crisp white uniforms walk briskly to school through the rain, heir laughter mingling with the tuk-tuk’s tune; and nearby, an office-bound lady hurries past, her high heels striking the tarmac with a rhythmic click—a sound that speaks of perfume and deadlines, of a city not far, but worlds away.

Here, in Bowila, the wild and the human coexist uneasily—the jackals and the crake, the bread tune and the raindrops, the hunter and the schoolchild.

And as the rain softens into mist, the pair of jackals disappears once more into the reeds—silent, soaked, and satisfied.

In this small pocket of Colombo’s suburban fringe,

life unfolds in layers—some civilised, some savage—all sharing the same rain, and the same morning light.

#MonsoonChronicles#GoldenJackalhunt#nariya#wildbomiriya#bowilawetland#jackaljackpot

Monday, 13 October 2025

October 11 Big Day


Incredible results from the October Big Day!

🎉 46,300+ birders

🎉 7,737 different species

🎉 103,900+ checklists

Thrilled to have contributed 11 checklists and 56 species from my local patches! Wetland birds for the win!

Credit where it's due:

@Globalbirding

@SwarovskiOptikBirding

@ebird


I joined Team SWAROVSKI OPTIK Birding for the October 11 Big Day.  
While this was my first October Big Day, guiding bird tours in the tropics means I treat every day like a "Big Day," making the most of every sunlit minute! 🌞
Highlights:
• A skulky Slaty-breasted Rail (juv.)
• Large Cuckoo-shrike, a locally rare seasonal visitor.
• A couple of Brown Hawk Owls that showed up during a last ditch effort to locate Greater Painted Snipe at nightfall. (no show today ☹

Massive thanks to Swarovski Optik Birding for their sparkling service in getting my Swarovski ATX eyepiece refurbished—it performed flawlessly and helped seal the deal on the Big Day. 🙏

And a huge shout-out to Dr. Thomas Worthington from the University of Cambridge for pushing me to join eBird! Glad to be among birders that count. 🤛 😎

Check out my Big Day tally: https://ebird.org/tripreport/420502
Check out my Global Bird Weekend tally: https://ebird.org/tripreport/421855
Check out my last bird of Global Bird Weekend: https://youtube.com/shorts/Ny5aOWWSigo?si=G8Fn0JsWeOkdhhRq
#globalbirding#gobirding#globalbirdweekend#seetheunseen#birdsuniteourworld#swarovakioptikbirding#fortheloveofnature#Octoberbigday#birdingsrilanka

Wednesday, 8 October 2025

The Day of the Jackals video

The Day of the Jackal battle you read about is officially live! đŸŽŦ 🌟At Bowila Wetland, Bomiriya the boisterous Golden Jackals met the wannabe 'overlords' for a high-stakes canine territorial dispute. 👑đŸē


From the unsettling composure of the jackals' slow advance to their military-styled tactical withdrawal, every second of this epic battle is pure suspense.Can the pampered Dogs survive their challenge to the undisputed masters? 🤔 You'll have to watch to see the terrifying end—and the dog’s panic-fueled SOS: "āļļුāļ¯ු āļ…āļēිāļēේ! āļ…āļ´ි āļ‰āˇ€āļģාāļēි!" (Buddha Brother! We are Screwed!) 😱moment! 

The Day of the Jackals video

#DayOfTheJackal#BowilaWetland #CaninePolitics#WildBomiriya #SeeTheUnseen#TacticalWithdrawal#SwarovskiOptik#mustāļ¸watch#fortheloveofnature#MarshyDawgs#wetlandsarentwastelands

Friday, 3 October 2025

The Day of the Jackal: Canine Supremacy—The Candid Truth

A wetland patch was the setting yesterday for an intense territorial dispute. It unfolded at Bomiriya, in one of my local wetland patches —a place of life and death, defined by its receding water-line. The stakes were primal, the battle lines drawn in the mud and reed.



Birding during the golden hour with the first rays of light hitting me from behind, I observed a pair of Golden Jackals (Canis aureus)—a first record for this site. They were on a sun-drenched strip of embankment, claiming their ground—There was a clear statement of ownership.


Jackals are opportunistic architects of the ecosystem; their lives a constant ledger of risk and reward. Unlike their domestic counterparts—for whom free food is a guarantee—for the jackal, there was no such thing as a "free lunch." Survival is a matter of wits and finely tuned fieldcraft.


Their tranquility was abruptly shattered by the arrival of two local domestic dogs. These were the pampered overlords of the patch of road, fuelled by ease and the bravado of an assured next meal. 


They approached, a hysterical blur of raised tails and frantic barks, projecting an image of hyper-agitated dominance. The dogs' tails were held high, hind legs slightly spread, every posture screaming an ill-considered challenge, their adrenaline-fueled energy palpable.


Calm Before the Charge

Yet, the jackals remained an image of raw, assertive calm. They watched, their eyes holding a measure of the wildness the dogs had long forgotten.


Then, the tactical masterstroke: one jackal, oozing an unsettling composure, began a slow, deliberate advance. The invisible FDL (forward defence line) of dogs breached, albeit slowly. This subtle shift in momentum proved to be a powerful mind game sending subliminal messages across enemy lines. 



The alpha dogs—so confident moments before—read the unspoken message: This was not a game. Their aggressive posturing instantly collapsed. In a dizzying moment of reversal, the dogs retreated, vacating the very ground they had so hysterically claimed.


The pioneer jackal moved to occupy the vacated spot, sniffing the terrain and sending an angry snarl. Then, the second jackal too filled the frame, completing the strategic manoeuvre, as they both scent-sniffed the abandoned territory. 


A resonant snarl from the newcomer—a sound of pure, untamed intent—was ominous. 


Meanwhile, a wise crow from above uttered an SOS of the imminent danger, and a lapwing, sensing the ground-based threat, flew off uttering signals of distress—all of which fell on deaf ears for the wannabe canine thugs, blinded by their unrelenting NIMBY attitude. 


Observing the tell-tale signs of submission in the dogs' hurried withdrawal, the jackals launched their attack.


It was a terrifying spectacle of raw canine power. The dogs turned tail, bolting towards the road. To that submissive behaviour, I wasted no time in jibing at them for their folly. The jackals, masters of the open marsh, halted their pursuit, allowing the dogs a foolish attempt at a counter-charge. This time, the jackals executed a military-styled tactical withdrawal, melting into the reedy cover of the open marsh. This was a sanctuary the dogs dared not enter, a place of awkward footing and vulnerabilities.


Decisive Retreat

From this hidden fortress, the jackals launched their devastating final ploy. One jackal zeroed in on a fleeing dog. Outmaneuvered, the other dog was dangerously caught off guard. Yet the charging jackal, though briefly distracted by it, stayed fixed on the original target taken. The chase was on, a primal sprint that ended when the panicked dog hurtled toward the only human observer of the scene. 


Under the rush of cortisol and primal instinct, the idiom of "Man's best friend" was discarded. At that moment, and in this marsh, the truth was simple: a dog's best friend was a man. The dog’s energy, a tangible wave of primal terror, radiated the famous Lankan SOS: "āļļුāļ¯ු āļ…āļēිāļēේāļ…āļ´ි āļ‰āˇ€āļģාāļēි! (Buddha Brother! We are Screwed!)"


The jackal that pursued the dog, sensing the abrupt presence of the "buzzkillington," that is yours truly, veered off. Had I not been planted myself like a pillar, it would have been sure breakfast for the wild canines.


Establishing the Canine Status Quo

Establishing the Canine Status Quo

The dogs' decision to confront their wild cousins was an act of profound folly, a failure to recognize they were challenging the undisputed masters of the marsh, underestimating a primal force they had long forgotten.


The confrontation was over, but the comedy was not. The defeated domestic duo, quickly abandoning the high-stakes conflict, got distracted by a new alpha arriving at the road, drawn by the commotion. Their aggression, so brutally exposed by the jackals, was immediately redirected onto an easier target—perhaps a convenient excuse to cover up the faux pas.

Meanwhile, the true victors executed a masterful, unhurried withdrawal. 


The Golden Jackals simply moved purposefully back toward the safety of their furthest embankment and, after giving some assertive glances, unhurriedly penetrated deep into the reeds, disappearing seamlessly into the protective curtain of the marsh. 


They melted back into the habitat that defined them—the wild space that the dogs, for all their bluster, would never truly own.


It was a clear victory of calm conviction and superior fieldcraft—a potent reminder that in the wild, the established canine status quo dictates that the truly free spirit will always dominate the domesticated heart.


I was lucky enough to capture this entire, suspenseful exchange on camera. You've read the story—now, get ready for the raw, high-definition proof. Stay tuned—the video footage is coming soon, and it's even more intense than the narrative suggests! 

#CanineStatusQuo

#WildVsWired

#TacticalWithdrawal

#marshwars

#BomiriyaUnplugged


PS. Huge Thanks to Dr. Priyantha Wijesinghe for privately lobbying me to review my old nature blog Gallicissa! You're a lovely specimen of a human being and I wish to dedicate this post to you! 



Thursday, 24 January 2013

Endmics Clean-up with Ben and Ron under Five Days

In August, 2012 I guided a five-day abridged version of my Absolute Birding tour. It was with Ron and Ben Barkley, a farther son duo from the U.S.A. Ben is a student at the prestigious Cornell Lab of Ornithology and was keener birder of the two. Our focus was on the endemic birds of Sri Lanka and other resident species that come along the way.

We saw a whopping 152 species of birds, which was great considering the shorter duration of the trip outside the migratory season. Important, we wrapped up all 33 endemic birds in the last daylight hour of day four. That was a personal best for me. Our trip tally also included six of the fifteen resident night birds. 

White-tailed Iora

Before this trip, Ben was based in India working at a nature resort in Thekaddy area in Kerala, using his vacation for studying birds of India and in return helping the resort develop nature-tourism products for its clients. So he was fresh with a lot of field knowledge of dealing with similar birds to Sri Lanka. And his spotting skills backed by Ron’s enthusiasm greatly helped to rake in such a big tally of birds in real quick time.

One of the special non-endemic highlights was the White-tailed Iora (Marshall’s Iora), which was expertly photographed by Ben while birding on foot at a patch at Udawalawe. He sent me the shot above that he took of it. I am yet to get a decent shot of this newly rediscovered resident bird, despite opportunistically trying to do it while “working.”

Our other highlights include smashing views of an overhead Rufous-bellied Hawk Eagle—a species that I have seen in my dreams too!

The bird flocks at Sinharaja were many. The Red-faced Malkoha treated us for great sightings low-down. Layard’s Parakeets were seen gleaning flowers of feeding of the endemic pioneer Schumacheria castaneifolia (Kakiri-wara). This frequency of sightings of Layard’s Parakeets joining the flock increases in the wet season (April to December) according to the flock researchers Prof. Kotagama and Dr. Eben Goodale.

 Ashy-headed Laughingthrush

The Ashy-headed Laughthrush looked to be busy nesting.

  Sri Lanka Frogmouth 

The female Sri Lanka Frogmouth above appeared to know me.

 Udawalwe National Park

Being at the height of the draught Udawalawe National Park was bone dry.

 Malabar Pied Hornbill

But that wasn't enough to stop Ben from spotting this fruiting tree decorated with Malabar Pied Hornbills. There were nearly 50 of them!

Friday, 21 December 2012

The Indian Pitta in My Garden


The regular migrant Indian Pitta is back in  my garden.

I maintain a woody patch in my backyard to host it. And it accepts my invitation every year. In addition to the allocated one, it frequents a new patch this season. It is 25-feet from my room in the front yard! This new patch is roughly 400 sq.ft in extent, and the bird spends the first half of the day there.

Now, I get to see it doing all sorts of thing from the comforts of room. And sometimes it moons.


The Indian Pitta is known as Aarumani-kuruwi in Tamil, which translates to "six-O'clock-bird" because of its tendency to call roundabout at 6.00 a.m. and 6.00 p.m. In October and November, still early on in its stay in Sri Lanka, its calling is dead on time.

Although it prefers the shady patches, every now and then, it emerges out to forage in sunnier edges.


During that, it basks to dry up and perhaps to get rid of parasites.


This year, the first sighting of it was on 20th October. Over the years, the earliest I have seen it is on 16th October and the latest that I have seen it is on 16th April.

Most birders who visit South India on birding trips see it at a sewage farm, undergoing trying conditions. The Pitta in this patch infamously came to be known as the pitta-in-the-shitta!

Over here in Sri Lanka, we do spare such torture for our visitors.
Har...har. :)
Related Posts with Thumbnails