A walk with a leopard

It was my recent visit to the beautiful Wilpattu National Park which lies on the West Coast and is mainly a thick secondary forest. We started our journey to the park around 06.00 hrs. The morning hours seemed to be quiet and calm. We were travelling between Maradanmaduwa and Walaswala area on the main road. My only desire was to look for a leopard in this morning light. But I couldn’t complain as the first sighting was a big sloth bear, a very rare sighting early in moning. He was on the move searching for some insects for his breakfast very close to the road.  The jeep driver stopped, so I took a few captures and then moved forward. We had spent a good few hours by now trying to spot a leopard and the anxiety was building in me like no other. Along the way, with my eyes wide open and giving good ear we managed to spot a few pugmarks but no leopard sightings were to be seen. There had been a leopard close to the road, but unfortunately, he had escaped to the jungle very quickly. 

Right after our lunch, we decided to explore the Kokkariya road in search of the big leopard named ‘Nelumwila Superstar’. During the past few months, he had been mating with another beautiful leopard named ‘Cleopatra’ and another one named ‘Kuruttupandi’ female. Our jeep driver was very slow as we were moving forward down the road. At this time we were the only jeep on this route. As we took a big bend it was a mesmerizing sight as we found the beautiful and big ‘Nelumwila’ male walking towards us. We suddenly stopped the jeep as the Leopard was making the scent marks of his territory. He walked more than 800 meters along the road with us. At this moment there was no other jeep and I started to press my shutter button continuously to capture this beautiful moment; the one I was waiting for from the time I entered the park today. The Leopard walked 30-40 minutes with us before he bid farewell to us by escaping to the thick jungle. 

After this, we were really lucky to spot another wonderful sighting of Cleopatra. She is known to be one of the girlfriends of Nelumwila Male. She was quite quick as she crossed the road and walked into the jungle giving me yet again some beautiful photographs.

This game drive was a memorable one for me and it holds a special place in my heart. The experience of walking alongside a leopard for a long time without any disturbance had truly a stroke of luck behind it.