After a six hour drive from Colombo, we reached the Yala National Park and without wasting any time, hopped onto a waiting Toyota Landcruiser to begin our maiden safari into the park. In less than 10 minutes into the safari, we came upon a bunch of vehicles jostling for position to get a glimpse of a well camouflaged Leopard that was sleeping on a termite hill tucked into the bushes. Little did we know that this was the precursor to a series of Leopard sightings, that would culminate in our last sighting, which we have captured in our post – Top of the food chain walk.

We let the jostling jeeps be and proceeded further into the park. That’s when we spotted a massive Leopard sitting on the river bed scanning the horizon. Given the huge distance from the road and the river bed, we managed only a few record shots before he got up and disappeared into the bushes. We moved on further into Yala National Park and reached a rocky mountain terrain. Lady luck continued to smile on us and we had our third sighting – a handsome sub adult Leopard relaxing by the waterhole! But that was not the end. It just got better. As it got up and walked away from our line of sight, we turned to the other side of the road and spotted another Leopard on the rock face!

At closer observation we noticed that this Leopard cub was fine tuning its stalking skills with an invisible prey. With the sun streaming behind the Leopard and straight into the camera lens, we had an amazing show of light and shadow. The situation presented itself for a partial silhouette photo opportunity and we generously clicked away as the sun faded.