Trip Report – Sri Lankan Wildlife Holiday – Royle Safaris – April 2025
In the 2025 Easter half term holidays Royle Safaris director (Martin Royle) took his family on a trip to Sri Lanka, invited by our local ground agents there to try some of their new accommodation (which was luxurious and very fun) we decided to try and find some of the smaller mammals which have made Sri Lanka a real gem of a location for so many mammalwatchers in recent years. In deed Royle Safaris has sent several clients to Sri Lanka in search of these rare mammals over the years, but the last time Martin was in Sri Lanka many of these species where not reliable or even tried for on the island.
It was a combination cultural, relaxing and wildlife watching tour where we did some whale watching, visited various cultural sites and also enjoyed Martin’s son (Tiger)s’ 11th Birthday. So the list is not as comprehensive as we would have expected if this was a full on mammalwatching trip, and we were also affected by a full moon festival which landed right on top of our time in Sigirya where we had high hopes for many of our targets, as a result it took way longer to find fishing cat than expected and it left no time for us to look for Indian pangolin which our local guide claimed to have a semi reliable place for. But even including that dip, the trip was great, many lifers for all three of us and key targets such as fishing cat, leopard, sloth bear, Asiatic elephant, jungle cat, grey slender loris, white-spotted mousedeer and Layard’s palm squirrel all ticked.
All in all we visited Wilpattu National Park, Trincomolee (for some dolphin watching), Sigiriya and Gal Oya National Park and saw a total of 35 species of mammals, 101 species of birds, 11 species of reptiles, 4 species of amphibians and 17 species of fish.
Royle Safaris offers various options for Sri Lanka, which can combine any interests, whether they are purely wildlife (generalist, mammals, birds, whale watching, herping etc) cultural, including great food tour options; so if you are interested in visiting Sri Lanka for any reason, please let us know and we would be more than happy to provide an itinerary for you to have a look over. Please just email me direct at info@royle-safaris.co.uk for more information on how to visit this stunning island and enjoy the jewel of the Indian Ocean.
Trip Report – Sri Lankan Wildlife Holiday – Royle Safaris – April 2025
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