Blue Tailed Bee Eater

Today we are docked at Hambantota, Sri Lanka.  We took a full day excursion to Yala National Park, where we saw all sorts of wonderful creatures from the back of a land rover, including this beautiful Blue Tailed Bee Eater who posed so very nicely for me.

We also saw some wonderful elephants (some with calves), a scary large crocodile napping on a river bank, some mongooses (mongeese?), several types of deer, water buffalo, water monitors, monitor lizards, and lots of different types of birds. 

Our driver was a little crazy ... speeding up, overtaking other vehicles, stopping to look at wildlife, but only from his (front) perspective, which meant that those (Mr. W and me!) in the very back of the car mostly saw parts of animals and quite a bit of vegetation!  See extra for a typical view from my seat ... a lot like rush hour on the turnpike!

Nonetheless, we did enjoy our day, and felt very lucky to see so much of the wildlife here in Sri Lanka.

Second extra is a picture of red rice paddy -- the principal crop grown in this area.  (And amandoAlentejo may find this of interest, the word "paddy" is from the Portuguese word "padi", which is derived from the Malay word "padi" meaning "rice plant".)