New Album – Storm in Sinharaja
Last month, I was planning to visit Thailand en-route to the UK, but due to the political situation/ military coup in the country I had make a last minute re-route of the trip! After some frantic cancellations & re-bookings, I found myself on a flight to Colombo, Sri Lanka.
The country has recovered well after decades of civil war, and still has significant areas of healthy drier savannah-type habitat as well as one large protected area of hill rainforest. Top of my list was a visit to the Sinharaja Forest Reserve and I hoped to record the sounds of some of it’s unique wildlife. However, the torrential monsoon rain forced me to spend most of my time sheltering inside a rustic lodge! It wasn’t all bad though as on my final morning the rain eased for a few hours and I was able to record the sounds you hear on this album.
I also visited Yala National Park in the south-east of the country, which is famous for it’s healthy leopard population. After a long day bouncing around in the back of an ancient jeep, I finally caught up with a female leopard, although she wasn’t particularly cooperative when it came to photos! I made a few brief recordings in Yala but it was quite a windy day and I didn’t get the results I was hoping for. That’s the way it goes sometimes with nature sound recording!
This female leopard refused to turn around and pose for a photo so I had to be content with this view before she slinked off into the forest!