One of the most amazing wildlife destinations we've ever visited is Bundala National Park ("Bundala") in southern Sri Lanka on the the Indian Ocean coast. It is small, only 14.28 square miles, but packed with a variety of animals. Bundala was named a UNESCO biosphere reserve in 2005, a national park in 1993, a Ramsar wetlands site in 1991 and it is an IBA (Important Bird Area).
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| Our safari vehicle in an area of sand near the coast on a hill. |
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| The Indian Ocean coast in Bundala. |
Bundala has an annual average relative humidity of 80%, a mean annual temperature of 81 degrees, annual rainfall of 35 to 51 inches and five shallow, brackish lagoons.
We saw the following wildlife in an afternoon safari on March 16, 2019 which was only two or three hours long (we saw an elephant at a distance but did not get a good photo of it):
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| A beautiful Indian star tortoise. |
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| Indian black turtles. |
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| An Indian flapshell turtle. |
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| This and the following three photos are of what our guide called saltwater crocodiles and what is mixed on iNaturalist as saltwater crocodiles or mugger crocodiles. |
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| A mugger crocodile. |
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| A Sri Lankan axis deer. |
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| A painted stork and an Indian wild boar (in the background). |
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| The tufted gray langur. |
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| Common toque macaque. |
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| Blue-tailed bee eaters. |
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| Great stone-curlew. |
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| White-breasted waterhen. |
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| Gray-headed swamphen. |
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| Lesser whistling duck. |
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| Crested hawk eagle. |
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| Gray-headed fish eagle. |
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| White-bellied sea eagle |
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| Gray heron. |
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| Purple heron. |
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| Common kingfisher. |
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| Pied kingfisher. |
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| Ashy-crowned sparrow lark. |
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| Jerdon's bushlark. |
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| Rose-ringed parakeet. |
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| Indian peafowl. |
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| Yellow-wattled lapwing. |
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| Common redshank. |
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| Black-winged stilt. |
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| Oriental darter. |
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| Eurasian spoonbill. |
Pretty awesome place for for water animals and birds, but not so great for mammals. I wanted more elephants.
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