I did not go deep into some jungle to capture this photo of a Crested Serpent Eagle. No siree, it was just shot from my window in Battaramulla. We only a Kilometer from the town center. Despite the efforts of successive governments and countless people, there are a few trees still left standing in this neighbourhood, and sometimes they attract beautiful and rare creatures such as this.

Late last year, a pair of spotted doves built a nest amongst the rafters in our house. They laid eggs on it at least three times. Sadly just after the third pair of eggs were hatched, one of the parents fell victim to a cat. Fortunately the Single Parent family did survive, but after the chicks flew off they never came back, That is until now. This photo is the last time I so them, they were wondering about out of the nest and the next morning, they were gone

I don’t know the life span of a dove, so I would tend to think this is one of the hatch lings, now all grown up that has returned to the nest rather than the surviving bird from the original pair with a new partner.

A pair of Imperial Pigeons on a withered Jak Fruit Tree

It’s said that you will love your Sigma 50-500mm lens as long as you don’t point it up a tree. Here is proof. I shot about 20 photos of this Changable Hawk Eagle perched on an Alastonia tree but only one came well. Even then there is room for improvement.

There are certain light conditions though which allow the lens to be pointed up at a tree, a clear sky with the sun behind your shoulder is one of them.

June 5th marked the first anniversary of the day we moved into this house This time last year, I thought, I would put up a few photos taken around the house on this blog. Well, you know how one thing leads to another and …..

Hang on a second, I did put up a few photos here and there. You might have seen the vertical garden, the sitting room or even most recently the flooded roof. In between then and now, the vertical garden grew and became so lush that you couldn’t see the wall behind it. But then it was attacked by Papaya Mealy bugs and most of it disappeared. Now it’s growing back and hopefull will be restored to it’s former glory quite soon. In the meantime the sofa set had to have it’s covers changed thanks to the kids crawling all over it. Now it’s pretty hard to find a wall or a cupboard that doesn’t have a crayon sketch on it. But I will still try to take some photos and finish off the job.

The one pictured here is from the pantry.

Nothing unusual about paper boats. Most people don’t even bother to take photos of them. But these boats are different, they are on my green roof. Earth and leaves clogging up the water flow resulted in this roof garden getting flooded and the kids wanted to float their boats on it. The next day there was a heavier shower and the water made it’s way into the house and went all the way to the ground floor through the staircase.

Adams peak, the most prominent of Sri Lankas mountain can be seen from the top of my water tank which is more than 200 Kilometers away by road. It is said that in the past Adam’s Peak could be seen on most days at many different places in Colombo. If you look at the 19th century paintings of Colombo, you will often find that Adam’s peak is shown in the background.

Things have changed. Dust, Smoke and buildings obscure the view.

By the way, those smugdes on the foreground were caused by a flock of egrets who flew past at that very moment.

Parrots love wing beans (popularly known as Dambala in Sri Lanka). I had several wing bean wines on my ‘horizontally challenged garden‘ but they all died due to the combined effects of a papaya mealy bugs infestation and the dry spell we had about two months ago. Since then the Parrots stopped visiting but two surviving Nil Katarolu (Conchflower ? ) plants attract sunbirds

BTW: what kind of Parrot is this? I think it’s a Rose Ringed Parakeet.

With the number of trees that have been cut down in the neighbourhood in recent weeks, it’s a miracle that this dead tree was left standing. It made a perfect perch for this Brahmini Kite. If you happen to pass the Kelanitissa Thermal power station, don’t forget to look towards the sky, you will see at least a dozen of them soaring a long way up. The thermal currents produced by the steam turbines coupled with the proximity of the garbage mountain makes it one of their favorite areas.

This one though was seen in Battaramulla, I don’t know if they range that far but then again Kelanitissa is not so far off as the crow (or the kite) flies.

I would have a magnificient view, if my neighbour’s Calicut clay tiled roof didn’t get in the way….