Wilpattu National Park (Willu-pattu; Land of Lakes) is a park located on the island of Sri Lanka. The unique feature of this park is the existence of "Willus" (Natural lakes) - Natural, sand-rimmed water basins or depressions that fill with rainwater. Located in the Northwest coast lowland dry zone of Sri Lanka. The park is located 30 km west Anuradhapura and located 26 km north of Puttalam (approximately 180 km north of Colombo). The park is 131, 693 hectares and ranges from 0 to 152 meters above sea level. Nearly sixty lakes (Willu) and tanks are found spread throughout Wilpattu. Wilpattu is the largest and one of the oldest National Parks in Sri Lanka. Wilpattu is among the top national parks world-renowned for its leopard (Panthera pardus kotiya) population. The leopard population in Wilpattu is not known. [wiki]

"Prepare to be spontaneous" is probably the most appropriate piece of advice you can give any budding photographer. But what does it mean? And how do I get prepared?

A (talented) photography friend, Abhiroop Ghosh Dastidar, contacted me last week via facebook sending me a link to Wild Planet Photo Magazine saying "Buddy this is yours right"? He we referring to the image of the leopard, which is indeed mine.

Day 7/7 #‎challengeonnaturephotography‬. This is my final and one of my most unique images.

Day 6/7 #‎challengeonnaturephotography and I have decided to dig back into my archives to one of my most memorable images, and one of my first forays into wildlife photography at Bandipur National Park in Karnataka.

Day 5/7 #‎challengeonnaturephotography and something a little different for me, a snake. This is a little bronzeback tree snake I saw scurrying around the undergrowth in the Western Ghats on the boarder of Goa and Karnataka. Wildlife is everywhere in the western ghats, you just have to look! :)

Day 4/7 of my #‎challengeonnaturephotography and I am going to continue on the theme of recent images. Here is a rare sight indeed, 5 malabar hornbills in a single frame... It was taken in the western ghats in northern Karnataka, and the picture does not give justice to the sight we saw. There were actually 10 hornbills, fleeting from tree to tree in a flock.

I would like to nominate Fiona Johnson to take up the ‪#‎challengeonnaturephotography‬! :)

Day 3/7 of my #‎challengeonnaturephotography and I am going to continue on the theme of recent images from Kabini, Karnataka. Here is one of a Langur sat up a tree...  nothing special, but I really liked the autumnal colours and lighting...  No matter how 'mundane' something is I am always striving to make better and better images of it, it is the only way to keep pushing yourself to improve! :)

Day 2/7 of my #‎challengeonnaturephotography, and another recent picture from Kabini, Karnataka, India. This time a Indian Scops owl trying to sleep! :)

#‎challengeonnaturephotography is doing the rounds on Facebook. The short of it is that if you are nominated you have to share a nature pic every day for a week. And every day of that week, you get to nominate another to do likewise!

Many thanks to Shreejata Gupta for nominating me for‪#‎challengeonnaturephotography and to start with (1/7) here is a recent pic I like for the following reasons:

The term 'animal' is often used by us humans to infer a lack of intelligence, empathy or even emotions. Anyone who has spent any time around animals knows that the use of this term in that context is far from the truth.

Often I see people not changing their settings to reflect the ambient light. This is crucial if you want to produce a realist photograph of what you're looking at!