Category: flora

Special Feature — THE FORGOTTEN TEMPLE: Dakkinagiriya & the Other Kaludiya Pokuna

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A thousand-year-old ‘mountain monastery’, lost in the Kaludiya Pokuna Forest, east of Dambulla; forgotten by the tour guides, and seemingly by time itself. For the visitor seeking something literally off the beaten track, the Dakkinagiri Viharaya is an intriguing but serene detour away from the well-trodden sites of Sri Lanka’s Cultural Triangle.”

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The stupa of the 9th century Dakkinagiri Viharaya, with Erawalgala behind it.
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Temple of the Water God

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I believe that water is the closest thing to a god we have here on Earth.”

— Alex Z Moores Living in Water

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The Randenigala Reservoir, surrounded by the jungles of the Rantembe Reserve. December 2018. If water is the one true god of our planet, then the reservoirs we’ve built over millennia must be its greatest temples.

• 24mm • f/8 • 1/1600 • ISO800 • 5DMkIII & EF24-105/4L •

Restoring the Balance #2

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A cleared hillside close to Haputale, in the Central Highlands of Sri Lanka. September 2017. The island has lost huge areas of jungle and forest to the plantation and timber industries over the last two centuries. Many areas in the Central Highlands are now being removed of environmentally harmful pine trees that were introduced by paper manufacturers in the 1970s; replacing them with endemic trees in a government-initiated reforestation programme which will encourage the return of undergrowth.

• 110mm • f/8 • 1/200 • ISO400 • 600D & EF-S18-200/3.5-5.6 • circular polariser •

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Tropical sub-montane forest in the mountains above Belihul Oya. Shot on assignment for Serendib, the inflight magazine of Sri Lankan Airlines, in September 2017.

• 40mm • f/4.5 • 1/60 • ISO400 • 600D & EF-S18-200/3.5-5.6 • circular polariser •

Beach Morning Glory

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Also known as bayhops and goat’s foot, Ipomoea pes-caprae sprawls across the sunlit morning beaches of Waikkal, north of Colombo. These are recent re-edits of pictures I shot for my very first Explore Sri Lanka assignment, in November 2015. My piece, Waterworld Waikkal, ran in the December issue that year.

• 24mm • f/2.8 • 1/400 • ISO100 • 600D & EF-S24/2.8 • circular polariser •

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Kumanavillu Wetlands

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Kumana, Sri Lanka. May 2022.

• 50mm • f/2.8 • 1/1600 • ISO100 • Canon 5DMkIII & EF 50/1.4 courtesy Canon/Metropolitan.

In the Light of Rama

David BlackerLeave a comment
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Looking east from the top of 600m high Dolukanda, in the Kurunegala District; believed to be linked to the Ramayana epic, the rocky outcrop is thought to be one of the herbal mountains dropped by the monkey god, Hanuman. In the distance is the Kimbulawana Lake. Sri Lanka, May 2022.

• 18mm • f/3.5 • 1/500 • ISO100 •

Beauty from Garbage

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Weras Lake, Bellanwila, after a night of rain in November 2021. Many of these lakes in the southern suburbs of Colombo, which are central features of landscaped jogging and cycling tracks, have been created by using the wetlands around the Weras River as landfills. The city’s garbage (including huge quantities of plastic) has been emptied into these marshes, creating land on which footpaths, recreational areas, and premium housing have been built. Despite the fact that the wetlands stretching south to the Bolgoda Lake include areas designated wildlife sanctuaries, much of its water has been drained by the landscaping into deep pools that form artificial lakes. While these water features still teem with birds and reptiles, they are a heavily polluted manmade ecosystem that doesn’t support many of the creatures endemic to the original marshlands.

Nature’s Roads

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In the rainforest, man must follow nature to be part of nature. The only way to move unobtrusively through this jungle is to take the road set before you. And that road usually follows water, as it carves its way through rock and tree. As Frederick Spencer Chapman wrote, the jungle itself is neutral; neither giving nor taking. Only revealing. Shot on assignment for Serendib, the inflight magazine of Sri Lankan Airlines, in the Kuru Ganga Valley, during my unsuccessful first attempt to find the Batadombalena Cave, in December 2015. I managed it the next year, and my photo story, ‘The Cave in the Jungle‘, ran in the March 2016 issue.

Unnatural Beauty

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The mountains above Ella, in the Central Highlands of Sri Lanka, cloaked with tea and evergreens. Before the 19th century, these landscapes would have looked very different; covered with montane rain forest, and teeming with leopard, elephant, and sambar. The jungle was cut down or burned, and the animals shot. British planters wanted the land for coffee, tea, and rubber plantations. A large part of what was left was cleared away by the Sri Lankan government in the 1970s, so that pine trees could be planted for the paper industry. Shot on assignment for The New York Times in December 2018.