Eagles

I spent the morning exploring Batticaloa city. The Dutch Fort was built by the Portuguese, taken over by the Dutch, and has a couple of British cannons on the walls. There are local government offices inside the fort but it’s open for visitors. I walked around the walls. There are great views of the lagoon. The city also has some interesting looking religious buildings, including a turquoise mosque and an aqua blue Catholic church.

After a couple of hours walking around I was melting so I got a tuk tuk back to the hotel and went for a swim in the pool. I spent the afternoon relaxing and keeping an eye on the eagles’ nest (White-bellied Sea Eagles; the hotel owner showed me the nest yesterday). The parents spent a lot of time sitting in a neighbouring tree to the nest watching out over the lagoon (see extra). Just as the sun set, they flew off – and I missed the shot because, for a second, I looked away to check if the sun had gone down. By the time they got back, the light was fading and I had to use a very high ISO but I did get an almost-in-focus shot of the eagle chick doing some wing flapping practice.


(Uploading this on Saturday morning because of terrible wifi connections. Having read the Blip community blog about challenges, I think this qualifies for the WildWed challenge. I didn’t know about that one before.)