Leopards of Wilpattu

1st October 2022 at 3.39pm Two leopards at Ranawara Pitiya. N 08.32829, E 080.13578

From a distance I observed a leopard cub on the road at Ranawara Pitiya pond. A quick look through my binoculars confirmed that it was a male and was stalking a few Indian Peafowl. The inexperienced little hunter was on the middle of the road in full view and the birds has little difficulty in detecting him from a safe distance. They flew off while making their usual alarm calls. Leopard cubs start to accompany their mothers when they are around 4 months and learn the ways of living in the jungle and hunting strategies from their mothers during, the two years they spend with her. Cubs at this age has much to learn. He watched the birds fly off and walked off the road towards the pond. I drove quite slowly and reached the pond to observe two leopard cubs. One was a female of the same age. After some time, the male walked up to the edge of the pond and started to drink. The female remained behind a bush and did not join him. Perhaps she may have drunk while her brother was engaged in trying his hand at peafowl hunting. On the 26th of August 2022 safari jeep driver Pathum Neeliya shared an image with me of Percy Bendi Wewa Female 1 (PBWF 1) with her first litter of two cubs of around 4 – 5 months. Considering that these two cubs are around 6 months of age, it is likely that these are the same cubs. As this is my first sighting of these cubs, I named them Ranawara Pitiya Male 4 and Ranawara Pitiya Female 1 with the codes (RPMC 4) and (RPFC 1) for the purpose of my study.