My Experience with Leopards of Horton Plains

Horton Plains is a place which is close to my heart and arguably would be my favorite place in the world. The land of mist and rain, of rolling green hills and dark cold forests. This is one place which always held a mystery with it, and an emotion hard to describe. I have been travelling to this park since I was very young, and in-fact my family have taken me even as a 3 month old infant on the regular trails of this beautiful park. But very few have truly attempted to catch a glimpse of its unique wildlife up close and spend time focusing on finding the rare, elusive and endemic until recently. Few people are aware that the park has a thriving leopard population, as very few are lucky enough to catch a glimpse of these elusive predators.

Hence determined to see one, myself and my friend Hamid made our way one March to spend 3 days in the park in the hopes of photographing a leopard. We had booked the Maha Eliya Bungalow which is located right in the heart of the plains and a good launching pad for our search.On the first night itself we had our first encounter, as Hamid went out to where he has parked his pick-up truck to charge his phone and suddenly noticed a large male leopard seated in front of the car watching him. When he turned his flashlight the leopard had disappeared into the darkness. Skeptical of this I went ahead on the path in front of the bungalow to check for tracks and noticed the pugmarks confirming the incident. The next day we were up early and set off on our drives along the park main road from the bungalow all the way to the Pattipola Entrance gate, and then back towards the Park Office and to the Ohiya Entrance Gate. This is known as the best stretch of road where leopards have been seen. The mornings were bitterly cold and very misty hence we found it tough to get a good view, but we heard a few alarm calls of Sambhur who are the leopards main prey but didn’t get any sightings.

That evening, we were driving around, and the weather was great with no mist and good light. We were driving towards the Park Office, and were observing how good the light was on the left side of our vehicle where there was a wide open valley, when something caught Hamid’s eye on the right. It was a leopard sitting by the roadside just watching us pass by. He hit the brakes pretty hard and I went flying forward as I was not wearing a belt at the time. In Hamid’s excitement he accidently pressed the horn while trying to take out his camera, and the shy cat walked into the bush. But it wasn’t particularly alarmed as it walked away calmly. We waited at that spot, scanning the area for a very long time, but to no avail, and hence turned back and was heading towards our bungalow when we heard some Sambhur alarm calls ahead, and when we drove to the spot we observed the directions the herd of Sambhur were looking at and out came this gigantic male leopard. It was easily the biggest leopard I had ever encountered, and the color was a beautiful golden yellow. The leopard was quite a distance away on an opposite hillock and was walking away from us. I managed to capture two blurry images of the cat as it moved out of sight. We were in disbelief, our first sightings of leopards in Horton Plains, and how magnificent they were.

The next day was uneventful, but on our last morning drive, while driving towards Arrenga Pool from the Maha Eliya side, there comes an opening where there is a valley on the right which extends all the way to the Thotupola Kanda forest tree line, and immediately as we reached there, Hamid with is amazing eye sight spotted a big leopard peeping from the forest edge, but took some time to maneuver his pick-up truck to the side of the road by which time the leopard once again slid back into the dark forest. We were kicking ourselves and thinking what an amazing shot it would have been, when the leopard once again came out, and this time I had made a fatal error in sitting on the passenger side on the left, hence I had to get down from the vehicle to get a clear shot. By the time I did that, I missed the shot again. Thankfully Hamid had taken a brilliant photograph of the large male leopard. I immediately went to the back seat where I can get a view of the right side window and waited. We knew the cat is in the bush and will most likely come out once again. We waited for over half an hour, and suddenly heard a belting of a Sambhur as a young deer leapt out of the bush followed by the leap of the leopard as it reached out to grab its prey. But missing its reach, it jumped back into the bush further away. This was some amazing action we were witnessing. Another several minutes later, we suddenly noticed the leopard has appeared in the open plains, hidden in the tall grass. We could barely make out the head as the sun was very bright and at that angle was proving quite difficult to photograph. After several minutes the shadowy shape disappeared from our sight once again. Despite not having any photographs of the sighting, I was exhilarated and in awe of what we had just witnessed. Especially because we have come to this park so many times throughout the years and had never ever thought we would witness something like this. I think in hindsight it is because we don’t look out for such things and the leopards in general are always around and if one with keen eyes does make the effort it would appear. It is up to the observer to make it so.

Notice the head of the leopard hiding in the grass

Following this trip, I made several visits subsequently, but with no luck, mainly due to the thick fog which makes sightings impossible. This was until a trip we made in 2018 when we stayed at the Wildlife Department Dormitory, a very basic establishment but also a good place to locate oneself strategically to try for leopard. The days went by, without any luck. But we did get a great sighting of an Eurasian Otter swimming quite freely in the Arrenga Pool. Our group consisted of my friend Hamid and his son Nasir, as well as my best friend Chathuranga fondly known as “Chatta”. On our last evening we drove towards the Maha Eliya plains, and noticed a car with some photographers were already waiting in anticipation of a sighting. This was the same area where we saw the big male leopard walking in my first encounter few years before. We decided to drive up ahead and turn the car around and come back, and when we did we were all focusing elsewhere when Chatta suddenly said “what is that” and pointed towards the grass. We saw then that it was a leopard peeping from the grass and looking straight at some Sambhur who hadn’t noticed it yet. Without a seconds thought, we began clicking our cameras as we knew the moment would last only a few seconds. As predicted the shy cat turned back and went into the deep forest. We were very lucky thanks to my friend Chatta in spotting this, as other car despite being in a similar viewing position didn’t notice it.

 Subsequent trips to this amazing place hasn’t proven lucky with regards to leopard sightings, but it is always an unbelievable experience to travel to Horton Plains and to spend time in this amazing mountain wilderness.