Minneriya in August: The Gathering at Its Peak

Table of Contents

An ancient irrigation tank in the dry zone with its bed exposed by the drawdown.

August is what Minneriya is for. The dry season has been pulling the water back off the tank since May, fresh grass has come up on the exposed bed, and the elephants that spend the rest of the year spread across the surrounding forest walk in to feed on it. What forms is the largest assembly of wild Asian elephants anywhere on earth, and August and September are its strongest weeks.

The tank is also a serious waterbird site in its own right, and the two things happen in the same few hours of late afternoon light. This page covers what August specifically produces at Minneriya, what is here in any month, and what the month costs you.

Highlights

Asian Elephant

The largest land animal in Asia, and a herd crossing open grassland at dusk moves over the ground faster than its size suggests. Where: The receding tank bed as the water drops, in the late afternoon. Best: July to October for the Gathering.

Spot-billed Pelican

A pelican that fishes the ancient irrigation tanks, and one of the few large waterbirds doing better now than it was. Where: Fishing the open tank and loafing in lines along the bund. Best: Year round.

Grey-headed Fish Eagle

Sits low over the water on a dead branch for hours, then drops feet first and comes up with a fish half its own weight. Where: Dead branches and drowned timber standing out of the tank. Best: Year round.

Black-headed Ibis

White body, bare black head and neck, and a bill built for finding what it cannot see. Where: Tank shallows and the wet grass at the edge of the receding water. Best: Year round, best July to October as the tank drops.

Mugger Crocodile

The broadest snout of any living crocodile, and in one Sri Lankan park block there are more of them per square kilometre than anywhere else on earth. Where: The tank itself and the feeder channels, hauled out on the mud as the water drops. Best: Year round.

At its best in August

6 species

At their best this month: the Gathering itself, and the waterbirds working the shrinking margins alongside it.

Asian Elephant Common Endangered

Elephas maximus

The largest land animal in Asia, and a herd crossing open grassland at dusk moves over the ground faster than its size suggests.

Where: The receding tank bed as the water drops, in the late afternoon. Best: July to October for the Gathering. The Gathering is the largest assembly of wild Asian elephants anywhere on earth, with hundreds on the tank bed at once. Which tank they use shifts between Minneriya and Kaudulla year to year, so ask on the day.

Climbing Perch Regular

Anabas testudineus

A fish that walks out of the water and hauls itself overland on its gill covers, sometimes for hours.

Where: Shallow margins of the tanks and the paddy channels around them. Best: May to September as the water drops.

Green Chromide Occasional

Etroplus suratensis

One of only three cichlids in all of Asia, and the other two are its close relatives.

Where: Shallow tank margins. Best: May to September, as the water drops.

Common Picture Wing Common

Rhyothemis variegata

Flies like a butterfly, not a dragonfly, on wings washed gold and black.

Where: Over the tank margins and paddy. Best: May to September.

Wandering Glider Common

Pantala flavescens

Makes the longest migration of any insect on earth, crossing open ocean between India and Africa.

Where: Over the tank margins and the surrounding paddy. Best: May to September.

Giant Water Bug Occasional

Lethocerus indicus

Big enough to kill a frog or a small snake, and its bite is rated among the most painful an insect can inflict.

Where: Tank margins and the surrounding paddy. Best: May to September.

Possible all year, including August

31 species

The resident cast, available in any month at Minneriya.

Chital (Spotted Deer) Common

Axis axis

The prey base the whole leopard story rests on, and the animal whose alarm call tells you where the cat is.

Where: Out on the tank bed grass with the elephants through the late afternoon. Best: Year round, largest numbers July to October. The deer arrive on the fresh tank bed grass for the same reason the elephants do, and are usually there first.

Toque Macaque Common Endangered

Macaca sinica

A small endemic monkey with a swirl of hair on the crown arranged like a cap, and the most studied primate on the island.

Where: Forest edge, the approach road and the ancient city sites nearby. Best: Year round. Endemic and endangered, despite being the monkey everyone photographs. Keep food out of sight.

Tufted Grey Langur Common Near Threatened

Semnopithecus priam

Long-limbed, silver-grey and black-faced, sitting in the open on a ruin or a track edge in every dry zone park.

Where: Tall trees along the approach road and at the forest edge around the tank. Best: Year round.

Golden Jackal Regular

Canis aureus

The dry zone's opportunist, trotting along a track at dawn and howling in chorus at dusk so the whole park knows where it is.

Where: Working the tank bed edge and the track margins at either end of the day. Best: Year round.

Indian Flying Fox Occasional

Pteropus giganteus

A fruit bat with a metre and a half of wingspan, hanging in noisy thousands from a tree in the middle of town.

Where: Daytime roosts in tall trees near the tanks and the nearby towns, streaming out at dusk. Best: Year round. A roost is easier to find than the animal: listen for it before you see it.

Ruddy Mongoose Occasional

Urva smithii

A big reddish mongoose that carries its black-tipped tail curled up over its back as it crosses a track.

Where: Crossing tracks and hunting the scrub edge around the tank. Best: Year round.

Sloth Bear Rare Vulnerable

Melursus ursinus

A shaggy, long-clawed insect specialist that vacuums termites out of a mound loudly enough to hear from fifty metres.

Where: Dry forest and old termite mounds away from the open tank bed. Best: Year round, best June to July when fruit is on.

Sri Lankan Leopard Rare Endangered

Panthera pardus kotiya

The largest leopard subspecies in the world, and on this island it is the top predator, which changes how it behaves.

Where: Dry monsoon forest away from the tank bed, and on the tracks before light. Best: Year round. Present in the surrounding forest and very seldom seen. Nobody should come to Minneriya for a leopard.

Black-headed Ibis Common Near Threatened

Threskiornis melanocephalus

White body, bare black head and neck, and a bill built for finding what it cannot see.

Where: Tank shallows and the wet grass at the edge of the receding water. Best: Year round, best July to October as the tank drops.

Indian Peafowl Common

Pavo cristatus

Wild, and behaving like a wild bird: displaying on a termite mound at dawn with leopards in the same scrub.

Where: Open scrub, the tank bed and the surrounding paddy at first light. Best: Year round.

Pied Kingfisher Common

Ceryle rudis

The largest bird in the world that can hover in still air with no wind to help it, which is how it fishes open water no perch reaches.

Where: Hovering over the tank shallows and the feeder channels. Best: Year round.

Spot-billed Pelican Common Near Threatened

Pelecanus philippensis

A pelican that fishes the ancient irrigation tanks, and one of the few large waterbirds doing better now than it was.

Where: Fishing the open tank and loafing in lines along the bund. Best: Year round. The tank system holds pelicans all year, and they are easiest to watch from the bund in the same late afternoon light the elephants come out in.

Bronze-winged Jacana Regular

Metopidius indicus

Toes so long it walks across floating leaves, and a breeding system in which the female holds the territory and the males do all the work.

Where: Walking on floating vegetation at the tank margins. Best: Year round.

Cotton Pygmy Goose Regular

Nettapus coromandelianus

One of the smallest waterfowl on earth, nesting in tree holes and sitting out on lily pads.

Where: Lotus and floating vegetation on the quieter arms of the tank. Best: Year round, best after the northeast rains from December to March. The smallest waterfowl in the world, and easy to overlook among the lotus leaves until a pair flies.

Grey-headed Fish Eagle Regular Near Threatened

Icthyophaga ichthyaetus

Sits low over the water on a dead branch for hours, then drops feet first and comes up with a fish half its own weight.

Where: Dead branches and drowned timber standing out of the tank. Best: Year round. Look at the standing dead trees rather than the sky. The bird hunts from a perch and will sit for an hour.

Sri Lanka Junglefowl Regular

Gallus lafayettii

The national bird, and the wild ancestor's cousin: a jungle cockerel with a yellow-centred red comb found nowhere else on earth.

Where: Forest edge and track sides in the dry monsoon forest around the tank. Best: Year round, easiest at first light. The national bird, and endemic. Dry zone birds are duller than the Sinharaja ones and just as findable.

Brown Fish Owl Occasional

Ketupa zeylonensis

A big owl with bare unfeathered legs, because feathers are a liability when you fish with your feet.

Where: Large trees at the tank margin and along the approach road, at dusk. Best: Year round.

Malabar Pied Hornbill Occasional Near Threatened

Anthracoceros coronatus

The island's big hornbill, sealing the female into a tree hollow behind a wall of mud for the whole nesting period.

Where: Large fruiting trees in the dry forest around the tank and towards the ancient cities. Best: Year round.

Sri Lanka Grey Hornbill Occasional

Ocyceros gingalensis

A slim, quiet hornbill with no casque, common enough to see from a hotel garden and endemic all the same.

Where: Tall trees along the park approach and in the surrounding dry forest. Best: Year round.

Sri Lanka Woodshrike Occasional

Tephrodornis affinis

A plain grey-brown bird of the dry zone scrub that repays anyone willing to look at something that is not a leopard.

Where: Exposed branches at the woodland edge around the tank. Best: Year round.

Yellow Bittern Occasional

Ixobrychus sinensis

Freezes with its bill pointed straight up and vanishes into the reeds, which is why almost nobody sees it despite it being everywhere.

Where: Reed and sedge margins of the tank and the paddy channels around it. Best: Year round. Skulks until it flies, which is usually the only view you get.

Asian Water Monitor Common

Varanus salvator

A dragon sized lizard that swims canals and city parks, second only to the Komodo dragon in length.

Where: Tank margins, the bund and the feeder channels. Best: Year round.

Mugger Crocodile Common Vulnerable

Crocodylus palustris

The broadest snout of any living crocodile, and in one Sri Lankan park block there are more of them per square kilometre than anywhere else on earth.

Where: The tank itself and the feeder channels, hauled out on the mud as the water drops. Best: Year round. Muggers hold every dry zone tank on the island, and the receding shoreline that brings the elephants out brings them out too.

Oriental Garden Lizard Common

Calotes versicolor

The everyday garden lizard whose breeding males flush blood red about the head, earning the name bloodsucker.

Where: Scrub and open woodland around the tank. Best: Year round.

Sri Lankan Common Skink Common

Eutropis lankae

The bronze skink basking on every wall, ruin and hotel lawn in the country turned out in 2020 to be an endemic species, not the Indian one everybody had been calling it.

Where: Stonework and open ground around the tank and the nearby ancient cities. Best: Year round.

Bengal Monitor Regular

Varanus bengalensis

A dry-country monitor that climbs well, digs constantly and eats essentially anything smaller than itself.

Where: Scrub and the surrounding ancient city stonework. Best: Year round.

Painted-lip Lizard Regular

Calotes ceylonensis

A dry zone endemic with a red stripe painted along its upper lip, and when it is alarmed the stripe flashes white.

Where: Wooded ground and forest edge around the tank. Best: Year round. The Sigiriya rock woodland and moat nearby are the classic spot.

Indian Rock Python Occasional Near Threatened

Python molurus

Sri Lanka's largest snake, and in the dry season it lies out at the edge of a shrinking waterhole where every animal in the park has to come.

Where: Basking at the tank edge and in the scrub around the ancient city stonework. Best: Year round.

Sri Lankan Flying Snake Rare

Chrysopelea taprobanica

A gliding snake of the dry zone that flattens its belly into a wing and launches itself off a temple wall.

Where: Tall trees around the tank and in the surrounding scrub. Best: Year round, daytime. The Sigiriya and Polonnaruwa heritage gardens nearby are the classic ground for it.

Asian Common Toad Common

Duttaphrynus melanostictus

The ubiquitous warty toad of doorsteps and gardens, hoovering up insects under every night light.

Where: Tank margins, scrub and building surrounds. Best: Year round, night.

Chunam Tree Frog Regular

Polypedates maculatus

The one that is not endemic, sharing the same walls and water tanks, and the hourglass is the whole test.

Where: Buildings, scrub and tank margins. Best: Year round, night.

Out of season in August

2 species

Species that need the wetter months or a different habitat. The Minneriya hub carries the full list.

Sri Lankan Painted Frog Regular

Uperodon taprobanicus

Grabbed by a snake it inflates into a balloon and exudes a glue that gums the snake's mouth shut, and it shares tree holes with ornamental tarantulas.

Where: Temporary pools, tank margins and building surrounds after rain. Best: October to January, night.

Marbled Balloon Frog Occasional

Uperodon systoma

It lives underground eating termites and surfaces for a few nights a year when the rains flood the plains, so you either hit it or miss it entirely.

Where: Temporary pools on the flat ground around the tank. Best: October to January, night, during rain.

Practical notes for August

Late afternoon, from about four o’clock. The herds come out onto the tank bed as the heat drops, the light is behind you looking west across the water, and the whole thing builds over about two hours. A morning drive at Minneriya in August is a much thinner experience and most of the reason people leave disappointed.

The detail that catches people out is that the Gathering is not fixed to Minneriya. The herds follow the water, and in several recent years the main concentration has been on the neighbouring Kaudulla tank instead, or has moved between the two inside a single season. Ask on the day where the animals actually are rather than committing to a park months ahead.

A poor monsoon makes the Gathering stronger and a wet year weakens it, because scarcity is what concentrates the animals. A year of good rain across the dry zone spreads them out and the assembly never really forms.

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Frequently asked questions

Is August the best month for the Gathering at Minneriya?

August and September are the peak, yes. The Gathering runs from roughly July to October and builds as the tank draws down, so July is the start and August is when the numbers are largest. It is driven by rainfall rather than the calendar, so the exact peak moves between years.

How many elephants are at the Gathering?

Several hundred in a strong year, in family groups that spend the rest of the year apart. It is the largest assembly of wild Asian elephants recorded anywhere, and it is an entirely wild event: nobody feeds them and nobody arranges it. The number depends on how dry the season has been.

Should I go to Minneriya or Kaudulla?

Whichever holds the water that week, and that is a question with a different answer year to year. The two tanks are close together and the same elephants use both. Book the region and the window rather than the specific park.

What else is at Minneriya in August?

The tank is a strong waterbird site: spot-billed pelicans fish the open water and line the bund, painted storks and grey-headed fish eagles work the margins, and mugger crocodiles hold the shallows. All of it is in the same late afternoon light as the elephants.