The resident elephants are best seen during the dry season from around January to May, near water sources, though not on the scale of Udawalawa National Park.
Yala elephants are dusty giants, their black skin coated with fine red dust. Lucky visitors may come across an elephant grazing beside the jeep track. Sometimes the elephant is so close that it’s possible to smell the pungent odour of its skin.
With the tip of its trunk a mother elephant can delicately break off succulent leaves and pass them down to the young offspring at its side. Eyewitnesses claim that watching a wild elephant with her calf is to view nature at one of its gentlest moments, an experience never forgotten.
