Amatha: A young wildlife enthusiast

24 Oct 2021

Amatha: A young wildlife enthusiast

24 Oct 2021

By Kusumanjalee Thilakarathna Today on the Little Stars spotlight is young wildlife enthusiast Amatha Mendis Wickramasinghe who has a special interest in breeding fish and wildlife photography. Amatha is the elder brother of Gagana Mendis Wickramasinghe – the young BBC wildlife photographer of 2020. Amatha too was a finalist in the same competition under an advanced age category. Amatha, can you introduce yourself to us? I am Amatha Mendis Wickramasinghe and I am from Hendala, Wattala. I attended school for a short period and now I’m homeschooling with my brother Gagana. I like ornamental fish. I study about them and I do ornamental fish breeding at home. It’s my main hobby next to photography. I do martial arts – Kyokushin and swimming. I am also studying music. My father is L.J. Mendis Wickramasinghe and my mother is Nethu Wickramasinghe. I have a younger brother and a younger sister. Since when do you breed fish? I always loved to learn about different breeds of fish. But I properly started my attempt at breeding fish a little over a year ago. What is your favourite fish breed? Fighters are my favourite breed. I find them very beautiful with all the colours and the gorgeous tail. Can you give us some tips about maintaining a fish tank at home? Some say it’s very easy to have fish as pets. But that’s not the real case. You have to keep a closer eye on them if you keep them as pets. Any small behaviour change might indicate an illness or something wrong with the water quality. Especially if you have fighters, maintaining water quality is the number one priority. Fighters are a very social breed but they also prefer super clean water. A little change in the water quality can make them sick. Since when do you practice martial arts? Since 2016. Kyokushin has different belts as a grading system. I am still in the second level. Due to the covid pandemic, we couldn’t continue our practices properly. So, photography is your second hobby. Isn’t it? Yes, it is. I first got interested in photography because of animals. We learn about animals and photographs help us to keep a log of their behaviour. I actually fell in love with the beauty of the animals we observed and I wanted to keep them photographed. Your brother Gagana talking about his award-winning photo of the parrot chicks said that it was you who first started clicking photos of the parrots. Can you tell us more about it? Yes. There is a dead areca nut tree in our backyard. I liked to watch what happens with it. I noticed a woodpecker pecking into the tree. Woodpeckers peck into trees in search of food or to create a nesting site. After a while, the woodpecker left and I observed the mother and father parrots coming to this tree. I understood that they must be looking to lay eggs in the tree cavity. So, I was on the lookout. After a while, we could see the little parrot chicks and how the mother and the father fed them. I started taking photos from our garden but I wasn’t satisfied. So, I went to our neighbour's house and tried taking photos from their balcony. And from there we could capture photos from the perfect angle. You seemed to have observed the dead areca nut tree for a very long time. Can you share what you observed with us? Well, I observed that there was much demand for the cavities in the dead tree. There were three to four cavities in this dead tree. Birds like woodpeckers come looking for food, birds like parrots come looking for nesting sites. I believe this demand is because these birds don’t have many places where they can find food or lay eggs. I feel like there is a competition for breeding places among these species. Is there anything we should keep in mind when we click photos of the wildlife? You shouldn’t disturb the natural order of things in the wildlife. That’s the main thing. And whatever you do shouldn’t disturb the wildlife. You are just an observer there, not a part of that system. Like when you use the camera flash. Do you often go out to visit places to take photos of the wildlife? Not very often. We mostly take pictures from home. But when our father travels for his research work, we join him; especially when he goes out to catch reptiles like snakes. Aren’t you afraid to handle snakes? Not really. We are quite experienced in doing that. But our father still doesn’t let us handle venomous creatures. We don’t encourage others to handle snakes. If you don’t know if the snake is venomous or not, you shouldn’t try to stay safe rather than trying to catch it or study it. People panic when snakes slither into a house. Do you have any advice for them? Well, like I said if it is venomous you have to look for a way to get rid of it without harming it. You can get the help of the wildlife department or the zoo to do so. If it is not a snake that can harm you, you can let it move out without causing any harm. Snakes are attracted into houses when there are house rats, frogs, or lizards in the house. So, if you keep the house clean you might not face this problem. Also, remember not to use kerosene oil to get rid of the snake. Kerosene oil harms the skin of the snakes and it can even kill them. Snakes are an important part of our ecosystem, so we must not harm them. Would you like to share your homeschooling experience with us? It's been a really good experience for me so far. It saves us a lot of time. So, we have more time to engage in our hobbies. And we get to learn what we like to learn too. It is very good news for my fish breeding hobby too. I have a relaxed schedule to watch over them, which is quite essential in the process. If I had to go out, I might not have had the freedom to do that. What I like to study the most is animals with a special interest in reptiles and amphibians. You spend a lot of time with your brother Gagana. Would you like to add something about that? Yes. We do homeschooling together and we have a common interest in photography and animals. It’s fun to engage in these activities with him. I’m not saying that we don’t fight at all. We do fight sometimes. But we are the best of friends too. That’s how brothers are. Aren’t they? Photos © L.J. Wickramasinghe

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Amatha: A young wildlife enthusiast

Amatha: A young wildlife enthusiast

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