TThhee EElleeggaanncceeooff tthhee SSaarr ii

Saskia �ernando Gallery

�Monday 8th November, 2010Thursday 30th December, 2010 3

Hundreds of school chil-dren participated in awildlife conservation

awareness exhibition heldrecently at the SriSusuriwardhanarama Temple,Kahahena, Waga. The exhibitionwas organized by the ‘Friends ofKalu Wandura’ with the help ofthe Field Ornithology Group ofSri Lanka, Department ofWildlife Conservation, Young

Zoologists’ Association, YoungBiologists’ Association and the‘Haritha Diyatha’ Association. Itfocused on the conservation ofthe western purple-faced langur,which is endemic to Sri Lanka,yet listed by international organ-izations like the IUCN as one ofthe 25 most endangered primatesin the world. The exhibition alsohighlighted the need to conserveSri Lanka’s ecosystems and bio-

diversity, particularly specieslike the elephant, leopard andlocal birds, butterflies andmarine turtles. School children’spaintings of wildlife and excel-lent video documentaries on SriLanka’s fauna presented by theDepartment of WildlifeConservation staff were alsoimportant components of theexhibition.

The exhibition was formallyopened by P. D. F. Wijeyaratne,Divisional Secretary forHanwella and Professor SarathKotagama of the Department ofZoology, University of Colombo.Both of these people andKahahene Sri Medhanandathera, the chief incumbent of theWaga temple reminded theschool children that they wouldbe the primary beneficiaries ofconservation and encouragedthem to be actively involved inprotecting Sri Lanka’s wildlifeand wild places. KasunDayananda of ‘Friends of KaluWandura’ promised to support

the schoolchildren’s conserva-tion activities, and mentionedthat similar programmes will beinitiated in other areas withinthe range of the ‘Kalu Wandura’.He also thanked the other organ-izations that participated in theexhibition and local governmentofficials and school staff for theirsupport and Dr. Rudy Rudran,Scientist Emeritus, SmithsonianInstitution, for raising fundsfrom the Margot MarshFoundation and the Mohamedbin Zayed Species ConservationFund to hold the exhibition.

The formal ceremonies cameto an end with the distribution ofprizes to school children who hadparticipated in conservationrelated art, essay, cartoon andpoetry competitions held earlier.The faces of the 94 prize winnersreflected renewed commitmentto conservation and happiness atbeing recognized for theirefforts, while the others were leftwith hopes of being recognizedin the future.

The University of Peradeniya-Jayatilleke Hall Allumni Get-togetherwill be held at the Lion’s Club Auditorium, (behind Vidya Mandiraya -SLASS) on Vidya Mawatha, Colombo 07, from 9.00 a.m. to 2.30 p.m. onJanuary 08, 2011. J’Hall Allumni are invited to participate in this Get-together with their family members. Contact Savimon Urugodawatta(2813797/2856490), S.M. Gnanaratne (2788449/0777-513937) or A. M.Karunaratne,(2586533) to confirm your participation.

Savimon Urugodawatta (E’mail

The charming YashodhaWimaladharma, SriLanka’s well knownand award-winningactress takes cen-tre stage on PrimeTV’s “Celeb Chat’in its maiden showin the New Year.

Fluent in English and Sinhala andHindi and French, listen to Yashodachat about her life and work with hostKumar de Silva at 9.30 pm onMonday 03 January 2011.

An ardent follower of the

‘Stanislavsky’ method of acting andequally at ease on stage, and onboth the small and big screen,Yashoda celebrates 25 years as anactress, saying “I’m richer by theexperience”.

“Having incarnated so many dif-ferent and contrasting charactersover 25 years, At times I don’t findthe time to be Yashoda …. and thatcan be quite problem”, she says

quite seriously. All this and loads

more as Nayanacomes under the spot-light on Prime TV’s“Celeb Chat’.

REPEATS :Tuesday 04 January at

3.00 AM, 11.00 AM and 8.00 PMWATCH the LIVE STREAMING

on the INTERNET = www.primetv.lk

You can catch Prime TV on UHF24, Channel 75 on Dialog TV and onPEO TV.

BY PABODHA HETTIGE

The birding season has begunand feathered winter visitorsare arriving in the country.

However, bird watchers say thenumbers have decreased.

“The birds counted in hun-dreds last year, have been reducedto a handful. The reason is notclear,” environmentalist, Jagath

Gunawardena said.Species such as the Common

Sandpiper, the Barn Swallow, theBrown Flycatcher, the CurlewSandpiper, the Blue Tail Bee Eater,the Golden Sand Plover and theWhiskered Tern, have alreadybeen recorded in the suburbs ofColombo.

The Common Sandpiper, who isthe first to return and last to leave,Blue Tail Bee Eaters, Grey andYellow forest Wagtails, Brown andBrown Breasted Flycatchers, arethe most common and regular visi-tors to the island. These migrantvisitors are divided into four cate-gories – uncommon winter visi-tors, rare winter visitors, vagrantsand stragglers.

Sri Lanka is blessed with over430 bird species and 198 specieshave been recorded as migrants tothe country. Of these species,about 100 species are regular visi-tors. Migration takes place duringthe northern winter and the birdsare present from August to April.

In contrast, pelagic speciesof sea birds likeShearwaters, Petrels andStorm – Petrels,migrate to SriLankan watersfrom theSouthern

Oceanic islands during the south-ern hemisphere’s winter.

Year after year, these visitorsreturn to the same restricted local-ity and also to the identical site intheir wintering quarters. Theamazing regularity and punctuali-ty of the arrival of winter birds inSri Lanka has been recorded bythe observers, in different parts ofthe country, over the years.

“Two Brown flycatchers,believed to be the same birds, havebeen observed returning to a par-ticular home garden for two con-secutive years,” Gunawardenasaid.

Bird ringingThe National Bird Ringing

Programme was launched in 2005by the Field Ornithology Group ofSri Lanka (FOGSL) at the BundalaNational Park, in collaborationwith the Department of WildlifeConservation, President FOGSL,Prof. Sarath Kotagama said.

“This is the fifth consecutiveyear that we are conducting thisprogramme and it is con-ducted only at Bundala,”he said.

Bird ringingprogrammesare con-ductedto

understand bird migration, whichis a special phenomenon in theanimal world.

Bird ringing, or bird banding,is a technique used in the study ofwild birds. It is done by attaching asmall, individually numbered,metal or plastic tag to their legs orwings. This allows various aspectsof the bird’s life to be studied byallowing the study of the samebird repeatedly.

Bird flight pathsSri Lanka is situated at the

extreme southern point to thesouth of India, making the islandthe final destination for migrantbirds. There are three flying routesacross India to Sri Lanka. Veryoften birds take the same routesfor years.

The birds from western regionslike Europe, West Asia andWestern Siberia arrive in theisland across the coastal linebetween Mannar and Kalutara,using the western route, saidGunawardena. The eastern routeis used by birds migrating fromthe Northern and North Easternparts of the world.

Ornithologists believe that thePurple Kingfisher, PhilippineShrike and Long Toad Stintmigrate through the AndamanIsland route, though it has notbeen verified.

When and where to watch birds

Between October toMay, is the besttime for birdwatching,since

all the winter visitors to the coun-try are present, trekker and birderPrasanjith Caldera said.

A noteworthy feature in SriLanka is that different types ofbirds are seen in one flock. Thismakes watching birds interesting,since one can carefully observe theinteractions between differentspecies, he said.

Sri Lanka is home to a largenumber of birding sites. Bundalais known as the best, since alarge number of migrantspecies, includingall the aquat-ic win-ter

visitors, can be observed there.The Singharaja world heritagewilderness area, Yala, Udawalaweand Horton Plains national parks,are also good for bird watching,Caldera said.

“Though Sri Lanka is a para-dise for bird watching, the numberof birds still remains stagnant andonly seven to eight toursare done

throughout the season,”he said.

There is a veryinsignificant demand forbirding tours from the for-eigners visiting the coun-try and the handful ofbirders prefer seven to 14day tours.

Winter visitors seeking sunshine

University of Peradeniya Jayatilleke HallAlumni Annual Get – together

Yashoda Wimaladharma opensPrime TV “Celeb Chat” in 2011

Testing people’s intelli-gence has a chequeredand controversial history.

Roger Highfield takes a look atthe latest methods.

You might think that thebiggest ideas in science comefrom asking the biggest ques-tions. Not always. If the bigquestion is the wrong one, itcan pave the way for an evenbigger controversy.

Perhaps the best examplecomes from an apparently inno-cent question: why are somepeople more intelligent thanothers? Nothing wrong withthat, surely? We all know a fewclever-clogs types who playScrabble backwards and seemto know all the answers whenwatching University Challenge,after all.

The difficulty is that “intelli-gence” is not a very smart word.Unlike weight, there is noabsolute measure of intelli-gence, just as there is no truegauge of honesty. When youcombine such a slippery wordwith an equally slippery one –namely “race” – you end upwith the notorious claim thatintelligence tests prove thatsome racial groups are geneti-cally inferior.

This wrong-headed idea

dates back years. FrancisGalton (1822-1911), a pioneer ofintelligence testing, also found-ed the Eugenics Society, whichset out to “improve” the geneticcomposition of the population –a philosophy that helped toinspire the Nazis’ extermina-tion of “undesirable” groups.

Sadly, the notion survived itsmost brutal exponents. In theSeventies, the psychologistsArthur Jensen and HansEysenck asserted that blacks

have IQs lower than whites. Inthe Nineties, the AmericanRight-winger Charles Murraysuggested that the lowest levelsof society would always be “theunderclass”, held back byinnate differences in mentalcapability.

This is, unsurprisingly,absolute poppycock. From a sci-entific point of view, the notionof race is meaningless. Geneticdifferences do not map neatlyon to traditional measurementsof skin colour, hair type, bodyproportions and skull measure-ments. In fact, a person who isconsidered black in one societymay be non-black in another.

However, just as it is appar-ent that some people look dark-er than others, it is equallyapparent that some people areindeed smarter than others.And just as there are tests thatcapture our differences in phys-ical fitness, we are able todevise those that capture differ-ences between our cognitiveabilities, most of which demandthe performing of various men-tal tasks.

The best-known of thebunch is for intelligence quo-tient, now most commonlymeasured using the WechslerAdult Intelligence Scale. Thefirst version of this was pub-lished in 1955 by the Americanpsychologist David Wechsler: init, the results from a 90-minuteexamination of comprehension,vocabulary and arithmetic arecombined to derive a final IQscore.Emmanuel College, Cambridge on University Challenge: this is what clever people look like.

IQ testing, race and controversy:put your intelligence to the test

An Exhibition toPromote Wildlife

Conservation