page_title: Udawattakele Forest Reserve
hierarchical_section_title: Udawattakele Forest Reserve
caption_attribution_description: The Temple of the Tooth in Kandy. This temple is one of the most holy sites in Sri Lanka reputed to contain an actual tooth of the Buddha on his 2nd visit to the Island over 2000 years ago.
context_page_description: Udawattakele Forest Reserve, often spelled as Udawatta Kele, is a historic forest reserve on a hill-ridge in the city of Kandy. It is 104 hectares large. During the days of the Kandyan kingdom, Udawattakele was known as "Uda Wasala Watta" in Sinhalese meaning "the garden above the royal palace". The sanctuary is famous for its extensive avifauna. The reserve also contains a great variety of plant species, especially lianas, shrubs and small trees. There are several giant lianas. Many of small and medium size mammals that inhabit Sri Lanka can be seen here. Several kinds of snakes and other reptiles might be seen. Udawattakele was designated as a forest reserve in 1856, and it became a sanctuary in 1938.
  The Sri Lanka Forest Department has two offices in the reserve, one of which has a nature education centre with a display of pictures, posters, stuffed animals, etc. Being easily accessible and containing a variety of flora and fauna the forest has a great educational and recreational value. Groups of school children and students regularly visit the forest and the education centre. The forest is also popular with foreign tourists, especially bird watchers.
context_section_description: Udawattakele Forest Reserve, often spelled as Udawatta Kele, is a historic forest reserve on a hill-ridge in the city of Kandy. It is 104 hectares (257 acres) large. During the days of the Kandyan kingdom, Udawattakele was known as "Uda Wasala Watta" in Sinhalese meaning "the garden above the royal palace". The sanctuary is famous for its extensive avifauna. The reserve also contains a great variety of plant species, especially lianas, shrubs and small trees. There are several giant lianas. Many of small and medium size mammals that inhabit Sri Lanka can be seen here. Several kinds of snakes and other reptiles might be seen. Udawattakele was designated as a forest reserve in 1856, and it became a sanctuary in 1938. 
  The Sri Lanka Forest Department has two offices in the reserve, one of which (at the southeastern entrance) has a nature education centre with a display of pictures, posters, stuffed animals, etc. Being easily accessible and containing a variety of flora and fauna the forest has a great educational and recreational value. Groups of school children and students regularly visit the forest and the education centre. The forest is also popular with foreign tourists, especially bird watchers. Scientific nature research has been carried out in the forest by researchers. The forest is of religious importance as there are three Buddhist meditation hermitages and three rock shelter dwellings for Buddhist monk hermits.
caption: Udawattakele seen in the background of Temple of the Tooth
exif: {"Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon PowerShot S2 IS", "Image Orientation": "0", "Image XResolution": "180", "Image YResolution": "180", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Picasa 3.0", "Image DateTime": "2007:10:17 18:32:52", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "210", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1162", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "7519", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/250", "EXIF FNumber": "4", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2007:10:17 09:46:21", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2007:10:17 09:46:21", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "3", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "255/32", "EXIF ApertureValue": "4", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "29/8", "EXIF MeteringMode": "CenterWeightedAverage", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "191/10", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2592", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1944", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "Interoperability RelatedImageWidth": "2592", "Interoperability RelatedImageLength": "1944", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "1014", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "11520", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "81000/7", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Manual", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF ImageUniqueID": "7e1096f610aebd0ee2d6ccc1ec8f2cd3"}