Page 4 - Fujifilm Exposure_19 Spider_ok

It’s hard
enough
setting
out to
capture
a noto-
riously
elusive animal on film. But producer Mike Birkhead and his cameraman Gordon Buchanan had something much deadlier than the Asian leopard on their minds when they set off for Sri Lanka – the Tamil Tigers.
“I remember speaking on the phone to a colleague in Colombo,” says Birkhead, from the safety of his own natural habitat in the Home Counties.
“There was gunfire in the back- ground, I asked what it was and he said ‘there’s a battle going on here’. But I’ve been there a lot and I didn’t think it was anything particularly bad so we went. It is dodgy. But I don’t know where you go nowadays that isn’t dodgy.”
When you work in the natural his- tory field a cool head, a degree of fear- lessness and bags of patience seem essential. Add to that the crucial ingre- dient of local knowledge and incredi- ble enthusiasm provided by Jehan
Kumara, Birkhead’s liaison on the ground and the man who first
brought the idea to the Englishman.
“Jehan and I met each
other when I was making
another film,” says
Birkhead, whose previous
acclaimed work includes
Land Of The Tiger and The Last Tusker. “He said he was keen to make a film on these leopards and I was a bit apprehensive because they are so elu- sive.
“Then he showed me a tape, which was fantastic, of a leopard jumping on a buffalo calf and attacking it, managing to hang onto it despite this huge buffalo mother trying to kill it. I thought if he had managed to get that then – with our resources – we should be able to get even better stuff.
“I managed to get the BBC to com- mission it for their Natural World strand, and in the end I think we got some unique footage.”
As well as the leopards them-
Wildlife filmmaker Mike Birkhead on the trail of leopards in Sri Lanka
IN
IN
Photos from top: Jehan Kumara; inset: Gordon Buchanan and Mike Birkhead shooting in the Yala National Park, Sri Lanka; the elusive Leopard and a baby Elephant opposite page: Gordon Buchanan panning the National Park’s beach by the Indian Ocean
EXPOSURE • 2 & 3