Elephants come to visit

It is half past nine in the evening; our guests are just back from a game drive and are having dinner when we hear something in the bush. It sounds a bit like growling and our first thought is lions, but it doesn’t quite sound right. Then we see a big shadow passing just behind our watering hole. It is an elephant and they can make a low rumbling sound. We see bigger and smaller shadows and realise that it is a breeding herd. First it looks like the elephants will pass just outside the light on our watering hole, but then one turns and comes for a drink. Soon a second elephant

follows and then a third. They drink a little and eat the reeds in our watering hole. Two young elephants of about eight years old push each other out of the way and then a mother elephant with a baby arrives. Although the baby elephant can use its trunk already (something that they have to learn in the first few months) it is definitely no older than one year. For over half an hour we watch the elephants and then they slowly move away. The watering hole looks empty and messy.

This morning we had a big bull elephant with a few younger males in tow. It is amazing how silent these giants move through the bush and you don’t hear them coming. Only when they start having a mud bath or start eating you can hear the splashing of water or the breaking of branches. The herd yesterday evening could easily have passed us without us knowing they were there. The day before yesterday we had a big bull elephant at the the watering hole on the other side of the lodge. We didn’t hear him coming and only got aware of him when he started splashing with the water. When he had long disappeared in the bush again, a loud noise of a tree being pushed over made us aware that he hadn’t gone far. This kind of things makes life here in the bush so special and unpredictable.

Regards from the bush

Miriam