Getting an early start to the day has multiple benefits – and watching a family of elephants cross the river is definitely one of them. The way the light reflects on the river makes the group look like giant, graceful silhouettes. Bodies collapse in to the water and float about, while the babies are sure not to venture too far from their mother’s tentative gaze.
We have been very lucky this week to have witnessed a mating! It was very exciting for me as an on-looker, but seemingly not so for the female. When a bull comes in to musth he makes his way to as many families as possible to detect whether any of the females are in oestrus, which only happens for a few days every four years. This particular female was not interested in the pursuing bull in the slightest, and tried to run away with great determination, without success. She was significantly smaller than his towering body, and must have put considerable effort in to ensuring her legs didn’t buckle under the weight. Nevertheless, it was quite a spectacle and a significant amount of trumpeting could be heard from the other members of her family.