Close Enough?

Backblip #9

Another incredible day of elephant patrol!

This morning we found the Ugab small herd and G6's herd browsing together with numerous bulls, in a burnt area beside the river. It was too difficult to get our vehicles into the area so we parked ahead of them and found a small koppjie (Rocky hill) that we climbed up and all sat quietly waiting for them to come past.

We sat for nearly three hours watching them that morning! So wonderful to witness them roaming freely and behaving naturally. We saw two adolescent bulls testing out their strength on one another, babies playing, mothers eating, two big bulls nearly knock over a very large tree, and two young bulls came right up to our rocky hill to check us out. The first bull just stood for along time and them ambled off. The second bull was one of the newbies to the area. He came up to us and stood for a bit before moving to a nearby small tree. He gave it a firm push with his head and stood waiting to see what we would do. Nobody moved and nobody spoke. We were all silent and in awe. Having got no reaction from us he decided we were rather boring and proceeded to wander off and browse on a nearby tree!

The afternoon was just as exciting . After lunch we found G6's herd walking down the river bed. We decided to drive slowly past on the opposite side and parked a little way ahead. Bellatrix the matriach then decided to purposefully come over and say hello! She could have very easily walked straight past or gone across the river further ahead or behind. Instead she chose to come within a metre of the car! The rest of the herd soon followed and at one point we were completely surrounded! I had my 100-300mm lens on and this was all I could get in my frame with no zooming!