At 8:30am we headed out to find the main herd down south. Originally, we had planned to head north to try and find the Orphan herd, but due to hunting taking place on Mpalane we weren’t able to due so. By 9:35am we had stopped to take signal along the side of the road when we heard an odd hissing sound. I’m not entirely sure what our original thoughts were, but as it turns out it was once again our right rear tire. The valve was faulty and air was slowly seeping out of the tire. Lucky for us, the elephants were within 200m of us, residing in the thicket. Heike drove the vehicle what we hoped was a safe enough distance away and we proceeded to change the tire. This turned out to be quite a struggle as Lionel, who had put the replacement tire on when we blew our first tire, had screwed the nuts on so tightly that we had to stand on the tire iron in an attempt to loosen each one. By 10:30am we had successfully changed the tire and within two minutes we had spotted the herd.
Based on the initial reaction of a few of the elephants we could tell that they were agitated. Buga, who is very temperamental, didn’t hesitate to let us know that she knew we were there and that she wasn’t impressed. At one point, when the herd was on the move, Buga came raging around an acacia tree, ears flared, the large infamous wrinkle in her forehead furrowed. Heike knew right away to slam the truck into reverse and back up fifty meters to help Buga calm down. “Buga”, which means “To Look”, is the perfect name for her as she stood and stared at us until she was satisfied we wouldn’t get in her way. After the herd moved on Heike made a quick phone call and inquired about the vacancy status of a bush camp nearby. The bush camp is situated on a slight hill overlooking an artificial waterhole and it was highly likely that the elephants would be stopping there to drink before heading further east. The camp was vacant so we left the herd and drove five minutes to the camp. Upon arrival we abandoned our usual posts within the Ele-Truck and carried our things into the lodge to set up on the deck. The deck had a perfect view of the watering hole and allowed me to take amazing photos of the elephants.
We waited fifteen minutes or so until the first elephants emerged from the surrounding thicket and made their way toward the water. At most, twenty elephants could fit around the water source at one time, this allowed for some very interesting behaviour to be observed. So far we haven’t seen a large amount of dominance behaviour being displayed because of the usual laid back environment of herd social life. But around the watering hole the story was different. Adult cows of higher rank within the social hierarchy didn’t hesitate to make body contact with surrounding animals, pushing their way towards the water. Mgangane, the oldest bull present at the time, began to act very boisterous as well, causing extra havoc for the herd. Aquilla, one of the adult cows, was the first to make a scene that demanded our attention. While drinking, another elephant (most likely Mgangane or another male) happened to annoy her somehow, within seconds she had turned and charged the other animal, driving him/her away from the water and out of sight behind a fever tree. The sounds she was making were incredible and the five of us were dumbfounded by what we had just witnessed. The silence afterward was deafening. Every herd member stood motionless in the surrounding area, the birds had fallen silent, and any animals within the vicinity stopped breathing. Five minutes later herd life was continued as if nothing had happened, everything was back to normal.
I spoke too soon in the last blog when I mentioned I had stopped taking loads of pictures everyday. Yesterday... I took 90. With the zoom lense I managed to capture things I couldn’t have imagined with my normal lense. Two weeks ago I was first to spot the newborn calf, and finally, finally, I had managed to get a close-up. The lense allowed me to get intimate pictures of the elephants socializing, feeding, and just being themselves. I was able to take pictures of the normally skittish kudu that usually run upon sight of the vehicle. I was even able to get a snap shot, bordering on what we may call a violation, of a warthog kneeling beside the waterhole to drink... from behind.
The elephants eventually moved off and out of sight so we decided to head further south to track down Ntini and OJVM2. At 1:48pm we found the boys browsing lazily within the thickets of Manzini. Since our arrival the two bulls have been in close association with each other, often leaving the main herd on “manly” excursions lasting anywhere from one to five days. OJVM2 isn’t as accustomed to the Ele-truck as Ntini is which made our approach and focal eventful. At first he paid us no attention as he munched on twigs and leaves, but within a few minutes he appeared to come to the realization that we weren’t supposed to be as close to him as we were... or to even be there at all. He never showed any signs of being disturbed in a way that would affect his behaviour, but he did cautiously watch us out of the corner of his eye. A few times he would move out of view but discretely raise his trunk over the bushes to smell us. Interestingly enough, when any elephant notices your presence they will instinctively pick up a foot, usually front right or left, and place a toe on the ground or move their foot backwards and forwards. A major source of elephant communication occurs through vibrations. Using their feet they can detect the slightest disturbances and much of their body language can be attributed to these feelings.
After our focals were complete for both bulls we made our way to the White Elephant Lodge to meet with a representative of the Space for Elephants Foundation, as well as Heinz, the original owner of the elephants found on the PGR. The lodge is immaculate, overlooking the Jonzini River from the North, with lush green lawns and extensive paths. Two mature Marula trees grow near a swimming pool with a huge wooden deck nearby setup with lawn chairs surrounding a fire pit. The large, spacious rooms inside the lodge are decorated with all sorts of South African antiques, paintings of wildlife, tusks and horns, and animal skins. Accommodation consists of strategically placed “tents” that are separate from the main lodge. Each tent has a small porch, through the beautiful French doors there is a medium sized room elaborately decorated with a double bed being the main focus. Just beyond a small dividing wall is a very large white bath tub in the center of an extraordinary bathroom. The canvas walls can be removed to open the entire place up to the breathtaking scenery. We also had the chance to meet Claire, another girl who would be joining us at the Loose Mongoose. Her stay is only temporary though as she will is volunteering to do rhino monitoring.
At 6:00pm we were back at the Loose Mongoose. Fortunately, I didn’t have to do data entry for the day, but instead was responsible for feeding the OpWall clan. A simple dinner of chicken with pasta did just fine and after searching online for a canon zoom lense I called it a day by 10:35pm.
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This morning I was up at the usual 7:00am but because it is laundry day I didn’t have time for a quick workout. Instead I gathered up all my dirty laundry... almost everything I brought with me... insured my initials were on each label, and made a list of the items. Laundry is picked up once a week because the Loose Mongoose lacks the suitable resources for us to do our own washing. That, and by the end of the day we are usually too burnt out to worry about our clothes. I am especially looking forward to getting my laundry back tomorrow. When our clothes are returned to us tomorrow afternoon I will finally be able to change out of the socks I will have been wearing for three days straight.
Today we ventured onto an area of the reserve we had yet to traverse. According to Heike the elephants have been following a very odd ranging pattern lately, which could be due to many different reasons. We conducted our data collection as usual and tracked the elephants from the thicket to the waters edge and back again. For most of the morning we could see them from our position on the road. After a few hours of waiting we took our third scan sample and decided to track down Ntini and OJVM2. Ntini, with his “teenage” ways, often displays curious behaviour when the Ele-truck annoys him. The focal we took was excellent, without any disturbances, but after we had started the truck for the 4th or 5th time he was starting to become slightly irritated. He eventually made his way towards the vehicle in a non-threatening manner but his vicinity made Heike turn the truck on and proceed to move out of the way. His annoyance was known based on his vigorous head shake and as we started moving away from him he decided to run alongside the vehicle, approximately 5 meters away from the road. Ntini is very womanly for an elephant with long, slender legs (for an elephant). He easily kept the pace of the truck with swift fluid strides. After about fifteen seconds Ntini finally slowed and meandered back toward the thicket. We continued to drive out of his view to let him cool off. Less than ten minutes later we drove back to try and find OJVM2 who was most likely in the area. At this point Ntini had moved across the road to a more open area and was nonchalantly walking in a large half-circle all the while keeping a close eye on us. It was very apparent that he was attempting to be sneaky with his foot antics and in the way he positioned his trunk to smell us. We never found OJVM2 and eventually called it a day.
Back at camp we were all settling into our rooms, working on data entry and various other things, when around 5:00pm Heike came running through camp. She quickly informed us that the Orphan herd had been spotted near the road just below the Homestead (in a northern direction). Like on-call “professionals” we gathered our scan and focal sheets, our binoculars and gps’s, our compasses and watches, and ran to the Ele-truck. At first we thought we were too late to spot the elephants, especially with the oncoming darkness. On our way back towards camp Abbie managed to spot an elephant in the distance, near the vulture restaurant. Instead of heading to the Loose Mongoose, we turned right at the forked road and made our way east towards where the elephant was spotted. Our first guess was that it was Kohlewe because our signal for the Orphans wasn’t very strong. As we made our way closer to the vulture restaurant the entire Orphan herd came into sight. It was 5:30pm by this time and focal samples weren’t possible due to the darkness, but we managed to take a 30-minute scan for the herd. This was the first time we had observed the elephants after sunset. We watched a few of the younger elephants play fight, watched the older cows doze off, and even saw Luke, an eight month old calf, huddle around his mother Curve. As the darkness swallowed the surrounding landscape we watched the elephant silhouettes fade into the distance and eventually turned around once more and headed home.
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