November 14, 2021

 

Olifants Restaurant, 1015

 

Another hot, hazy day here at Olifants. Sitting inside the restaurant for a late breakfast, but I can see out on the deck and saw Valentino make an appeal to a lady sitting at her table. Unfortunately, the guy at the next table got up to shoo Valentino away. He wasn’t even pretending to protect his own table, he just had to show who was boss. Mind your own business, jerk. You don’t know who you’re messing with. Stupid binoculars and little camera guy…. I’m sure I’m taking this more personally than Valentino, who I see sitting on a branch over this dude’s table. Food is being delivered to the table, fries visible and Valentino makes a bold move, unfortunately unsuccessful. I’m fervently hoping for a moment of inattention on the part of bino man. And now, Valentino is hassling a man seated at the table just inside the dining room. The guy’s wearing sunglasses indoors and is very agitated about Valentino. He’s gotten up and literally shaken his fist at Valentino. And now he just threw his sandal at Valentino! What a complete putz. Now he’s throwing a fit with management. Wait staff won't look in his direction, keeping their thoughts to themselves. Wife and child are mortified. The world’s full of them. Jesus.

 

Moving day again.  Moving to another bungalow and losing the river view. It’s ok, but it does change the cadence of the day. Check out is 1000 and check in technically is 1500, though usually they can work you in earlier. So, no long morning drive unless you want to pack up at 0500 or so. Instead, a short drive, back by about 0900, pack and load (though with practice, I’ve got that down to about 15 minutes), check out, time for breakfast. Then decision time about what next.  Hang around nearby until noon or so and see if I can get into new bungalow or go for long drive and check in when I get back. Haven’t decided yet.

 

Drives yesterday and this morning were hot and mostly uneventful with slim photographic results. Photographed birds and had some nice light for zebra this morning. So far, this has not been a very productive visit to the Park photographically. Maybe I’m not working hard enough. Maybe it’s just damn quiet, but really no lion, leopard, rhino, cape buffalo, hippo to speak of. But elephants everywhere.

 

So, elephants. I know people who are very frightened to be close to elephants. I’m not one of those, but I am wary to be close to elephants in certain circumstances. I’ve been around elephants quite a bit now, but I still don’t feel that I understand them well, or that I can read them confidently. Elephants are big and powerful of course, but they’re also very intelligent and emotional creatures. They’re capable of anger, fear, depression, joy.

 

There are basically two general circumstances in which you encounter elephants here. Breeding herds are comprised of groups of related females and their young of different ages. This is the basic family unit for elephants. The oldest and generally largest female is the matriarch, and she makes all of the major decisions about where to go and when. When she dies, the next oldest assumes that leadership role. The matriarch possesses deep knowledge about locations of food, water, and places to avoid.

 

When young bulls begin to reach their teenaged years, they become increasingly difficult to handle in the herd. They grow in size, are precocious, sexually curious and often begin to bully other members of the herd. At some point in their teens, the adult females eject them from the herd (this of course prevents inbreeding). These young bulls then begin a period of wandering, sometimes alone, but often in loose congregations of bulls. Bulls generally are not permitted to mate until they are about 35, when they are strong and prime of life. It’s been shown that the presence of old, breeding age bulls actually has the effect of reducing testosterone levels in younger bulls, and their behavior is moderated by the presence of the old ones. Basically, the old bulls teach the young bulls how not to be jerks. When older bulls are killed for tusks or for culling, it often creates significant behavioral problems in those young bulls.  Breeding age bulls sometimes hang around breeding herds if there is the prospect that one of the cows is in estrus, but generally the bulls travel separately from breeding herds.

 

What this means is that, as one is driving around the park, there are two basic circumstances in which elephants are encountered. The first is that you find a bull, or a few bulls feeding near the side of the road. With one exception, fully mature bulls tend to be very, very chill. There is absolutely nothing in the natural world they fear. They have no predators. There is no hunting here and poaching is very limited, so they’re not generally worried about humans or vehicles. You can sit quite close to these bulls, and they couldn’t care less. They know you’re there for sure, they just don’t care. The one circumstance to be wary of is when a bull is in musth. Musth is a state of heightened sexual arousal and when a breeding age bull goes into musth testosterone levels can increase ten-fold. The bull exhibits some external signs (such as dribbling urine) but mostly they are just miserable, and they look like they feel miserable. In musth, bulls are still generally pretty chill, but they can be very irritable and aggressive. One just has to be aware and watchful.

 

The other circumstance would be to encounter a breeding herd. Breeding herds can be quite large and often here they’re encountered while driving along roads with very dense vegetation. It’s like, you’re driving along slowly and suddenly you notice elephants in the bush to your side. Maybe to both sides of you. Mothers are super protective of their young and the risk is that you blunder into a situation where a young elephant is frightened or where you are somehow perceived to be a risk to young elephants. Or that you stop to allow a herd to cross the road in front of you only to look in the mirror and find that there are elephants behind you as well. For me, being close to breeding herds is much more nerve-wracking than being close to bulls and I try to give them plenty of space.  I will also just turn around and leave if it just seems like I won’t be able to get through without pushing them.

 

And here the vegetation is dense (they’ve obviously gotten some rain as the bush transitions from dry to wet seasons) and elephants are everywhere. Every drive, I’m listening and looking hard for elephants. Head on a swivel. And, yes, there are behavioral tells - a whole elephant language of behaviors like holding heads high, head shakes, body held stiffly, tail held stiffly, etc. All of these say something about the emotional state of elephants but even knowing all of that I am not very confident in my ability to read them. And you can’t know what is going on within the herd. Maybe someone is pissed off at someone else in the herd, maybe they’re anxious because someone is hurt or ill, maybe someone has a toothache, or maybe it’s just a bad day and everyone is grouchy. I don’t know how you’d know any of that.

 

So, I give them a lot of room and when I can’t give them as much room as I’d like, I hold my breath and hope for the best.

 

Yesterday, driving through dense bush along a river I saw elephants starting to come out of the river valley. I couldn’t tell how many, but I knew it was a breeding herd (I’d seen them earlier from a vantage far upriver). I backed way up, around a bend and out of sight of the elephants and stopped to consider options. There’s very little traffic out there, but a shiny new Range Rover pulled up next to me and the driver side window came down to reveal two elderly women in the vehicle. First, I thought to myself, you guys are brave to be out here by yourselves, but bravo. The silver haired driver asked me what I’d seen. I told her that there were elephants in the road ahead, around the bend. She looked at me and said, “Must we be afraid? Can we go?”.  Like I would know…. So, I said, “I’m always nervous with elephants.” She nodded, the window went up and off she went, driving slowly but deliberately around the bend and out of sight.  

 

Well, shit. Damnit.

 

I sat for a moment and then took a deep breath and began to roll forward. Deliberate pace, determined to mind my own business and scoot through. And there were the elephants, all gathered in the shade under a large tree well off the road, wanting nothing but to stay in the shade and unbothered.

 

So, you never know. I am working to become more confident around elephants. I want to be knowledgeable and respectful of these beautiful creatures. But I also want to be as brave as those two ladies.

 

And this morning, I heard my first woodlands kingfisher. The call of the woodlands is the official announcement of spring in the bush and there are many betting pools for the date of the first call.  This year, for me, it’s November 14.