Carefree world of an elephant calf: Video
Published by Wildcaster 1 year, 8 months ago Tags: africa, animal kingdom, blogumentary, cites, conservation, documentary, ecotraining, education, elephants, endangered species, flickr, giraffe, GLTP, gonarezhou, Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park, malilangwe, mashable, narrowcasting, Open Content Alliance, pamushana, peace parks, photos, podcasting, polls, teach, video, waterhole, wildcasting, wildlife, wildlife documentary, zimbabwe.A few days ago while sitting with the wild dogs I discovered a Red-billed Hornbill nest with chicks.
So today at dawn I camped out at the nest to film the adults feeding the chicks and also hoping that the chicks might break out their nest today to fledge.
Well none of that was to be. After waiting for 4 hours the adults only fed the chicks once and that was very brief in itself.
I went back later in the afternoon for a couple of hours and still no joy.
So when do these guys feed those little fellows? I might just have to spend more time there to find this out.
The big elephant herd were at Chekwa pan around midday and spent quite some time milling around in the area socialising, drinking, wallowing and just generally chilling out.
I had to film this calf just going his own way with no worries in the world as he patrolled the edge of the pan moving back and forth. What a wonderful carefree life.
The one tusk female was there again today and walked within a couple of meters of my vehicle but decided not to push me around today.
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Hi Kim — the video is lovely. It is indeed a carefree life for this little ele, thankfully. Yesterday I listened to Mike Fay’s talk for the Explorers Symposium at National Geographic. He presented Nick Nichols’ photos and his observations from their work in Chad, at Zakouma National Park. For elephants there, life is hell. The herds are reasonably safe during the dry season, when they congregate at water holes in the park. But Mike and Nick observed that as the wet season approached, the eles seemed to be gathering into this enormous herd of about 800 eles. Then, lead by one matriarch, they headed out of the park. There’s an aerial photo in this month’s NGM –amazing. But their story is very very sad — they’re travelling like this for safety, and more often than not, they get hit by poachers with high powered rifles, as soon as they leave the park. So today it’s really a pleasure to see this vlog and to know that at least for elephants in some parts of Africa, life is still as it should be. Kathy
Kim, I too read the NG article on the elephants in Chad. It is a shame what the people are doing to the elephant herds there. You have never mentioned a problem around the park where you are. Is there much poaching of the wildlife in your neck of the woods? Have you seen the NG article from this month. The photography is outstanding!
Kathy where did you get to listen to the Explorers Symposium? Were you in attendence or is it on the web to listen to. I would be very interested to listen to it if its availible.
Paige
That’s really scary about those elephants in Chad! Must be so stressful for them. Amazing how they group together like that to take on that terrible journey.
At least the elephants here are safe and very well looked after. I think the my photo of today just proves how relaxed and stress free these elephants are. Just about anywhere else in Africa if an elephant came up to your vehicle your could be sure she meant trouble.