The elephant herds were right where I really didn’t want them to be. They were in the thickest of bush right up in the north east of the reserve. And they had no intention of leaving the area.
Mandlovu was there with her family and Chipfongwe the Brave was keen to have a showdown with me. When he found it wasn’t working he went running back to his sister for comfort. Such a typical little boy.
I spent most of the day with them as they moved around feeding in that area. Realising they were going to spend the rest of the day there, and possibly night, I left to look for other elephant.
As I left Brutus stuck his head out the bushes just to make sure he’d greeted me in his unfriendly way.
There was a lone bull near Bandama who also decided he didn’t like the look of my face and came running after me trashing bushes on his way, but stopped at least 50m away when I stopped. Another not so brave dude.
Just before sunset I found One-Tusk and her family moving on to Banyini open area to drink at the pan. They were really nervous about moving across the open area in daylight. But once the sun had set and it was getting dark, they relaxed completely.
I had been filming them with the light from the side and usually that low evening light is the best. Well it was pretty good. But when I moved around behind the elephant, suddenly the lighting took on a whole new meaning and the scene was absolutely stunning. The elephants truly looked like they were drinking liquid gold. Amazing!
The herd left the pan and moved on past me, except for One-Tusk. She just had to come right up to the car, touch it gently, and move on.
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