The 2025 Botswana Journals, Ch. 42: Elephant Behavior: The Vigilent Aunties

     On our morning game drive in Mashatu Game Reserve, we come across a small elephant herd casually ripping branches off the bushes.

    Some, like the elephant in the video below, just eat the prime part without damaging the branch.   Well, very much, anyway.

    Then we see the tiny, very young baby, and that explains every bit of what the elephants did in the next few minutes.   In this photo, they have come close to the baby to protect it.

This calf is very young.

        One elephant tries to stay between the baby and us, but I managed to get a couple of shots of it in the open.

    Like us, they are heading into the river bottom.   We stop at the top of the access trail and wait, because elephants always have the right-of-way.

    The largest elephant, the one leading the way, and the one I assume is the mother of the calf, stops to look at us.   She doesn't quite give a warning, but her flared ears signal to us to keep our distance.   However, elephants also flare and flap with large ears to cool off.   There are many blood vessels in the ears, and the flapping-and-flaring cools much like a car's radiator.

    One of the smaller elephants, probably an auntie, has a different opinion, and it definitely signals a warning.   First, by reaching out its trunk and smelling us.

Then, the ear flares and the head wags.   Definitely a warning.

 

    Still signaling, it turns to follow the others into the river bottom.

 

    As we drive down the slope behind them, one of the aunties trumpets, and suddenly,  all the elephants surround the baby.

    We drive a little distance away from them, and everyone relaxes.

    The elephants have come for water.

    How near we are to the baby is no longer a concern, and it is out in the open with no elephant intervening.

Mum and calf.

A cool video shot into the sun with my cell phone.

    And there you have a primer on how elephants protect their young.

And away they go, baby and all.

Some Extras:

A small flock of red-billed teals. LIFER

Another LIFER:   

Painted snipe!!!

Can you see them?

So lucky the female decided to stretch right in front of me!!!

White-beasted cormorants

A Kori bustard

Sleeping leopard in a tree.

A steenbok, one of the dwarf antelope.

Whoa ho!   A glimpse of an eland, the largest antelope in Africa.   We've been on the lookout for them because we heard there was a large herd in this area.

The 2025 Botswana Journals, Ch. 41: The Lions

 

    I arrive at the appointed place in the lodge where we gather before each game drive.  There is no one there, not even Marg, who is always early, so either I'm the first, or I'm late, and everyone has gone without me.   (How dare they!)

    It turns out that I'm early, and the rest of the group soon shows up.   It's still dark, but we don't need security escorts because Bashi has scouted out the area around our rooms to make sure there aren't any critters about that might cause a problem.

    A nice sunrise appears as we leave camp.

    Down in the riverbed where the lioness with cubs is, we find what I assume is the alpha male of the pride.   He's sound asleep.

    Our arrival interrupts his lion dreams.

    He sniffs the ground....

...and exhibits what is called the Flehman response*.   It is, in effect, a urinalysis of the female's urine that tells the lion many things.   For an explanation with diagrams,  see this link:

 https://www.petmd.com/cat/general-health/cat-sneering-what-flehmen-response

        The lioness and cubs are enjoying the sunrise above the riverbed.

    A three-photo mini-story:

"Momma, are you sleeping?"

 

"Mom!   Wake up!"

 

"I just needed a nuzzle, Mom."

*FYI:   The Flehman response is not limited to lions only. According to AI:

• Equids: Horses, zebras, and donkeys frequently use this to identify the reproductive status of others.
• Felids: Domestic cats, tigers, and lions use it to analyze scents, often after sniffing urine or markings
  .
Ungulates: Goats, sheep, giraffes, giraffes, buffalo, and elk, particularly males, use this during the mating season.
Other Mammals: Elephants, llamas, camels, and tapirs are known to display this behavior. 

  

  A curious note:  Rhinos establish a latrine area  called a midden, which can grow, with repeated usage, to 10 or 12 feet in diameter.  Many rhinos use the same spot, with the middle reserved for the alpha male.   It is the social media center for the rhinos and the scents there provide much the same info as exhibited by the Flehman actions.

    Aren't you glad you read all the way to the end of this chapter?

    With that sweet thought, it's on to the next chapter.   It's about hysterical elephant aunties.

The 2025 Botswana Journals, Ch. 40: Leopards, Lions, and Baobabs

     We leave Mashatu Lodge in the Toyota Land Cruiser, and I can tell we're heading to the river beds.  How I know our destination is a mystery, because once again I am thinking about how utterly lost I'd be if I were to be separated from the group.

    Lost.   Utterly.   I would not know what direction to go to try to get back to the lodge.   

A beautiful iridescent skink that lives in the rocks outside my lodge room.

    Follow the road?   Perhaps.   That would get me a little distance, assuming there weren't any lions in the vicinity.  Or snakes.   Or venomous spiders.

    Utterly lost and vulnerable.

    I certainly don't need to fear the little skink that lives at the lodge.

    Since this is a privately owned reserve and entry is restricted to guests only, there aren't many trails, but there are some.  What would I do if I came to an intersecting trail?   Probably cry.  If the lions hadn't found me yet.

    My reverie is interrupted by a couple of impala stags.   I have no idea what they are doing when one raises its head and places its mouth close to the other.  Some kind of male testosterone thing, I guess.

Gossping?

   The river bottoms are my favorite places in the reserve.   Now that the guides know where the lioness and her three young cubs are hanging out, that's the first place we go, stopping for any other sighting along the way.

As usual, the cubs show evidence of playing in the water, as they are wet and sandy.

    We find a kudu and a crocodile.

    And, of course, some birds.   The sandpiper below is a wood sandpiper, a LIFER for me.

    And, one of my favorites, a three-banded plover.   They are tiny little birds with awesome eyes.   In my travels, I have "saved" a baby plover and a plover nest.  The baby was left in the road at Amboseli Park in Kenya when its mother and siblings scattered before an approaching vehicle.   I asked the driver to go back because I knew there was a reason the mother was lying in the road.   Sure enough, there was a hatchling there.

    The nest I found in a gravel pit when I pulled off the Denali highway in Alaska.   I spotted a tiny plover running at my vehicle and stopped.   The bird immediately squatted down.   She was protecting her nest, a nest just out in the open where anyone could drive over it unknowingly.   I built a "guard" around it with the biggest rocks I could carry.

    We circle back to the lions and find them resting in the shade of the river bottom.   

Mom, the jungle gym.

    In the photo below, one cub is nuzzling Mom, one appears to be nursing, and the third is playing with her tail.

    Now that you have it, Little One, what are you going to do with it?

    We come across a sleeping leopard.   She is not annoyed at our presence, but neither is she amused as she changes positions behind a log.

        And then, it's time for sundowners.

The incredible, easily recognized baobab tree with its slim, pear-shaped trunk.

    Toasting the day.

    The plan was to stay out after dark and photograph stars with the baobab in the foreground.   Once there, we realized it would be quite some time before it was dark enough to do that.

    As the Scottish poet Robert Burns wrote, "The best laid plans o' mice and men, gang aft agley."   Lots of wisdom there, Sir Bobbie.