The 2025 Botswana Journals, Ch. 44: In the Company of Elephants

    This is the final chapter of the Botswana Journals, and I saved it for last.   This is the impression I want to leave with you.    

  I was thrilled beyond measure when I saw my first sable antelope in Chobe National Park.

    I was moved almost to tears when I saw elephants pausing to pay their respects to one that was dead.

    But this day?   This day will live in my memory forever.

***

    Once out of the riverbed, we begin to see several small elephant herds.   As we continue to drive in this area of the reserve, the number of elephant sightings increases.

    Mashatu Game Reserve bills itself as the Land of Giants, with an estimated 600 to 900 elephants roaming 104,000 acres of private land.   The reserve is not fenced, so the animals can come and go as they please.    Twenty-two giraffes were released into the reserve in 1984 after they had become locally extinct.   At the last game count, more than 700 were spotted.

    The elephants under a Mashatu tree in this video are consuming something small and yellowish.  Perhaps the berry-like fruit or dried fruit. 

    As the morning progresses, it seems that all the little family units have joined with others, and what happens next will touch my soul like nothing else has done.

    I have a lot to say about these videos that I made while in Mashatu Game Reserve in southeastern Botswana, but nowhere in these words will you find an accurate and all-encompassing description of how I felt sitting in an open Toyota Land Cruiser as dozens of wild and free-roaming elephants walked on either side of me.

    I am convinced there are no adequate words that can convey that feeling.   I have a pretty decent vocabulary, as well as a number of books that provide synonyms, antonyms, and rhyming words.

 

    But I can't find a single word to describe what I felt.

     Bellamy waits for his chance to cross to the other side of the mass of elephants.   He parks us a few feet beside their trail, close enough for us, but far enough that the elephants are not impeded.

 

 

    As you watch this last video, you will see an elephant cross directly in front of me and give a little head wag.  I’ve learned from my own experiences, and from talking with guides and camp staff, that this is elephant language for “Watch your manners.   Don’t come any closer.”

    I’ve seen that head wag several times.   One young bull in Chobe National Park threw a complete tantrum, trumpeting and thrashing the bushes, then trying to run after us when our driver spotted an opening and drove us away.

    Another time, I was gently rebuked by a camp staff member at

the Selinda Spillway for trying to get a little closer to an unobstructed view of elephants drinking and bathing in a small stream that ran past camp.   The elephant closest to me wagged its head and tossed its trunk and ears.  

    “You had your warning,” she said, as she urged me to back away.

    Sit back and immerse yourself in the wonder that is elephants.   See if you can feel some of the awe that I felt.

    Note how all the elephants tend to walk on the same path as those leading.   This is quite common.   Hippos, when they come out of the rivers at night to graze, also walk on the same path as before.

This one.   Be sure to watch this in the largest format your device offers.

    Those of us who live in countries where regulations and liability laws try to vouchsafe us from harm can easily forget—in the moment—that these are truly wild animals that don’t live by our rules.

    Back to how I felt: I can only offer my heartfelt gratitude to Marg Wood and Shelly Kurtz of Marshel Adventure Tours for the opportunity to experience this.   It was truly a once-in-a-lifetime gift.

"Got milk?"

    Unlike what you would expect from an enormous animal, elephants do not have hooves.   They have toes and toenails, though the entire sole is covered with tissue.   There are five toes on the front feet, and four on the rear.

X-Ray of an elephant's foot.

Involuntary Intermission

 There will be a delay before I post the next Botswana Journals chapter.  My Internet service  is " non-existent to "slower than evolution."  

The 2025 Botswana Journals, Ch. 43: Drama in the Riverbed

    This is our last full day at Mashatu Game Reserve before we head for home, and already the sun is setting.

    I am very sorry this wonderful trip is coming to a conclusion.   I wish I could stay here forever and ever.   Or at least, the foreseeable future.   I'm getting low on memory cards for the cameras, though, and I refuse to download the photos onto my little travel computer or an external drive, and then format the cards I'm using.   That's what everyone else does, but I'm not confident enough in my tech skills and am afraid I will lose all the photos.

    I bring home the cards with all the photos still on them, even though they are also copied to another external drive.   In fact, I still have the original memory cards with photos for every trip I've taken since I became interested in photography.   I sometimes need them to restore catalogues in my photo software.

    Anyway, we drop down into the riverbed.   It's in shade, and that's hard to expose for to get vibrant photos.   Everything looks blah.

    We come across this fellow sound asleep in the shade in the riverbed.

    We aren't going to get anything from him, other than a head raise to see what's there.

    He goes back to sleep, and we drive on.

    We find a leopard, also enjoying a snooze in the cool sand of the riverbed.   She, however, gets up, has a drink of water, and goes on a walk.

Video:   (Cell phones don't record well in the shade.)

    We watch as the leopard walks along the high riverbank.

Just an aside:   I asked Bashi if he had ever seen the river cut full of water.   He said he had, and that sometimes it overflows and floods adjacent land.   As for how fast it flowed, he said, "You would not dare put a boat in it."

    Suddenly, something ahead catches her attention.

    I look upstream and spot another leopard coming this way.

        The two leopards continue to converge.    The anxiety and tension among us are almost palpable.   I'm holding my breath.

    No one says a word.   We are all concentrating on the drama unfolding before us.

        The first leopard turns, and, crouching low and using some fallen branches for cover, moves out of the riverbed.

   

    Once the first leopard is out of sight, our guide moves up closer to the second leopard.   I'm hoping she doesn't catch the scent of the first leopard, but it is almost inevitable that she will.   The two are less than a hundred feet apart when the first leopard disappears.

    Someone, maybe me, asks what would happen if the two leopards meet.  The guide says, "They will fight."   He says the first leopard is the daughter of the second leopard, but that means nothing.   

    Leopards are solitary animals and very territorial, though young females often establish their own territory adjacent to their mother's.

The "blah" of photographing animals in the shade.

    Here, the second leopard enters an area where the late sun penetrates the river bottom.

      She walks right toward us.

    And passes in front of one vehicle.    Our tension is still high, but somewhat abated by the disappearance of the first leopard.    That won't matter if the second leopard comes across the first's tracks.

    To my dismay, the leopard goes up the bank.  Perhaps she has the scent of the first, after all.  

    Our guide hurries to find a trail leading up the riverbank and then searches for either of the two leopards in the riverine forest.   We can't find either of them.

    We compare notes with each other and agree that this event has all the tension of a well-wrought movie scene.   Except, it was real.

    The river bottom before we leave it.

    The sun has almost set, and it's time to head back to camp for our final night at Mashatu Lodge.

A Brief Intermission: Behemoth's Plight

 This time of year is known in tourism as the shoulder season, as is late autumn.   They are the before and after of tourist season.

Behemoth, my Ford F-150 pickup, might be excused his confusion, as he is being asked to shoulder (how'd ya like that pun, huh?) both firewood season and litter clean-up.   The implements of both are in his truck bed, ready for implementation at any time.

Except today.  New snow on the ground and light rain have dispelled any thought of going out to pick up beer bottles and diapers.

My 20th year of cleaning up litter along 44 miles of the Seward Highway, including all the pullouts, began yesterday, Saturday.   I spent three hours just cleaning up the pullout at Tern Lake.

That's where I always begin, because the snow melts the fastest there.

Three bags and the implements.

Another view. 

All done.    There's a lot more pullout behind the camera, too.

Three hours to fill three bags!   But, that included raking up all the cigarette butts, toilet paper, and dog/human droppings.   That takes a lot of time.

The 2025 Botswana Journals are nearing their end.   Just a few more chapters at most.

Most of my time from now until snowfall in the fall will be devoted to litter.    Endless litter: unpaid job security.

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.