Ellies!

 Everybody who travels to Africa has one animal that they want to see above all others. For me, those were the elephants. And so this is one of the most photo-intense posts I have ever done as I just couldn't get enough of these marvelous, majestic creatures.

Like all animals, the babies are the ones that fascinate the most. The older, larger elephants seemed prepared to ignore us humans for the most part (although we had an experience in Botswana that I will save for a later post) but the babies were curious and always ready to flex their muscles. We watched two separate events where a group of elephants chased off predators - a hyena and a leopard - even though they were in absolutely no danger. Our guide said that the big animals like to make sure the smaller creatures understand at all times who is boss and that seemed to be exactly what the babies were trying to impress on us.

 Our first couple of days in Sabi Sand Game Reserve we saw quite a few elephants in small groups and lots in the distance. But on our third day we were parked near a watering hole watching a huge white rhinoceros when suddenly a large family group of "ellies"(as called by our guide) surrounded us as they came in to drink. It is impossible to describe the wonder at their presence as they came within feet of the vehicle in which we were sitting.

 Once the animals got their fill of water they seemed to want to play. We were mock-charged by a couple of the youngsters, swinging their trunks and flapping their ears as they came toward us.

 The "teenagers" in the group seemed to find pleasure in playing with the water. They would suck it up and then spray it out - on the ground, in the air and at their fellow pachyderms.

 To think that these amazing animals are being slaughtered for their ivory is almost too painful to bear.

 The last three photos tell a slightly different story. I mentioned that the elephants are king of the jungle but we witnessed one surprising exception. In the first image below you will see a small bird on the ground to the lower left of the elephants. This is a blacksmith lapwing. In the bottom photo you will see the bird defending its nest (with three eggs), directly below it on the ground. If you look closely you should be able to see the barbs on the leading edge of the wings. Two different guides told us stories of lapwings taking out a hyena by going for its eyes and also chasing a leopard. In this case this bird went after one of the elephants when it stepped too close to the nest and guess what? The elephant backed away very, very quickly and went around the nest!