10 Sept, 2008

Elephant herd stands in a boggy swamp to feed on fresh nutritious reeds.

Moremi Game Reserve, Ngamiland, Botswana:

It's getting hotter and hotter by the day here in the Okavango Delta. Today the air temperature reached about 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees F) with no breeze to cool down the scorching landscape. As a result of the stagnant heat, the animals were hard to find, obviously hiding beneath large bushes and under tall trees in order to cool down in any shade that they could find.

In the late afternoon when the day began to cool down, the landscape slowly started to come alive with antelope and other larger mammals that began to eat at the edge of the floodplain and drink from the cool swamp.

Just before sunset we came across a lovely breeding herd of elephant. There were two family groups with their calves; some were very young while the others were slightly older. At this time of year the interior is far too dry with insufficient water to sustain these large breeding herds, forcing them to move into the floodplains where nutritious reeds and bullrushes are an abundant food source.

The elephants were submerged deep in the boggy swamp, where (on most of them) the water came up to their bellies, while the smaller calves were almost completely submerged, just the tops of their heads poking through the lush green patch of reeds. It was clear that the herd was thoroughly enjoying their evening feed on fresh and nutritious reeds, pulling them out of the muddy water with a strong tug from their trunks, chewing on them for a short while, and then grabbing the next bunch of juicy vegetation.

It was visibly difficult for the young calves to walk in the thick sticky mud, and we watched humorously as the youngest calf battled to get out of the mud and onto the dry land. Clearly annoyed and frustrated, he flapped his ears and swayed his trunk as he found his footing, and then began to take an interest in us. He was very brave for such a young elephant and was quite curious about us. He walked towards us on his own, and began to smell us and shake his ears in a concerned and interested manner.

The herd continued to graze in the muddy swamp and then slowly started moving out onto the dry land. Walking through the dry grass and across the plain, they eventually moved off into the bush against the beautiful orange sunset.

– by Julie King, Earth-Touch crew © Earth-Touch

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