The story...
I had a rare sleep in, but was disturbed by elephant screaming just behind our camp. Usually this subsides in a little while, but this time it persisted, and was very intense. We were wondering what was happening. An injured elephant? A dead elephant? Bulls harassing females?
So we jumped in the car and went to have a look. We found a tiny baby elephant lying on the ground, with a herd of about 15 animals around it. The baby still wet and the mothers back legs covered in blood. The placenta still had to come out.
We watched in amazement how the little one tried to get up, and fall, and get up and fall. And all excitement going on. About 4 bulls were attracted to the seen and were obviously aroused. Possibly by the hormones which were released because of the birth. From time to time they chased the females, causing a lot of screaming from the females.
I can only imagine how frightening it would be for the little one, lying there and seeing all those big legs and trunks rush by, and occasionally getting kicked. But otherwise the mother and others were very gentle with the baby and the mother and another female spent considerable time covering up the remains of the birth.
The herd itself was very calm and let us stay very closely without showing signs of disturbances. They even went to sleep lying down! At one point 7 of them were lying down and sleeping all around us! Not even getting up when a car started up and moved off.
You can still see the umbilical cord in the image.
I tried to send you a private message but your inbox is full.
I am perplexed as to the number of comments versus the number of views given, I really have no idea how anyone can fail to appreciate the beauty of this image and the rarity of it, totally sad.
Thanks for the comments :)
Sadly no more room below :(
I've cleared my inbox Ken. Sorry for the delay, I was a few days out in the field...no sleeping in!