A Day with the Elephants: From Evading Lions to Milk Bottles at Sunset

No day is the same in the bush, whether we're discovering little critters of the wilderness, new growth in the bushveld, or lion prides in our path. The herd and carers discover lions in the area, while out walking through the Big 5 reserve and stop and re-route to take another path around the big cats. While elephants can certainly handle themselves among lions, these predators pose a big threat to smaller elephants, such as Khanyisa, and a hungry lion will easily take a chance. Some of the herd move ahead to suss out the terrain while the rest look very keen to avoid the trouble - including Somopane, Jabulani and Fishan, with Khanyisa in tow.

If an elephant can avoid trouble, it will choose the easier route, personality and mood depending... But on this day, no one is looking for a fight. The elephants also work together to keep their human carers safe and have often chased away lions or helped to alert our carers to the presence of lions in the vicinity. Mambo is less protective, but the others always take their guardian duties seriously and consider the carers part of their herd when out in the bush.

Adine leaves before going too close to the lions, as she is on foot and needs to head back to the orphanage. Having grown up in the reserve, she knows it and its wild things well, but she does her best to avoid a lion. She returns later with her vehicle, to catch up with the elephants who have taken a long roundabout.

The herd walk through new terrain, under the powerlines, which gives them plenty of grass to forage on. Kumbura trails after Khanyisa, protectively, taking over from Bubi and Lundi. Babysitting duties continue to shift throughout the day.

Adine leaves and later in the day she picks up the camera phone again to film Khanyisa returning at sunset for her orphanage milk bottles with Stavros. Lammie gets plenty of headrubs, while Nungu prefers to have me time. Nungu is very fond of Lammie, but not really a people's person/sheep. We're always grateful that the two companion sheep have one another as they were quickly inseparable and are always side by side.

Khanyisa wolfs down her milk and wastes no time heading in the direction of her sweet potatoes. We have never met an elephant who took sweet potatoes as seriously as she does!