The Ruaha river is about to stop flowing. In some regions the dry weather has been tough these months…
In front of the camp, crossing the river is now easy while keeping feet dry.
The hippo pool at the foot of the hill restaurant.
Marabou storks, yellow-billed storks, little egrets, intermediate herons….quite a few birds have shown up, but no pelicans this year, to clean the river of any fish.
I was looking for the buffaloes but stumbled on these guys. 14 elephants overflown by herons.
Now… my bazooka lens, 600mm, was left in Dar es Salaam because I was not supposed to stay here in the Ruaha park. A flat tyre decided otherwise. Sometimes there is a good side to a problem. Here I was with elephants. But the not so good side is that I only carried my point and shoot camera. A quality one but that has no zoom (Fuji X100s) but a wide fixed lens. I have to come closer, no choice. The following pictures and above have not been cropped.
Even with the wind in my back, these poor-sighted animals spotted me. I must have made some noise.
So I moved round still with the wind in mind.
One or 2 elies were still a bit wary. But they stayed there, kept on digging holes in the sand for fresh water as the river is quite dirty and not appetizing. I don’t take any bath in it these days.
I was surprised to see some bullying behaviour. One dude kept on pushing the smaller ones away to enjoy their holes, their hard work. Must be the politician of the bunch. In turn there was a lot of trumpeting. Powerful and impressive sound that gave me the chills, being only 10 meters away.
That is the closest I got. The picture was not cropped. 23mm lens, that is 35mm in standard 24x36 system. I admit I was standing somehow safely on a slab of rock, ready to run to a nearby boulder. Elephants are poor climbers, famous last words….
