Heffalumps!!!!

"Heffalumps" is the delightful child's name for elephants, first encountered in the book "Winnie-the-Pooh" by A A Milne en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heffalum…. Somehow it fits those wonderful creatures found in many parts of Africa (threatened in some areas), and on the Indian Sub-Continent. The African Elephant has the genus name Loxodonta and if I asked you what is the most characteristic feature of an elephant, many of you would reply that elephants are big - very big, in fact, the biggest land mammal in the World. Fully grown males are 3-4 metres in height, and can weigh up to 6 tonne; fully grown females are up to 3 metres tall and weigh up to 3 tonnes. We humans are tiny in comparison. Yet, look at the two images below. The first shows a fully grown female strolling past a baobab tree (about 3000 years old), and the second a small family with fully grown females and some youngsters eating and drinking at the edge of the swamp area in Tarangire National Park, with an extinct volcano way in the background. These two images exemplify one of the lessons I learnt in Tanzania - the importance of scale in the sweep of Africa. No matter that we think elephants are big - there is always something bigger!


  


Photographically, elephants turn out to be a bit of a problem. The bulk of an elephant tends to fill the frame, unless provoked they don't do anything particularly fast, and elephants are grey - a mid tone rather dull grey. They do, however, have very textured skin, individual looks, and their own personalities. For interesting images we have to rely on the positives, on any action, and on anything unusual. Add a dash of post-processing magic, and we have much more dramatic presentations. Here's what I mean. In the first image below, we have a young mother on the left, a first born daughter in the middle, and a very young female on the right - an interesting grouping. How do I know that they are all females? Well, just above the eyes of females the skull is indented, as if pushed in. Males have a completely rounded skull. Even the very young elephant here shows some indentation in that area. The following image shows a larger all female group, with animals of various ages, keeping a wary eye on us. All female groups are the norm with elephants in Tarangire, and indeed most places. Bulls are free roaming animals and normally only appear at large gatherings or when females are in oestrus. Older males may link up with herds for more prolonged periods if the herd is going on a prolonged trek or if young females need protection from marauding bulls. In the group below, the female on the left with the squint tusks is probably the matriarch, normally the oldest and most experienced female. All the others will follow her lead, as she issues commands by posture, movement, and low almost sub-audible (to human ears) sounds.

  


Guess which is the matriarch in the group on the left below. Hint, she has an eye on you! A few minutes previously this group was trekking across the plain, much like those in the next image. Then, at an inaudible command from the matriarch, they all turned, in time, to their right and advanced on the water hole.

  


There's nothing like a good drink for an elephant, next image, and rolling in the water and mud is just as good, especially if you are a young elephant. The mud bath is usually followed by a dust bath where the elephants use their trunks to blow dust over themselves. The mud and dust baths are essential behaviours as the mud and dust coatings protect, to some extent, the elephants from insect bites. What to our eyes seems curious behaviour such as curling the trunk around itself, or carrying the trunk over one tusk, is common with elephants, presumably because it lightens the load on the head and neck.

    



Of course, favourites for visitors and photographers are the youngsters, and a suckling baby elephant is one of the iconic heffalump photographs.


           


I guess that's enough from the heffalump world of elephants, but here's one final shot.




Cheers

David aka Okavanga