Grieving in Kabini with a herd of elephants

I spotted a herd of five elephants at Kabini in early February this year, while one female was standing rooted, almost not moving, the other four were keeping out a good eye on us and foraging around.

The lone standing female looked ghastly, and trying to photograph her I noticed something black at her feet through the undergrowth. Mistaking it for a log and as the under growth obstructed a good picture we carried on.

A few hours later we returned by the same road, this time I had the lone female to my side of the vehicle and I got a good sight of her. Looking through the view finder I realised that the "log" at her feet was a calf. Looking at the calf intently through the view finder I realised it was a dead calf.

The mourning mother kept on caressing the calf trying to wake her up.

She picked up the baby's trunk while kicking up dust to keep the flies away.

The mourning mother being consoled by another female. The trunks tell their grief.

Having had enough of the chatter from a horrible woman with a grating voice on the jeep, the largest female in the group decided to take matter in her hands and charged us.

Confronted with an angry elephant, I held my nerve and clicked away, while our jeep driver Amjad too did not scoot, until the elephant was less than 10 meters from us. The old lady was soundly admonished by her relatives for talking, too much, too loudly and precipitating the charge. We left the place to a heavenly silence in the jungle with a quiet woman.

The calf apparently was 2-3 months old and had bite marks from an attack by a Tiger or Leopard. She had succumbed a few weeks later .

I have been charged by a elephant once too often and complacency has begun to set in, I hope my luck holds !

A moving experience shared with us by Madan Subramanian from Bangalore who blogs as The Fish Chaser . He writes in to us saying that " Nobody else spoils a wildlife enthusiast as much as JLR so lovingly does each time !"