Sometimes you don’t even need to be on a game drive to see something rare and interesting. We were in Nxabega Tented Camp in the Okavango Delta, and as usual we had asked for the most remote room in the camp. Yes, it’s a longer walk, particularly for senior citizens, but the remote rooms are the ones most likely to be visited by wildlife. We’d not been in the camp long when we realized that elephants often came past the room to feed on grass that was thriving as the Delta’s water level gradually rose.
One particularly fun and rare happening is documented in Incident Report: Baby Elephant Nurses by Our Room. We were sitting on the wood deck in front of the tent, elevated perhaps 18 inches from the ground, when we heard motion to the side of the tent. Looking through the screen into the room, we could also see out the side screen, and there was a female elephant moving there, obviously looking for food. She was going to come alongside the deck.
An elephant isn’t going to jump up onto an elevated deck, and we were told that if one came along, we were fine as long as we stayed six feet or so from the edge so their trunks couldn’t reach. We watched, being quiet and still, as the female elephant came out alongside the deck, and we could see she had a tiny baby with her. She stopped to feed perhaps ten or twelve feet from the deck, and as she did, the baby moved in and started to nurse! We could actually hear the suckling, and you can hear it in the video as well. After a bit of time, the mother moved off with the baby. We had to call the lodge and tell them we’d be late for lunch, because while you’re safe in your tent or on your deck with elephants around, you are definitely not safe on the ground with them, and they were in the area for a bit of time.
We’ve had many interesting sightings from our rooms over time, and others seem to have generally missed out, even those in adjacent rooms. If you love wildlife find out what rooms are the most-visited and ask for them, and also find out what the lodge recommends regarding being out on your deck when something comes along. These animals are not tame, they’re just accustomed to people, but how accustomed they are and how they’ll react is always hard to predict.