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Godoma, the mini matriarch of the Nursery family and leader of the younger group, fully understands her role and always comes to the other babies when she is needed. At the public visit today when their time was up and they had finished their milk, the first group was on their way back to the forest. Godoma was leading the group out and across the little bridge where the water runs down the rocks and the others were following in line, all except Kuishi and Esampu who were being very playful and shoved the smaller babies to the side to get to the front. Musiara hates to be pushed around and yelled out loudly for help as he ran back to his keepers, but little Sattao was pushed into the water. Godoma was very concerned and pushed all the others out of the way to get to the little ones. When Musiara saw Godoma coming he ran towards her as she rumbled and pulled him under her neck. Sattao made his way out of the water and he and Luggard also joined Godoma as she walked out with Musiara. There was no more pushing after that as they all knew they would suffer the consequences from Godoma if they dared. At 3pm while Enkesha was enjoying soil dusting, Ndiwa accidentally stood on her trunk and she shouted out in pain. It was Malkia who ran over to check she was okay and although it was an accident she drove Ndiwa away from the area for hurting Enkesha.

As the orphans were preparing to go down for the public visit today Ndiwa, Maramoja, Ngilai, Pare and Esampu came across a gang of buffalo in the thicket. They ran towards those that were ahead of them with the keepers ready to start walking down to where their milk bottles were. This was the first group of the young ones and they made Esampu and Kuishi so nervous that they hid themselves in the middle of the group and they remained unsettled for some time. Esampu and Kuishi together with Malima came running down for their milk shouting as they ran. After they had their milk Kuishi was still in a funny mood and started causing trouble in the visiting area, running along and shoving everyone she came across. She found a bag belonging to one of the visitors by the rope cordon and mistook it for a football, and kicked it to Esampu who trumpeted and kicked it back to her but luckily a keeper got there first and removed the bag to hand it back to the owner! Kuishi ran over to the keeper and tried to snatch the bag away from him but in vain. They went on causing trouble until their time was up and they returned to the forest with the rest of the young group. In the second group of orphans Maramoja seemed to really like the lucerne pellets today. When she arrived at the ground she ran for the pellets before going for her milk bottle! In between her two bottles she took a break for some more pellets too, before returning to finish her second bottle. She charged at Lasayen and Rapa whenever they tried to share some of the pellets in that pile too.

Maktao is settling down very well into life at the nursery and has stopped his funny habit of trying to eat mud. He is very attached to the keepers and if he happens to lose sight of them for even a minute he will start yelling. Today there was a bit of a fight between him and Musiara over the keepers as Musiara is still very fond of them and he isn’t ready to relinquish all of their attention to Maktao. He has been losing to Maktao though so recently he has spent time with Luggard, Malkia and Esampu instead. Murit has always been a peace maker amongst his younger friends and today was another good example. During the public visit Ambo and Tamiyoi started fighting in front of him over a pile of lucerne pellets. He took some time before intervening as if he wanted to see if they would settle the fight themselves. Eventually he just pushed them in opposite directions and did the same thing later on when Enkesha and Kuishi were fighting over some other pellets.

Musiara and Luggard are becoming great friends and this only grows day after day. Whilst out in the forest they follow each other and they will wait for each other and walk at the back of the herd. When going for milk Luggard tries to compete with Musiara and runs behind to try and over take. Musiara also now prefers to sleep against the wall separating them during the night, so he can be close to Luggard then as well. Esampu has been taking care of Maktao recently but she is not yet ready for him to suckle her ears. He tried a couple of times today but eventually Esampu got tired and pushed him to the side. Maktao complained bitterly, forcing Tagwa to come over and when Esampu saw her running in their direction she took off to avoid being disciplined.

After the orphans had their 9am bottle feed, most went back to browsing intently in the field. However, Ndotto, Lasayen, Pare, Ngilai, Jotto and Esampu had other ideas and decided to chase the warthogs that graze alongside the orphans. The warthogs are very clever and know they have protection from the big cats in the national park when they are with the human and elephant family, but today they did not have protection from the naughty baby elephants! Ndotto and company charged the warthogs, sending them running into the bushes, however the warthogs were not going to give up without a fight and ran around the bushes and back to the field. Ngilai, Esampu and Jotto could not let the warthogs win and continued to challenge them until eventually the warthogs took refuge in nearby burrows. Esampu, Ngilai and Jotto then enjoyed rolling on the loose soil at the entrance of the burrows, making it hard for the warthogs to leave but the warthogs were wise enough to exit at the other end of the burrow and the games started again. The keepers thoroughly enjoyed watching this game of hide and seek.

After the orphans had finished their milk feed at the visiting time today, naughty girl Esampu was keeping the keepers on their toes as she ran around bullying her friends who were trying to enjoy the lucerne pellets provided for them there. Whilst Esampu was restless little Sattao was also scampering about in the mud wallow before spreading his ears wide and running into the visiting public whilst all nice and muddy. He then ran over to Maktao who was standing beside the wheelbarrow with the milk bottles, but Maktao was ready to fight him as he thought he was coming for the milk bottles as well. Maktao can be a little trouble maker during visiting time as he just stands close to the wheelbarrow and doesn’t like to leave it.

Today out in the forest the naughty girl Mteto learnt a lesson when you stray too far. She thought she would be like the older boys Ndotto and Kauro who like to browse alone sometimes and away from the others, but when Mteto tried this today she met a herd of five buffalos who scared her away! She came running out of the bushes very fast and yelling for help and she ran back to the group, but none of the group paid any attention to her as she squeezed her way into the middle. The buffalos seem to be on their way to feed on Maxwell’s leftover lucerne pellets which are discarded in the forest and they thought they were nearly there but they had not seen the older orphans. Mbegu spotted them and gave them a warning but they kept walking towards the orphans so Mbegu alerted the other members of the herd with a loud trumpet and a low rumble. Esampu, Ndotto and Godoma responded to her call for reinforcement and came charging out of the bushes from different directions. Ndotto led the group of four to drive the buffalos back into the bushes and away from the others. The family all celebrated as the four returned triumphantly trumpeting and stamping their feet. Today on the way to the mud bath Musiara and Sattao were walking beside the keepers when Musiara saw Sattao wanting to overtake him. He stopped and blocked him from passing and although he would allow others to pass he held Sattao back. When the keepers turned to see what he was doing he pretended to browse on the bushes but when they carried on walking he went to block Sattao again and in the end, Sattao had to dodge him and go around the bushes to get past!

Elephants in general love the taste of some plant roots and among the orphans there are those that know how to find them! There are those that toil away to get these roots as well and those that just stand around waiting to see if they can steal the fruits of this labour. Murit and Tagwa are a couple of these ‘scavengers’ and whilst Rapa diligently unearthed a root, before he could even have a taste, it was snatched away by Murit who then proceeded to have a fight with Tagwa over it. Rapa was annoyed with their behaviour and he gave up, moving away to browse on some nearby bushes. A short distance away Sana Sana had identified her own special root and was toiling away in trying to unearth it, whilst be watched by Malkia. Sana Sana wasn’t ready to give up and surrender it to someone else, even when Malkia started pushing her. Mbegu was watching as well and realised the situation could develop further so she stepped over to separate them and deny either of them from getting the root. Ambo seems to have been in a bad mood today as he pushed Esampu several times today for no reason. It is normally Esampu who is naughty but today Ambo seemed to be annoyed with her for some unprovoked reason. The first time she was just busy feeding on the pellets when Ambo head butted her and a keeper separated them. Then he went and head butted Jotto who was doing the same but Jotto didn’t let him get away with it and he engaged him in a fight to teach him a lesson.

The orphans began their day in a happy and high spirited mood today. As they walked out to the forest they encountered some buffalos, some who were standing and some who were still lying down. The orphans got very excited and Godoma, Tamiyoi, Esampu, Mbegu, Ambo and Malkia charged around and trumpeted, stamping their feet in an effort to scare the buffalos away. Eventually the buffalos got bored of their charging and moved away into the forest. Once all the orphans settled down Kuishi, Ngilai, Tagwa, Malkia and Mteto proceeded to join the little ones. Sattao, Maktao and Musiara were standing quietly with their keepers when these friends of theirs came to join them and as they surrounded them it was as if they were all having a serious conversation. Eventually Rapa came over which disrupted the meeting as he went to climb on Tagwa but Ngilai pushed him away and engaged him in a wrestling game. Rapa was too strong though and was playing a rough game with Ngilai which Kuishi noticed and she joined him to help push Rapa away. Together they managed to push him and Rapa surrendered and walked off to join some other boys who were browsing nearby. During the private visit today little Maktao got stuck in the mud bath and started screaming for help. Mbegu and the keepers ran over to help him and after he was extracted and righted he seemed to make fun of the situation and went back to lie in the middle of the pool again – making it very difficult for anyone to get to him! Later on Mbegu managed to pull him to the edge of the mud pool for the keepers to get him out.

During the public visit today after the first group of orphans had finished their milk bottles it was quite funny watching Kuishi who was in a very playful mood and was down on her knees pushing the plastic water trough with her head and trying to spill all the water out. The keepers cautioned her and she is a clever elephant so she listened to them and walked away, but after a few minutes she walked back to the water trough as this mission was obviously firmly on her mind, and this time he was accompanied by the naughty Esampu. They both got down on their knees and before the keepers could do anything they quickly tipped over the water trough spilling the water everywhere. They happily pushed and kicked the water trough around in a fun new game they had invented. Their game came to an end though when Kuishi kicked the trough so hard it rolled into the mud pool. Kuishi tried to pull it out with her trunk but it rolled further away into the mud, making it harder for her to retrieve it. The playful Kuishi conceded defeat as she stood on the edge of the mud pool and trumpeted as she watched the water trough float around on the surface of the muddy water, out of reach.