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Wild elephant bull ‘Dad’ and his two friends were peacefully enjoying water at the stockade water troughs moments before the orphans were let out, and the environment turned very busy and noisy. Dad, who loves a quiet environment, started moving away from all the frivolous babies to a quieter place. His two friends slowly followed behind him. The orphans settled for their morning Lucerne and later passed by the water troughs to arm themselves with enough water that would see them through the entire morning. 

Out in the bush, Mapia tried to challenge Galla but Galla wasn’t very interested in playing. After a lot of persuasion however from Mapia, Galla gave in and started a strength testing exercise that saw Mapia surrender after Galla turned rather ruthless. Karisa, who appeared to have woken up in a playful mood today, played with Esampu and later played with Sapalan. 

At mud bath time, Mutara, Suguta, Sities, Turkwel, Kainuk, Kithaka, Garzi and Lemoyian, who had taken a holiday for one week away from the Ithumba stockade area, were back. Sities, Kainuk, Turkwel and Suguta had really missed their baby Dololo and decided to wait for him at mud bath. As soon as Dololo arrived, he was surrounded by these girls while taking his milk. Afterwards, Dololo left with the older girls as they wanted to know how he had been while they were away. After mud bath time, the ex-orphans joined the dependent orphans for the afternoon in trying to catch up with whatever they might have missed while they were on their holiday.

It was another quiet morning without any outsiders joining the orphans. After feeding on Lucerne, Ambo, Malima and Sana Sana walked over to the water troughs where they had some water before Ambo led the way out. Siangiki had to run and manage Ambo because once Ambo leads, he can take any direction without thinking whether or not that direction is the best to take, if it has enough vegetation and so forth. Malima had a game of rolling on the ground and it so happened that Sapalan passed by and thought Malima was unable to stand up. Sapalan offered to help and assisted Malima back to her feet, though in reality Malima was only enjoying herself. The temperature was moderate and the orphans enjoyed each moment, with Tusuja and Esampu opting for playing on the ground as Wanjala took advantage of climbing on Tusuja. 

At the mud bath, Jotto ran into trouble when after finishing his milk he passed by close to Maramoja. Maramoja thought that Jotto was attempting to take her milk bottle from her and the thought of that made her so angry that she dropped her bottle to drive Jotto away. It's only after she drove Jotto away that she came back to finish her remaining milk. Given that it was quite a cool day, the majority of the orphans opted for a soil dusting exercise instead of a mud bath, but Mapia and Karisa decided to get into the water. Once they were in the water, Karisa enjoyed climbing on Mapia while a wild junior that had joined the orphans in wallowing rode on Naseku. In the afternoon the orphans were joined by Mutara’s herd and they browsed together throughout the rest of the day. 

Kilaguni was the only guest of honour in the morning during the Lucerne feeding time. Kilaguni, who is known for his gentleness and not interfering or bullying the youngsters, settled for Lucerne and later escorted them out to browse. Roi had a warm up exercise by lying down and stretching. Karisa wanted to stay fit by engaging Tusuja in a strength testing exercise. Kauro walked over to Roi and tried to get her up, informing her that she didn’t need to roll arouns and play on the ground to warm up, as he was available for a strength challenging game. Roi didn't pay much attention to Kauro however, and Kauro left when he saw that Roi appeared to be uninterested in his offer to play. Kauro then met with Esampu who wanted to challenge him but Esampu was too small for him. 

Enkikwe ran into trouble with Galla when he tried smelling what shrubs he had in his mouth. Galla informed Enkikwe to go and find his own shrub to eat and not to try and take food from his mouth.

Sixteen wild bulls were present at mud bath, a number slightly higher than yesterday. Challa reported later and joined the orphans in bathing. Tusuja and Naseku emerged as the stars of the day as far as wallowing was concerned. The two had a prolonged wallowing session and were so playful, splashing and whipping the water using their trunks. Ambo and Kauro relaxed under a tree waiting for their friends. In the afternoon, Kilaguni escorted the juniors back to the browsing field. 

It was a surprise in the morning when we woke up to find Wendi and her two children Wema and Wiva at the stockade compound. The mother of two was in the company of Kinna, baby Kama, Sunyei, baby Siku and Vuria. Wendi and her children were last seen in March this year. Upon closer observation, Wendi had the end part of her trunk missing, probably from a crocodile attack. Kinna, as always, appears to know the whereabouts of all her friends as she always surprises us by bringing the ex-orphans back who have been missing for quite awhile. The ex-orphans positioned themselves strategically waiting for Lucerne that they haven't tasted for a very long time. Malima had a small skirmish with baby Siku when she tried to remove Lucerne from Siku's mouth. Both babies felt the support of their families behind them – Malima the Keepers and Siku her mother Sunyei; after a bit of standoff, the two girls decided to make peace with each other after Siku apologized to Malima. 

On the way out to browse, Esampu spotted guinea fowls ahead of her. These are her favourites to play with, and she trumpeted and charged at the birds. The birds flew way. Esampu felt happy for winning and informed her friends that she had cleared the way for them. Bomani, Orwa and Chemi Chemi, who were accompanying the dependent orphans, congratulated Esampu for a job well done. 

Out in the bush, Naseku and Sana Sana competed who between them could pick leaves from the top of a tree with their trunks stretched up high. Naseku won the competition and it's not clear if they were doing it for fun or they were competing. 

At mud bath time, though the sun was hot, no single wild elephant showed up to join the orphans and the orphans had the venue for themselves. In the afternoon, the orphans settled to browse on the upper side of the Kalovoto River. In the evening, Meibai showed up and joined Orwa, Bomani and Chemi Chemi who had escorted the orphans back to the stockades. 

It was a lovely morning with the orphans finishing their milk bottles before walking down to the Lucerne feeding area. They all looked very active today with each baby participating in one way or another. Sapalan took a bunch of Lucerne and walked away with it, and started scratching on a rock while eating. Mapia was busy scratching his bottom on the terrace. Kauro scratched his neck on a rock with Kuishi, while the rest of the herd started to walk out to browse for the day. 

Out in the bush, Tusuja and Wanjala started play fighting while Kamok was rolling on the ground playing with her head in the air. Namalok and Enkikwe were having a conversation between themselves, and then Enkikwe started rolling on the ground playing. Kauro was digging at the ground with his tusks, digging up some loose soil to play with. Later, Wanjala, Siangiki and Karisa joined Kauro for the same game, as they found he had created quite a nice area of loose soil to play with. Enkikwe was doing some morning press-ups and play fighting with Namalok. Karisa started hugging Mteto with his trunk. Dololo was busy testing his strength against Malima while Olsekki was busy playing with soil and scratching his back leg. The rest were very much busy browsing and later they walked to the mud bath for their milk bottles.

When the orphans walked to the mud bath just before noon today, it wasn’t very hot so only a few of the orphans decided to wallow in the mud bath. Wanjala was playing with Tusuja and climbing on him beside the mud bath. Wanjala and Namalok too started play fighting with Mundusi and Olsekki separately. They all walk out to the bush for browsing again.

Back out in the bush, all the orphans looked active and busy browsing, except for Pare, Esampu and Sana Sana who sought some shade under some trees. Enkikwe and Namalok started play fighting after they felt satisfied they had eaten enough food for the day. 

Only two junior wild bulls visited the stockade today. Most of the wild elephants and ex-orphans have disappeared after we had the first few short rain showers, but we are still waiting for more rain this season.

It was another chilly morning today and the orphans really enjoyed feeding on their Lucerne grass. Mapia and Esampu went to scratch their bottoms on the stockade terrace wall before walking out with their friends to the bush. 

Karisa and Pare were really wrestling with each other this morning. Barsilinga stretched high into some trees to reach some tasty leaves, but most of the orphans were busy playing in the mud this morning! Malima and Oltaiyoni were rolling on the ground, Tusuja was busy on the other side splashing some mud on his head. Kamok was extra busy, digging down the ground with her tusks to produce a nice muddy pile of soil that she could play with. Naseku and Ambo were rolling and playing in the mud too. Later, Enkikwe, Maramoja, Siangiki, Esampu, Ukame and Wanjala lined up to drink water from a water pool they found out in the bush. 

A number of orphans walked into the mud bath at noon to enjoy wallowing in the nice full mud wallow. Kuishi enjoyed climbing on Malima while swimming.

Back out in the bush later in the afternoon, the orphans enjoyed walking along the Kalovoto seasonal river which is also running with quite a bit of water now after all the rainfall. The orphans enjoyed playing in the water there too before heading back to the stockades for the evening. Today we recorded 20mm of rainfall in the area and we didn’t see any other wild elephants or ex-orphans again today.