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So yesterday was pretty exciting. Josie, Danica (here doing her phd on proboscis monkeys) and myself went out at 7.30am with Gillian Taylor and Alastair McEwan to watch them film the elephants. In the morning we didn't see them and heard that they were quite deep in the forest and it's too dangerous to go too far in as there is no where to escape! So after lunch we went back out. It took a while to find them and they decided to go and film other parts of the river like going up the tributaries, but then Josie spotted one, high on the river bank. When we got up there we saw the elephant walk off and there didn't seem to be anymore around. Gillian went off to have a look for some fresh dung to film (something they needed for the programme). After a bit Alastair went to go and get her as we were going to move on. A few minutes later he comes running back, at first I thought maybe to grab the camera as they had maybe seen more, but turned out he was properly sprinting and just behind him was Ford the elephant. We saw him fall over, but luckily she didn't seem to notice but headed for us, naturally we ran for the boat, don't worry I wasn't far from it at all. But Ford came right up to the river bank, looking down at us and Budin (one of the staff) had to try and make her back off, while sharpening a stick.... Gillian was fine and had run for another part of the bank which was closer to the water. At this point we had no idea where Alastair was, but after about 5 mins he appeared but had lost his glasses from the fall. After some time, Ford backed off and Alastair was able to get his glasses back and we could pick up Gillian!
After that we moved on up the river to try and find the main group, hopefully Ford wouldn't follow! We were searching for ages and nearly gave up but Budin decided to go down another tributary. As soon as we turned in we could see some of the group crossing. We managed to get up closer, only about 5 meters away. More elephants came to cross which they got on film and we watched them rolling around in the water, almost swimming it seemed, before crossing to the other side. It was absolutely amazing! I got a few pictures and will try and put them up now.
Nothing else yesterday really lives up to that! I did have to get up this morning at 2.30am to go out and track the slow loris. We saw him straight away hanging from a vine, but when one of the boys knocked a branch he was straight up in to the canopy and we didn't see him for the next 3 hours! We're going to try and catch him tonight though, as we think his collar may be getting a bit too small, so hopefully will be able to get some pictures of him!
xxx
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