Whenever we visit the Nagarhole national park
, we always make it a point to spend some time at the beautiful Kabini backwaters. During summers, the vast span of water body becomes home to the largest congregation of Asiatic Elephants anywhere in the world. And tourists from almost all over the world flock to Kabinito see this wildlife spectacle.One such evening when we were at the Kabini backwaters we saw
a herd of Elephants feeding at the water’s edge. As we watched, one of the Elephant slowly moved into the backwaters and started grazing at a distance. After a while we saw a young calf who was grazing with the other Elephants, tentatively splash into the water in an attempt to swim towards the Elephant, which was grazing at a distance. We realized later that this Elephant was the mother of the calf who was about six months to a year old.
As the calf attempted to swim towards its mother, the depth of the water increased and the little calf was struggling to keep himself from getting submerged. That is when we saw one of the female Elephants break away from the herd and gently nudge and help the calf swim towards its mother. We captured this spectacle in a series of images. We feel the first image, which also happens to be one of our favorites, captures the sheer joy of the calf on being united again with its mother.
