Marula season in the Delta

Elephants LOVE marula fruit. We have a marula tree outside out our tent and it is in fruit and so we are having lots of visits from our pachyderm friends, to come and Hoover the fruit up and they are certainly enjoying them. They come at any time of day, the other night it was 0300 when we woke to the sounds of elephant marula hovering and snoring. Two elephants, one eating the other snoozing on his feet. It was a full moon and so we were able to have a pretty good visual, they were two youngsters, one of them about 10-15 year and the other 16-20 year. We watched them for a while and then went back to sleep.
The next morning we had to get up to the kitchen to meet Graham to be able to get the boma to collect dung samples from the elephants, the only problem was there was an elephant in the way!!! The 16-20 year old had fallen asleep on the path, leaning up against the termite mound behind our tent. There was no way around so we had to wait and wait and wait. We tried coughing, we tried asking him politely to move out of the way but nothing would wake him up and so we waited and listened to his snoring. Then a marula fruit fell from the tree, and he was up with a start and on his feet within a second. He had a good scratch, left us a present in the form of a poop samples and ambled on his way. A dung sample before breakfast – a good start to the day. He made it even easier for me in that he managed to get his dung on top of the path light so I did not even have to bend over to pick up a sample! Perfect.