A wildlife photographer was in for a surprise when a baby elephant knocked over his camera and an adult stamped on it.
Chris Bray was running a small-group wildlife photo tour in Kenya when he saw a herd of elephants slowly approaching. Knowing that the best thing to do (both for the animals and for the best chance of a quality encounter) was to give them plenty of space to pass without disturbance, he quickly put his camera down and backed away.
“I quietly placed my 360 camera down on the side of the road, hoping they might cross somewhere near it,” he says. “We drove back and waited."
As luck would have it, the herd crossed the road in just the right spot for his camera to get a great close-up of the procession. He wasn’t expecting what would happen next.
“Most of the elephants either didn’t see the camera or just ignored it, but one curious young calf spotted it as he trundled past,” says Bray. “Pausing for just half a second, he casually reached out with his trunk and deftly knocked the camera over, then – job done – ambled blandly onwards.”
But there were more adventures in store for Bray’s camera.
- Elephant graveyards: is there any truth in the legend elephants go to a special place to die?
- How do we know that elephants never forget?
“The final elephant, perhaps last as she was always stopping to investigate everything, seemed to see the camera lying on its side in the dust but initially decided to hurry on past,” he says.
“However, curiosity then got the better of her, and she paused, reached back for an exploratory sniff with her trunk, and then lifted her enormous foot and – just when I thought she was going to stomp on it and crush it – instead she simply proceeded to tap and roll the camera around for a bit before moving on.”
When the elephants had gone and he retrieved his camera, he was amazed to find that it hadn’t been damaged. “There wasn't a single scratch on it,” he says, “which was lucky as I didn’t have time to put on the protective lens guards on!”
Bray shared the adorable footage on Instagram with the caption “wait for the stomp”.
- "If you see any of these signs, back away slowly" – how to stay safe around wild elephants
- What's the heaviest land animal on the planet?
Image and video credit: Chris Bray
More amazing wildlife stories from around the world
- "The elephant crashed into the vehicle again, trying to roll it. I shouted to get out and the students slid out of the tilting car."
- Remote cameras catch rare predator in Californian forest. There are only 500 left on the planet
- Astonishing snow leopard hunt filmed in Pakistan's remote mountains
- Why 7 mummified cheetahs found in a Saudi Arabian cave have got scientists so excited
