Elephant Vocalisations

Sharing elephant vocalisations recorded in Upper Barhakamuda salt lick in Similipal National Park. This was recorded in the night. Light was too low for me to shoot anything. However, later I shot something with torch light, but that tale will be told some other day.

You can hear various vocalisations of the elephant herd along with digging of mud. You may refer to the book reivew of the book The Asian Elephant - A Natural History by J. C. Daniel. http://www.indiawilds.com/diary/the-...tural-history/ I have gleaned portions about elephant vocalisations written by Shri. M. Krishnan. Hope you enjoy.
Sound recorded with Sennheiser MKH 416 microphone to a Sound Devices SD702T recorder.
Cheers,
Sabyasachi

Nice. Did you record this from top of the bunker?
UBK was where I had sighted my first tiger in 1990 as a 5 year old. Similipal is where my love for the wildernesses basically started. Lovely memories of the place. A dwindling prey base from uncontrolled and extensive poaching and mismanagement is however ringing warning bells for the park.

I was inside the bunker. It was a moonless night. It was interesting listening to the various noises made by the elephants some of which can be mistaken as human noise. Later the elephants came inside the compound. :)

Similipal is facing a tough situation. It needs protection and strong leadership.

Amazing. I can almost see myself there during all this.

super clarity sir. was this a large herd from what you could make out??
TFS
Roopak

Roopak,
This was a small herd of 8 elephants. One of them had killed a forest department staff who had gone to put salt in the salt lick. Though one should not be harshly judging mistakes of dead men, this person was putting salt when the elephants were nearby. One small calf came close to this staff and he is supposed to have tried to offer salt to the calf with his own hand. The mother perhaps suspected that this person is handling the calf and charged. He ran away but his slippers had fallen off. After sometime, he again came back to retrieve it and faced a fatal charge.

The kind of sounds the elephants were making was very interesting to hear. Unfortunately, I couldn't record for a long time because the Ranger decided to switch on his TV set (Yes, you are reading it right. He had a TV set powered by solar charged batteries for his entertainment). :(

One trumpeting, one roaring, to my mind mixed with softer sound of pleasure most of the time...........Very nice. Thanks for sharing.SaktiWild