A pile of dung may not seem the most attractive place to look for a meal. Unless you’re a Southern Yellow-billed hornbill. This bird foraging around camp explored a passing elephant’s contribution and extracted some morsels before moving on. Reasonable life lesson.
In all fairness, elephant dung is pretty inoffensive being largely well masticated fibrous tissue from tree branches. When fresh it contains more moisture than most things on the dry substrate it is deposited on so is an excellent habitat for small creatures, the most obvious of which are often dung beetles that will roll away a ball to bury create a habitat to lay eggs into, in the process accelerating the reintegration of nutrients into the soil.
Despite the obvious big stories, these little vignettes can help connect the dots of the bigger picture and make the marvellous even more so.
Photos with Nikon Z9 and Nikkor Z 180-600mm f5.6-6.3 VR
