I have no idea about the actual identity of this species — and I think these are buds rather than the mature plant — but tell me you don’t think the name is appropriate. Look at the one third from the right on the stalk, it even has an eye in the right place.
I said yesterday I was off travelling somewhere, and here I am, on my second visit to Nairobi. It is for work (lucky me), but today was a morning off, so with my colleagues, we visited the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust just outside the city, where there is an orphanage for young and baby elephants. There are around 20 being cared for there, ranging from three months to a few years old. Some of them have lost their mothers to natural causes, but the majority are there because of human depredations. It’s a tourist attraction of course, but a very worthy one. No one needs ivory, for any reason at all.
I like this picture because of the apparently happy smile on the faces of both these youngsters. I was trying to get pictures without the crowd of people in the background (which I was, of course, part of) but here the just-visible heads give it a sense of scale, I think. May these children get the chance to grow to their maturity and live a full and happy life. What more can one ask of any living being.
Had to do my 10 minutes in this place today, to get processed through the system in a certain way. But it needs doing, and it’s something to photograph. I remain around home, Hebden Bridge, for a considerably stable period, relative to my usual movements.
Being 42 