#Elfie the elephant | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

brandonwayneb · 1 year

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🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🦩🦩🦩🦩🦩🦩🦩🦩🦩🦩🦩

🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮

🩰🩰🩰🩰🩰🩰🩰🩰🩰🩰🩰🩰🩰🩰🩰

💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓

FayFamFlowFoRIch For Rich Formation Flamingos 🦩

FayMenGos; Gay Gargoyle Garden’s

🧠 Esp

🧠 Psy

🧠 Scry

🧠 Spell

🧠 Invoke

🧠 Project

🧠 Séance

🧠 Enchant

🧠 Telepath

🧠 Summon

🧠 Divination

🧠 Clairvoyant

🗣️ Free The Free All 💕

24/777 (24/7)

411 Free Super Highway

ProLife99. VVV. live

“Nickname Internet Blood”

❤️🚂🚇: Red Health Line

⛑️🚂🚇: Red Health Line

🍒🚂🚇: Red Health Line

🍓🚂🚇: Red Health Line

🧨🚂🚇: Red Health Line

💄🚂🚇: Red Health Line

🌹🚂🚇: Red Health Line

🐙🚂🚇: Red Health Line

🐞🚂🚇: Red Health Line

🚁🚂🚇: Red Health Line

🥁🚂🚇: Red Health Line

☎️🚂🚇: Red Health Line

🧰🚂🚇: Red Health Line

🍷🚂🚇: Red Health Line

🙏🏽 Prayers & Hearts

✨ Stars & Planets

🦜 Parrot Flocks

🕷️ Spider Hives

🐝 Bee Hives

🐜 Ant Hives

🦴 Fossils

🌋 Lava

✌🏼 Victory Violins 🎻 & Irish Harps

🇮🇪 🍀 Save The Irish ☘️ 🇮🇪

🙏🏽🌎 Corey & Torey 🤲🏽🌟

🧚🏻‍♀️🧝🏽‍♂️ Elfie & Alfie 🧝🏽‍♂️🧚🏻

💚🍀 MayAnna & SueAnna 🧡🛡️

💖💪🏽 Tiffany & Trisha 🌸🌺

🤗 Hug & Honor Trees 🌳

💪🏽 Keep Strong Tools 🧰

🎶 Sing to your Keys 🔑

🌹Roses In Your Backpack 🎒

🏰 Keep Healthy Thoughts 💭

🌏 Planets & Life Schools 🏫

💁🏽 Don’t Lose to Fools 👀

Rainbow 🌈 Gothic 🖤

🌈🖤 RainVOW GOth

Straight; Gay; Bi; Trans, Lesbians

Bunnies 🐰

Bats 🦇

Black Kats 📞🐈‍⬛ 🧨 KKK 👻 gHostFoeNEss

Ladybugs 🐞

🧹🧳👙 Portfoilo Travel

🖼️💼🧳 Portfolios Travel

My commonwealth beloved tropes

anyone free to healthy pathology

My bunny 🐰 beat 🥁

My bat 🦇 eletric ⚡️ heart ❤️

My snake 🐍 coiled cords 🪢

My cat 🐈‍⬛ called cool 😎

My royal 🤴🏽 scale ⚖️ exports 🚢

My divine 💖 nature ✨ tree 🌲

My ant 🐜 pleasant 😌 protest 🪧

My bee 🐝 busy ⏰ body 🧍🏼‍♂️

My belief 💭 by relief ☺️

My flamingo 🦩 flow 🌊

My holy 👼🏽 bestow ✨

My bird 🦚 brilliant 👐🏽 I heard 👂🏽

My bird 🦚 feather 🪶 I fly 🕊️

My blue jay 🐦 to say stay free ⛅️

My praying-mantis 🪲 prayers 🙏🏽

My insect 🐞 smallest I see 👁️

My spider 🕷️ I www. WEB/spy syphite

My porcupine 🦔 quills to class-cup questions ☝🏽

My elephant 🐘 my memory 🧠 element ⚛️

My alien gray 👽 survive x-ray 🩻

My angel 😇 at best heights ⬆️ & angles 📐

My going🚶‍♂️ forever ♾️ green 💚 speakup 📣

My windy 🌬️ storm ⛈️ stories 📖 of

My victory 🥇 rebegin 🔂 reign 👑

My salute 🫡

My salutations 👋🏼

My solutions ✊🏽

My soul 👁️‍🗨️

My questions 🤨 my quests 🌍

My mighty 💪🏽 moon 🌙

My good night 🌚 💤 knight 🛡️

My sun 🌞 sacred 🛐

My rex 🦖 rapture rockets 🚀

My ghost 👻 boo book 📕

My dinosaur 🦕 to not die too sore 💀

My skunk 🦨 to base bunk 📡

My frog 🐸 to transmog ⚧️

My owl🦉to see ‘who & how’ 👀

My mouse 🐭 mystery 🧐

My cricket 🦗 cherp church ⛪️

My lion 🦁 lords

My camel 🐫 cam era 🧬

My camp 🏕️ campaign 📈

My genie 🧞‍♂️ genetic 🧬 magnetic 🧲

My bull 🐂 noble 🤴🏽 taurus ♉️

My kangaroo 🦘 can-go-around-you-&-over-kangaroo-court-contorts 🫰🏼

My doG 🐕 my OG 💯 on God original gangsta 💅🏿 mans best friend 🫂

My dragon 🐉 justice loud & proud drag 👗

My squirrel 🐿️ faster to quarrelsome

My squid 🦑 squirt 💦

My octopus 🐙 puss 😸

My tiger 🐯 growl grr 😼

My May 📅 flower 🌸 (born May 6th) 6️⃣

Brandon Wayne Burdett

Lives Life with minimal regret 🤗

Living Life quality survival war vets ⛑️

decided I loved 💕 you ever since we met 🫱🏽‍🫲🏾

BEST WORLD 🌍 BEST NEWS 🗞️ EFFORTS 💥 PSY 🧠 PSA 🗣️ WORLD EARLS 🤴🏽 EARS

World Ordeals World Organizations World Or Again Gain Ordeals

denounce “www tess tesseract glass cube.”

denounce “stress issue tissue TIL TILE”

denounce “RUB-EX, RUBIX CUBE MIRRORS”

denounce “www white wire t rex wax vexlore”

denounce “mega micro mall tezz TIL Tess.”

denounce “TILT TALT TIZZLE FAULT ALT”

www wex ex line mega mall tesseract

tesseract coils CO OILS SOILS SEALS

tesseract glass mirror laser trip wires

www wex wire line micro megaphone malls

“galaxy EX EX PRESS PREZ candy throats.”

“tesseract cubes lasers mirrors glass wires.”

mega mall static noise generator “white noise”

“test TIL.”

🇺🇸🇩🇪🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿: America German England

🔵⚪️🟡: Blue, White, Yellow

🇮🇳: “blame Indian Chicken Hen Tye mix asain”

🏯: Blame any asain country ass PAN cUNtry

🪑🛏️: Red Indian Leather Jerk Pan Try Key 🔑

🪑🛏️: Red Irish blame greedy red cherrywood

🪑🛏️: African, can metal tin foil pan, star fish.

🪑🛏️🦖: Fossile Steel Sickle Foils Oils Ink

👳🏽‍♀️🕌⛽️: Blame Ass Odd Muzzle Fizzle

🌽🚌✏️: Corn KKK Kob Lore Door Knobs

🦈💉🚪: Vacuum Door Salesmen Genocides

🐢🕊️⏲️: Turdle and Dove Blender Horrors

🍎🍏🧃: Wear Down Programs, App Reels

🐺🐑🐏: Perverse Culling Cycles Genocide

🐻🐻‍❄️🐼: Bear Brothers Bully Gang

💩💰🐥: Cheap Chicken Checker Board Shit

🥖🏄🏽‍♀️🛋️ : Bread Basket Shopping Cart Box

🐓🏭🦠: Coop Co-Op Perverse Farm Cycles

🧊💉🐓🦠: Shingle Pox Chicken Pox

🧊💉🦆🦠: Shingle Bux Duck Pox

🧊💉🦢🦠: Shingle Gox Goose Pox

🧊💉🐖🦠: Shingle Swine Spawn Pig Pox

🧊💉🥤🦠: Bubble Box Soda Pox

🥾👅💩: Boot Licker Desk Maggots

🍧🍦🤡: Crazy Clown Society Shop Programs

🧻🦟🪝: Blame Italian, Asain, Count Lich

🥸🤓🤓: Rich 🤑 Extortions

🦠🐷🐹: Hamster Gerbill GerBall

🐗🦈🐬: Horror Cycles 🔁

🐿️😵‍💫🌀: Hynotis Hype Notice “Spells”

🐚🦴🥟: Deflections, Clams, Deaths

🧊🥛🥤: Death ☠️

🍢🍡🍭: Lolly Gag Stunts

🍿🍩🍭: Death Camping Murder Routes

🥄🧽🚿: Metal Laundry Washing Alchemist

🍽️🫖🍾: Murder Schemes

🦅🦉🦆: Play Dumb Perverse Sportsmanship

🍋🧀🧅: Lemon, Cheese, Onion

🥒🫒🌽: Sell “Genocide” Routes “que, olive.”

🥔🍎🌭: “pot of toes water office cooler”

🎬💿🍆: Movie “Show” “Set” CUTSCENES

💈💇🏼‍♂️🦁: Cut Scenes, Humiliation, Programs

💉🐹🦠: HAMSTER POX

💉🐀🦠: LAB RAT POX

💉🐁🦠: LAB RAT POX

🎤🐭🪤: Micro Mouse PC MAZE LAP TOPS

🍳🪺🧺: Bleach Brain Scrables Eggs

👟🧦🚾: Rubber, Shoes, Socks, Office Cooler

🧱🫖❄️: Throw Tea Pots, Snowglobes, Bricks

🛹🛹 🤕: Skat Skare skate Board Headache

🛷🛷 🤕: Slay Fray Dismay Speed Hate Rate

⛸️⛸️ 🤕: Ice Skate Blade Secret Assaults

⛳️⛳️ 🤕: “go off” “offline” escape to false lay

⛵️🤑🕳️ : “rift raft war raft send post broken.”

🏅🎟️🏅 : False Paper Badges, Stolen Honors

🚑🏴‍☠️🧩: Ice Fridge Clown Pirate Genocides

🩼🛵🦽: Cripple Cry Pull Mistreatments

🤿🎣🛵: Scoopa Butt Tiny Scooter Insert

🎲🎲🎲 : Gambling Horror Box Death Bets

🍯🥄🫘 : Thumbs Beans Jack Thump Spoon

⛓️🗑️🪚: Chainsaw Office Desk Profiles

🤌🏼💶🐐 : Micro Bill Escape Key Goat

🤡🃏🪪: Retard ID 🆔 Cards

🎟️🎪🎟️ : TwERL Crazy Cricket 🦗 Sir Cuss

🛖🥾🍕: Genocide Hospitals Factory Fronts

🤐🪩🦭: Sea Lie Seal Rubber Shoes Zip Mitts

📼🎄🧵 : Death Wrap Christmass Organs

⛸️🏄🏽‍♀️🛹: “skat pans, boards splitting FRAYS”

☠️🐟🪣: Blue Poison Chum Desk Buckets

🔵😰🥞: “blue bed pans down syndrums.”

🥷🏼🥷🏼🥷🏼: Keep Ninjas, Nanny, Manny, Nano

🐜🐜🐜 : ANT…. ENT…. HIVE VS HIVE

🐝🐝🐝 : SAVIORISM BARBIE TREE HOUSE

🐞🐞🐞 : RESTORE HEALTHY BUSINESS

🦇🦇🦇 : Bitty Batty Cute “non Bets Binary”

🦌🦌🦌 : STAIR 👁️ SAFETY, “ANT LORES”

🦊🦊🦊 : FOX KEEN SWIFT INTEL

🐈🐈🐈 : CATS 🐈‍⬛ GENERAL WELLNESS

🍊🍊🍊 : O RUN, TAN GO JURY WELLNESS

💚🧡❤️ : Green Teal Orange Red Ruby

🍀🌹🎒: Brave, Bravo, Honors, Survivors

🔭🏐🎒: Telescope, Sports, Studies.

👑🐸🪙: Frog Pockets

👑🚀🪙: Space Rockets

🇮🇪🇮🇹🇫🇷: Ireland Italy France

🧡🤎🖤 : Orange Tan Brown Black

🙏🏽💧🌊 : Welsh

🙏🏽🍀 ☘️: Irish

🙏🏽🌳🌿 : Celtic

🙏🏽🧞‍♀️🧬 : Genetics Healthy Gins and Gingers

🍓🍒🍉 : Healthy Reds Fruits Vitality Life

🌈🦜🗣️ : Parrot JA MIC Speak Up Healthy

🪞🛡️🪞 : Mirror, To Each Their Own

🥝🔑🥝 : Healthy Kiwis, Key Wi, Key We

🌶️🥭🥭 : Spicy Mangos, Healthy Vitality

🍫🚎🚂 : Chocolate Bus, Public Supports

🍻🍺🍹 : IRISH PUB, Public Wealths

🍃🪢🍷 : Twine Red Wine Vineyards

📞🍇📞 : Grape Vine Life+ 411 Lines

🪀🧘🏼‍♀️🪃 : Karma Health

⚡️🗳️🪁: Eletric Key 🔑 Kite Vallet Box Vote

📞🥌☎️ : Shuffle Sand Telephone System

📞🐍🚰 : Sink Sand Ink Sir Pens

🏹🥋🎱 : JU DOW PSY ANTS

��🎻🎻 : Violins and Irish Harps

🖼️🕷️🎹 : Healthy Life Recorders

🧨🖤🐈‍⬛ : KKK Black Jackkk Kat

💋💄🧐 : Bio Lense Cyborg Eyes 👀 Health

🌪️👃🏽🌪️ : Two Tiny Wind Tornado Nasal Pass

🎀🍆🍬 : “mini peninsulas.”

👉🏼👈🏼

👉🏼💥🪙

👉🏼🌎👈🏼

🤘🏽🐰✌🏼

🧍🏼🧾🪡: Puppet Tree

🦨🍄🌈: Bunk Base Buddy’s

🍹 🥃: Warm Rum War Thumbs

🛡️🎧🛡️: DJ ARMOR HEADPHONES

⛲️⛽️🌋🚁🛞🛟🕋📡

Brandons Health Upkeeps

Public News: 📰🏳️‍🌈🇮🇱🐰🐸

🍀☘️🌹🦜🦧🍊🐈🐈‍⬛🕷️🕸️🎹🐆🐘🦏🦍🐅🐫🦘🪶🦩🐉🦫🦔🌞🌚🌝✨🌬️🌪️🧞‍♀️🧞🧞‍♂️🧬⚙️⚡️🧶🎱🔮🧣🎒💍👑🧳🐌🦖🐩🦚🍠🌶️🍓🍒🥝🍑🥭🍍🍻🥂🍫🧋🏹🎻🐍🥋🧘🏼‍♂️🧘🏿🤸🏽‍♀️🥁🧚🏻🧚🏿‍♂️🧚🏻🧚🏿‍♂️🧝🏽‍♀️🧝🏽‍♂️🧝🏽‍♂️🧝🏿🗽🏰🏔️🌋🔭

A brief environmental scan.

Environmental; Tacoma Washington

Seattle Washington

Bad News: 🤑🐁🦠🐹🦠🐓🦠

🦭🦭🦭🦁💈👨🏻‍🦳🪱🍪🫒🎀🍕🤐🤐🤐🤡🎪🏥😵🪰🪳🪳🪳🐻‍❄️🐼🐻‍❄️🐼🐭❄️🎿🦉🦠🧺🗑️⛵️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🐮🦆🦂🦐🦈🐬🐳🐋🐃🐂🦬🐑🐏🐿️🐚🪸🥔🍗🥒🍆🍎🍋🍅🍳🥩🍔🍟🍩🎂🍿🥧🎂🌽🫖🥛🥤🎳⛸️🛹⛳️🏄🏽‍♂️🪂🎸🎬🎤🎯🎫🎲🛞🧛🏼‍♂️🧟🫐🥞🧈🌭🪵

#gay #lgbtq #trans #hispanic #spanish #italian #italy #allah

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spankystokes · 2 months

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This Saturday… cuteness awaits! #rePosted • @unboxindustries Metallic Lavender Elfie On Sale Saturday 9th March UK: 15:00pm HK: 11:00pm JPN: 00:00am (10th) NYC: 10:00am LA: 7:00am Available from store.unboxindustries.info #madebyunbox #elfie #softvinyl #cute #elephant http://dlvr.it/T3lZRh

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yamipoli · 1 year

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Check out this listing I just added to my Poshmark closet: Elfie The Elephant 16" Justice USA Exclusive Ty Beanie Boo New with Tags NWT.

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thunderrabby-blog · 1 year

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Elfie 100% - Chocolate & Rainbow Eds. by Too Nathapong x Unbox Industries

Elfie 100% – Chocolate & Rainbow Eds. by Too Nathapong x Unbox Industries

Thai artist Too Natthapong starts off 2023 with not one, but two fun mini editions of his popular elephant character. Perfectly sized for a desk or work space of nearly any size, the new Elfie 100% (Here I Am!) Chocolate and Rainbow soft vinyl art toys from Unbox Industries are the latest in a growing line of smaller figures featuring the streamlined sculpt with fixed arms. From the craving for…

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beaniebooaday · 5 years

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todays boo is: elfie the elephant!

#beanie babies #beanie baby #beanie boo #beanie boos #kidcore #stuffed animals #toywave #ty #elfie #elephant

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ghostfriendly5 · 3 years

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Shadowtober Fanfic - ‘Home Sweet Home’

Prompt by @mithryl-draws. Scenario from Maniac Monday shadowrun UGC by Mr. Person (This is literally the way it opens, could possibly supply the prompt '80s action movie poster' as well, and anyone who wants to illustrate this scene is very welcome!)

It could only have happened in Redmond at three in the morning. Enrica Croce had been far too zonked after a hard night’s legwork through Touristville to get dressed, just for ambling from the mattress in her fleabag apartment along to room five, and asking the cramhead screaming about purple dancing spiders to, like, quiet down a skosh. But never too zonked, in Redmond, for pulling some boots onto her slim elfy legs that would stand up to broken syringes and capsules all over the landing, before she unhooked the chain–or, of course, for sticking a Fichetti 600 handgun down the back of her panties.

Which came in handy when the cramhead neighbour flung wide his door, not only screaming even louder but swinging a baseball bat. Bare chest, bare feet, eyes deadly-dull as a mad elephant. Enrica barely slid the blow down a rising block; crashed down on her hoop. Skidded back through the trash as she got her gun round, fired. Then she consciously put another bullet through the ork’s chest, then another, then two through his cram-ravaged cueball skull. She drew up her bare knees to her chin and felt the gunbarrel’s warmth through cold sweat on her brow, as the ork crashed down.

A baby was crying on the level below. Anyone else whose beauty sleep they’d broken up had enough evident sense not to come out and complain; this was the Barrens, and more than somewhat.

Enrica did her civic duty by dragging the corpse off the landing and making a note to call the Organ Grinders. Casing her ex-neighbour’s vomit-scented pigsty of a flat, she had no scruples about treating the cuts on her legs with a cheap medkit under the sink, or yoinking a loose credstick.

She nearly ruptured herself forcing a grimy window open, but that did give her a surprisingly magnificent view of sunrise over Redmond, filling the skyline smog with bloody light like the mouth of hell. Enrica stopped to stare for a while, her face haloed by cropped golden hair as calm as a stone angel. The pistol hung by her bare thigh, and the body oozed out over the floor behind her. Sixteen years of life in Redmond and several in a blacksite prison had passed before those pure blue eyes (Perhaps the Corp drug trials her parents had sold her for, back then, had done something…) until death, at any rate, was an indifferent thing to her. Life, though, and all around that was beautiful and unexpected, she treasured more each day for knowing how swiftly it could be snatched.

It was certainly unexpected–checking the flat to see if the ork she’d killed had possessed any chummers who’d come gunning for her–to discover her batdrek cramhead neighbour had in fact been a batdrek cramhead cop, Lone Star undercover. She supposed it was a stressful job. And that her dead narc had missed a check-in, during his drug-crazed bender–because she could hear stamping boots on the building’s stairs.

An ork-size trenchcoat, hanging behind the door–she threw in over her slight, strong limbs. Back to her room for commlink, credstick, heavy Savalette pistol and some clips, then bolt. The real nuisance was, she’d be going on the run wearing beige-coloured underwear. Beige!

#shadowrun #fanfiction #writing #elves #drugs #slums #rpg #pc games

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babyyhoneyydarling · 3 years

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1, 15, 27 and 33 for the asks! 🥰💓💕💗 lub youuu

1. who is your best stuffie friend?

oof that’s tough one. for my irl stuffies i’d say my german shepherd stuffie, rocky, he’s been with me for a long time. for the stuffies my daddy nonnie has gotten me, ginger the fox or elfie the elephant are my best friends

15. what’s your favorite animal?

i dunno if i have a favorite i love them all! ummm maybe a otters 🦦

27. how did you discover you were a little?

on tumblr! and more specifically, you 🥺 you have helped me grow and discover my little side so much

33. fuzzy socks or blankets?

ugh omg both!! my feet are always so cold so i need fuzzy socks but i loooovvveeee blankets too! i have so many blankets and guess what? i want moreee!!

❊ sfw little asks ❊

#❊ sfw little asks ❊#thank you amalia bby 💘

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armeleia · 5 years

Photo

The elephants at the Buffalo Zoo have been relocated to another zoo, but fortunately we brought our own. #unboxandfriends #Elfie by @pakka7 and @unboxindustries (at The Buffalo Zoo) https://www.instagram.com/p/BzD5z_4nU8Y/?igshid=13n3hvug7b8v9

#unboxandfriends #elfie

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tauers-go-dutch · 6 years

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Africa Part I: Victoria Falls

While I had known for years that swimming with Great Whites was top of Ryan’s bucket list, little ol’ me always thought that really was just a dream for another lifetime. However, following an absolute whirlwind of adventure the past two years, we thought-- why the hell not now?

In an Uber to the airport in Krabi, we took the plunge and bought tickets to Johannesburg from my iPhone. After that, we didn’t do a lot of follow-up planning for a few months, and even considered canceling or changing our destination following the serious drought in Cape Town. Fortunately, someone blessed the rains down in Africa, so off we went!

While we’d bought the tickets on a whim to and from Johannesburg, we ultimately decided to spend the first few days in Zimbabwe, seeing Victoria Falls. We grabbed an airport hotel in Jo-burg in order to immediately hop on another flight to Victoria Falls.

When we arrived in the tiny town that is Victoria Falls, we took a stroll through to the Victoria Falls Hotel. The hotel, built by the British colonizers in 1904, sits on the gorge above the Zambezi River downstream from the falls. That said, of course they have afternoon tea! Fortunately we made it just before they stopped serving tea for the day, and we were able to experience one of my very favorite things in an absolutely incredible location. We enjoyed our tea with the view of a lifetime, including several warthogs grazing on the lawn just next to the hotel patio. When we were through we spent a good amount of time touring the hotel and learning about the history of the area. After tea we walked back into town and hopped into a brewpub/pizza spot for some food and drink before grabbing a cab back to our hotel.

Mist from the falls

Unfortunately, Timon was nowhere to be found...

They have to bend over like that to get to the grass

The following day we went canoeing on the Zambezi. The Zambezi is the river on which Victoria Falls falls, and it also separates Zimbabwe from Zambia. Our tour was very small, with one Brazilian woman as well as an American man from….somewhere back east. Both were in town for the Victorian Falls Marathon, which we had only learned of the previous day. Maybe a good thing, because otherwise we might have been tempted to sign up for it! (The half, anyways…)

While the main point of the tour was to experience the river itself, we hoped to also see some wildlife. Most of what we saw was actually during the drive to the drop-in point. No matter where you are in Africa, keep your eyes peeled. We saw our first giraffe, our first hippo (out of the water!) and some cool birds before hitting the water. As we canoed, we saw a few crocodiles as well as more hippos. Oddly they were all on land -- the guide said it was likely because the temperatures were dropping and they didn’t feel the need to cool off in the water. Whatever the reason, I prefer my crocodiles and hippos a nice distance from my boat, so land it is!

A baobab tree, the ‘tree of life’

Spot the croc!

This guy was just a babe

When we reached our pull-off point, our guides had a nice lunch ready for us, where I was ‘lucky’ enough to try some crocodile kebab. ...It’s only meh. Ryan, the carnivore, agrees. We ate near a tree full of monkeys, so I spent the majority of lunch watching them play. Afterward, our guide admitted to us that we were supposed to have sandwiches rather than the hodgepodge of food we ended up eating (I wouldn’t have known any different…) except the monkeys had stolen the loaf of bread as soon as he arrived! He even showed us the plastic bag stuck in the tree as proof!

Crocodile kebab

Monkey watching

Upon our return to town, we decided to check out the local artisans market, where we bought a few handmade souvenirs for ourselves as well as some friends and family, before hitting up the town’s brewery, the River Brewing Co. The world cup was still going on, so we watched France beat Argentina (sorry, Messi!) while sipping on some local brews. It took a bit of effort to find a dinner spot that evening, as people from all over the world were in town looking to carbo-load before their marathon the next morning. We settled on a small tourist-trap looking place, had a quick bite, and cabbed it back to our hotel. (You don’t dare walk at night, due to aforementioned random giraffes, hippos, monkeys… and their predators… just off the roads.)

While others were running, we were sleeping in. Eventually we got up to walk into town, cheering on the runners nearing the finish line along the way. Today was the day we were finally going to see the falls! On our walk there, however, we were stopped by two guards telling us we should wait, as there were elephants on the path and it wasn’t safe. We hemmed and hawed, before noticing that there were several other people walking around and we’d likely be just fine. We proceeded with caution and were rewarded with an incredibly up-close experience with the largest land animal in the world! We stood in awe for a few minutes, watching them graze in the bushes (there were 4 or 5 of varying distance from us) before grabbing a couple s-Elphies and moving on.

There is a nice restaurant on the edge of the canyon called the Lookout Cafe, where we grabbed a bite to eat with the best view in the house. Finally we made it to the falls themselves. I don’t know what exactly I had been expecting. You can see the billowing mist from them anywhere you stand in town, and you can hear them from a mile away, so I’m not sure why their enormity amazed me as much as it did once I finally stood next to them. I would use our cliche ‘let the pictures speak for themselves’ here, but it’s impossible to take a photo of Victoria Falls that might do it justice. The two nicknames ‘The Smoke that Thunders’ and ‘The Place of the Rainbow’ given to it by the indigenous people of the area, gives more insight into the grandiosity and splendor of the waterfall. There are several viewing points within the Victoria Falls National Park, so we spent as much time taking it all in while doing our best to avoid getting too soaking wet. (Ponchos are for chumps.)

Shameless pull straight from Wikipedia:

While it is neither the highest nor the widest waterfall in the world, Victoria Falls is classified as the largest, based on its combined width of 1,708 metres (5,604 ft) and height of 108 metres (354 ft), resulting in the world's largest sheet of falling water. Victoria Falls is roughly twice the height of North America's Niagara Falls and well over twice the width of its Horseshoe Falls. In height and width Victoria Falls is rivalled only by Argentina and Brazil's Iguazu Falls.

A wee bit misty...

After experiencing Victoria Falls, we made the trip across the river into Zambia. We had purchased a double Visa that would allow us in for a daytrip, which was all we had time for anyways. Unfortunately we did not get to experience the waterfall from the national park on the Zambia side, as it was a separate (expensive) entrance fee, and we had entered the country with the intention of visiting the Royal Livingstone Hotel. Because of course I wanted to have afternoon tea in both Victoria Falls and Livingstone!

We went through customs on both sides of the bridge before making the decently long walk out to find the hotel. It was immediately evident that this wasn’t a pedestrian-friendly walk, as there were zero sidewalks and we were the only ones who didn’t hop in a cab upon entering the country. Oh well, it’s only 2 kilometers and still plenty of daylight!

The Zambezi from the bridge

Walking up to the Victoria Falls Hotel two days prior, we were greeted by warthogs grazing on the lawn. As if that wasn’t cool enough, on this side of the river we ran into zebras! As soon as we entered the gate to the hotel grounds, we came across several. This time we stopped for a Z-elfie. Ok, I’ll stop. We were seated for tea just inside, where we still had a view of the lawn and the Zambezi River but could grab some respite from the sun and heat. The tea and cakes were great, with Ryan and I agreeing that the Victoria Falls Hotel had better scones while the tea itself was more enjoyable at the Royal Livingstone. Once we finished up we spent some time exploring the grounds, coming across another herd of zebras and watching the sunset over the river. Before it got too low, however, we made the trek back to the border crossing in order to get back into Zimbabwe before the customs offices closed. We made it through just as it really got dark and had a quick dinner at an Asian restaurant before heading to bed.

I can imagine not much has changed since Livingstone himself sat here. Kidding... Unlike it’s counterpart in Victoria Falls, this hotel was built in 2001.

My happy place! Yum!

One more glimpse of the river as we cross back over the bridge

First thing in the morning, we had a flight back to South Africa, to spend a week in Cape Town! Africa Part II coming soon!

Tot ziens!

#tauersgodutch #tauers go dutch #victoria falls

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sciencespies · 3 years

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Which animals talk the most? Depends on how you define 'talk'

https://sciencespies.com/nature/which-animals-talk-the-most-depends-on-how-you-define-talk/

Which animals talk the most? Depends on how you define 'talk'

A pandemonium of parrots, a cackle of hyenas, an exaltation of larks – these are just a few of the animals that we define by the sounds they make.

For humans, communication is the bedrock of our relationships and part of how we successfully function in our daily lives. Animals make sounds to issue warnings, attract mates, signal distress, find one another and defend their territory; similarly to us, their vocal cords fulfill myriad purposes that lay their social foundations and ensure their survival.

But have you ever wondered, of all the creatures we share our planet with, which one vocalizes the most? And what value is there in being a chatterbox, when making sounds also carries a risk of alerting predators?

In human terms, we might measure “chattiness” in two ways: the amount of time spent vocalizing, and the diversity of what’s communicated by those sounds.

How does this apply to nonhuman species? Researchers have identified some common trends in species that vocalize a lot, and common trends in those that prefer quieter lives.

Related: Why do birds sing the same song over and over?

Social creatures

You might assume that one driving factor of animal communication would be how social the species is.

It’s true that some highly social species are also more voluble; for example, flocking birds such as quelea are constantly cacophonous on the wing. Then, there are mammals like the meerkat, a small, mongoose-like creature from southern Africa that lives in large, gregarious communities that cooperatively raise young, forage, and look out for predators.

“When they’re foraging, they’re always chirping away, just so everyone knows, ‘I’m here; it’s me; everything’s OK; there are no predators around.’ They’re constantly making this soft, gentle contact call,” said Arik Kershenbaum, a zoologist at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom who studies animal vocal communication and uses algorithms to analyze and compare their sounds.

But this isn’t a rule; being social doesn’t necessarily mean an animal communicates a lot, Kershenbaum told Live Science.

That’s because vocalizing also comes at a cost. “Most animals try not to vocalize too much, because it actually requires a lot of energy,” said Kershenbaum, who is the author of the book “The Zoologist’s Guide to the Galaxy” (Penguin Press, 2021), part of which delves into animal communication.

Another factor is predation: Sounds put an animal at risk of potentially being caught. These two features place powerful pressures on the vocal communication of even highly social species, like the chimpanzee, one of our closest living relatives.

(Photostock-Israel/Science Photo Library/Getty Images)

“Chimpanzees vocalize very little, not as much as you would expect, given the complexity of their social groups,” Kershenbaum said. To keep audible communication to a minimum, they often use gestures to communicate instead.

However, vocals aren’t necessarily the gold standard of animal communication.

“Animals are constantly broadcasting information, whether it’s vocal, olfactory, through posture – it’s all being assessed by other animals, who form an integrative idea of what to do and how to interact with this individual,” Kershenbaum said.

When it comes to vocal communication, social species tend to have a greater diversity in the messages they convey, Kershenbaum said.

As a general rule, animals that are solitary need to communicate simpler messages to the rest of the world, compared with animals that live in cooperative groups where communication is necessary to maintain social hierarchies, locate and share food and alert one another to threats.

“You can see that if you’re in a cooperative group, there may be more to say than if you’re living on your own,” Kershenbaum said.

Related: Do animals hug each other?

However, it can quickly become tricky territory when we try to dissect what animals are “saying” when they vocalize. One reason for this is that humans make the mistake of judging animal sounds by our standard of what counts as communication – specifically, through the framework of words.

There is evidence that some animal calls have specific meanings (a type of information researchers call referential communication) that could be considered word-like.

For example, some monkeys issue specific alarm calls that signify a predator threat, and dolphins have distinct whistling sounds for different relatives. “They use this particular sound as a name, which could be considered a word,” Kershenbaum said.

But these utterances occur only in scenarios where a single sound is the most efficient way to communicate one specific thing, he said.

“I think it’s, in general, a mistake to look at animal communication as being made of words,” Kershenbaum said.

So, animal communication doesn’t consist of discrete “words” with unique meanings, like our speech does.

That idea is borne out by songbirds; although they have some of the most complex vocal sequences of all living things, these sequences usually occur in scenarios where the relative simplicity of what the bird needs to communicate – like calling for a mate or defending its territory – doesn’t match the mind-boggling diversity of sounds that each call contains, Kershenbaum explained. So what’s going on here?

One theory is that the medium itself is the message. Effectively, birds could be saying, “Look what a complex song I can sing! That means I must be a really good father,” Kershenbaum said. In some sense, vocal acrobatics may be a substitute for colorful plumage, which is another way birds attract mates.

(Elfi Koch/EyeEm/Getty Images)

In fact, “Some species of birds, like mockingbirds or African gray parrots, steal sounds from other species out in the wild to sound smarter, so to speak,” says Erich Jarvis, a neurobiologist at The Rockefeller University in New York who studies songbirds as a model for how humans learn to speak.

Those parrots and mockingbirds suggest that individual vocalizations probably aren’t communicating discrete messages in the way words do when humans speak; because they’re lifted from a completely different species, they’re unlikely to have transferable meanings.

It’s more likely that these are just new sounds that have been added to a vocal repertoire, rather than sounds with individual significance.

Although animals may not be saying multiple discrete things in the way our speech does, their vocalizations are nevertheless rich and dense with meaning.

Listen and learn

Whatever animals are saying, some spend a lot more time vocalizing than others. So who are those chatty individuals, and what makes this blabbing worth their while?

Related: Do animals laugh?

According to Jarvis, animals can be split into two broad groups: nonvocal (or “innate”) learners, and vocal learners, animals that learn to vocalize by imitating sounds.

Only a few groups of animals fall into the vocal-learning camp: humans, songbird species, and some nonhuman mammals, including dolphins, whales, elephants, seals, and bats.

“What’s curious,” Jarvis said, “is that those animals that have vocal learning are also some of the animals that are vocalizing the most.” He also found that these animals are more likely to make more complex vocal sequences.

Jarvis is interested in why these vocal learners vocalize more often, and more complexly.

On one hand, there’s a huge advantage to vocalizing a lot.

For starters, sound travels over long distances, so communicating more frequently can aid communication over large areas, helping animals lay claim to territory or find a mate. Being more voluble and making more complex calls also enable some animals to convey more information to others about their status.

On the other hand, there are the aforementioned risks of vocalizing more: Making sound uses energy and attracts predators.

Jarvis hypothesized that the most vocal animals are typically the ones that have to worry less about predators. Interestingly, he noticed that especially voluble vocal learners “tend to be near the top of the food chain – like humans, whales, and dolphins or elephants. Or, they’re vocalizing in the ultrasonic range [so can’t be heard], like bats,” he said.

“Amongst the birds, we found that the parents in the songbirds were descended from apex predators. So their ancestors were at the top of the food chain. So I think they overcome predation and then get away with vocalizing a lot.”

What’s more, especially chatty animals have a system that minimizes the associated energy costs of constantly making sounds.

Muscles in the larynx – aka the voice box – of vocal animals take up some of the largest amounts of energy in the body, and their activities require fast-firing neurons to control vocalizations. In turn, the activities of those neurons can generate toxic byproducts, similarly to the production of lactic acid, by working muscles that then need to be cleared away.

Jarvis explained that vocal animals, including humans, share protein molecules that protect these fast-firing neurons from a toxin overload. “So us humans and songbirds and parrots and others have independently evolved mechanisms to protect our vocal pathway neurons, so that we can communicate a lot.”

(ALesik/iStock/Getty Images)

In other words, for highly vocal species, vocalizing confers a huge advantage, with relatively little cost. There are exceptions to this, however; for instance, zebra finches are vocal learners that vocalize only a little.

“But on average, the vocal learners have a more complex vocal repertoire,” Jarvis said. “Those who are vocalizing the most in terms of time are the ones who, on average, are producing more complex vocalizations.”

So, who takes the crown for chattiest animal?

“Nobody I know has really gone out there and quantified all the species to say that this is the case” – but the short answer would be that it’s a member of the vocal-learning species, Jarvis said.

Kershenbaum made an educated guess that among these vocal-learning animals, dolphins would be strong contenders for the title, based on his research. “If you are ever in the water with dolphins, it’s almost never quiet,” Kershenbaum said. “They’re always, always vocalizing.”

Jarvis now devotes part of his research to investigating what vocal learners can tell us about human spoken language: He has identified certain genetic mutations in vocal-learning songbirds that could shed some light on how speech disorders occur in humans.

So studying how animals communicate is more than just a curiosity; it could help us understand ourselves.