This is the adorable moment when a calf elephant practices his football abilities with a bit of dung.
The adorable calf shows off for tourists in the Sabi Sand Game Reserve in South Africa by spinning and kicking a makeshift ball with his feet.
He even has the ideal drag back before sharply rotating and taking the muck for a dribble.
The youngster sprints towards the dung and kicks it with his front leg, flinging it a meter away.
He scoffs and twirls his trunk angrily as he lashes out with his front right leg to launch the ball.
The young elephant was spotted by Dylan Royal, a member of andBeyond Kirman’s Kamp, as he drove along in Sabi Sand Game Reserve.
He said he had departed the camp early in the morning to look for a leopard but instead ran across a small elephant herd.
‘We paused to look at them for a while, and it wasn’t long after that the smallest calf emerged from the bushes and ran down the road after a soccer ball made of elephant dung.
He was so preoccupied with his dung ball that he didn’t even notice we were there.
‘He seemed to be so impressed by his own skills that he even kicked and rolled the ball around using different strategies and all four of his legs.’
Mr. Royal said young elephants are often entertaining to watch because they get up to all sorts of interesting things.
But he said this baby was ‘certainly one of the cutest and funniest things I’d ever seen or heard of’.
“We watched and enjoyed the sighting for a while longer; then I stopped filming.
‘The calf seemed to realize I wasn’t filming anymore since it lost interest in the ball of dung and the herd moved into the bushes.’
‘When we lost our view of the majority of the herd, it was time to move on,’ he continued. ‘The little one came bursting and trumpeting out at us as we drove past the ab.and.oned ball, kicking up sand and throwing a fit, until we left the region and his toy alone.
‘If you encounter anything like this, stay longer and continue filming until you are out of the location and confident that no more activity will occur.’
