How many times have I visited the Luangwa Valley in Zambia? Times without number. I have been incomparably blessed. And there I was, back there again getting my eye and especially my ear in before our guests arrived, savouring the glorious familiarity of it all.

Some of the bird sounds I identified at once, others after a few moments, still others needed rather longer. But it was all coming back bit by bit and the process stirred something very deep. On we travelled, deeper into the Valley. A small group of giraffes, Thornicroft’s, since you ask, Luangwa’s own species. Lucy the leopard, a local celebrity I’d met before. A small pride of lions with two very young – and very ambitious — males.

And as I was revelling in the in the joy of a place I know almost as well as my back garden, there came something I’ve never seen before. Two adult male elephants. One defecated, rich and surprisingly dark. The younger elephant ate it. And did so with every appearance of relish.

Young elephants will eat their mother’s dung for the gut flora. This behaviour is less common in adults. One or two sources I checked said that it simply never happens. But there it was going on before my eyes, the coprophagous elephant savouring every delicious morsel.

Infantilism? Gut flora needed topping up? Essential minerals? Extra nutrition? Whatever: his companion’s dung clearly supplied a need.

Ex Africa semper aliquid nova, as Pliny the Elder remarked, quoting a Greek proverb. Out of Africa, always something new. That’s why I  keep going back to the Valley. It’s always the same, always changing, and always there’s something new.

• I was co-leading a trip with wildlifeworldwide.com
• Next trip wildlifeworldwide.com/group-tours/walking-safari-in-heart-of-zambia