Nature doesn't follow a human script, as these lions effortlessly hijack "Leopard Day" to assert their raw territorial dominance. It is a humbling reminder that the savanna’s complex social hierarchies will always overshadow our attempts to curate the wild into neat narratives.
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Lions crash Leopard Day - SafariLIVE Sunrise - 03 May 2026Added:
This program features live coverage of an African safari and may include animal kills and carcasses.
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Good morning, Sunrise Safari fans, and welcome to another magical morning here at Mabula. My name is Ian and behind this the lens is Cam and uh we're just sitting here enjoying the the light of the silvery moon. Starting to get light really quickly and uh yeah, we're looking forward to starting this morning. But uh let's go back to yesterday afternoon where we had a really special moment uh here at Mabula.
Hey, go back to your mom.
Yeah, how sweet was that? Um and we welcome you this morning from quite a few locations. We got the team up in uh East Africa uh some the two stations down at uh the Loofelt and also Eric and Amakala and then Cam and I will be looking here at Maboula and see what we uh can find. And uh please remember this is a live safari. So please feel free to engage with us, engage with the team, send your questions and comments. It's always quite fun to to hear the thought process from the viewers as we get a beautiful shot there of that silvery moon I was alluding to.
And uh we in this open area.
I need uh Nick Newman to help me identify that call of the bird. I think it's a lark, but I'm guessing now.
I'm just watching the stars fade away.
It's starting to get light really quickly here at Bombula. It looks like it's going to be a beautiful day.
We uh we came to check in on the the Artv den site.
And we're hoping that he might she might make an appearance. But let's go down to Cedric in the low felt. See what's happening there.
Well, it is international leopard day everybody and we've got looks like Sabuya and a youngster here. But we had them very nicely. And now they're crossing into another property.
All right, let me go forward here.
Yeah, they're going already.
Hey, bye-bye.
They're going straight into a property called uh Vessels. And uh yeah, no, they're gone. They're gone, people. They They're ready in Durban.
Yeah, I just had Saboya and a young male uh youngster here pretty much at this washed away road on vessel's little Gary uh cutline heading looks like towards Camp David.
All right. Well, there's International Leopard Day, everybody. And uh >> and well, that was a nice quick start.
Uh, my name is Cedric. Behind the camera with me, it's Bibbo. So, yeah. Anyway, while we're going to try and see what else we can find around here, let's head over to Mickey.
Good morning from a super misty morning here at Sandringham. And once again, we've managed to start our morning off with lions. Looks like at least two of them. There's one young male on the road and there is a lioness just lying on the side there.
But I'm Mickey. We've got her behind the camera and it is our last morning here with Nick Newman this morning. Still a little bit early.
Um but yeah, it's awesome to see these lions this morning.
Hoping that now that they're on the road, um, we could have a good opportunity while it's still cool for them to get up and active.
Looks like quite a young male.
Doesn't have a big mane like any of the dominant males in this area.
And I'm sure we had tracks of some like yesterday evening. And the pride does seem to have split up in um to a few smaller groups.
So, I wonder where these guys have been and come from and if they're trying to move back towards the larger portion of the pride or what their plan has been throughout the night.
>> Actually looks like two on the side there.
Pam just said it was very exciting, which I completely agree that there two females on the side there. They've just put their ears up.
>> Nick's saying there's at least two females on the side. Sometimes it's tricky in the long grass, but yeah, there we go.
You can see there's two of them there.
>> Early morning seemed to be our >> our lion time.
>> Exactly.
>> And again, just when we least expecting it, we were trying to think about where we going to go to show Nick some awesome last birds um here before he heads off later this morning. And unfortunately, we just we've we've got a bit of a roadblock here. Nothing we can do about it.
>> Yeah. Happy to have this as a roadblock.
going to >> Oh, there's the one line is lifting up their head.
Who knows? There could even be more. We never know.
Well, we're going to spend a bit more time with these lions and hope that they do get up and active and we could get some really cool views of them in this morning mist and waiting for the sun to rise with them in the foreground.
Well, we still got the the leopards here. We just quickly It looks like they came back a little bit into our favor here into view and got I don't know which one. I think Sabui at least s or it could be a male cub. They are both the same size now. That is such a so difficult because uh Sabu's young male cub is practically the same size as she is. So I'm just hoping that if we can just see exactly where we got here. But the other one is a stalking.
They're kind of playing around a bit.
That's one thing I've noticed with these two leopards, a sabui and that sibui.
Where's my b focals here?
Difficult to see, but it looks like it.
Yeah.
And with them, I mean, I've had a few sightings, quite a few sightings with these two where they are so so playful.
Charlotte, yes, good morning. It is uh International Leopard Day today.
Everything is going to be focused on rosettes and I really wanted to start off with rosettes and well, we we did get them and got the the two of them this side. So, it is absolutely perfect.
Of course, this afternoon, you must make sure that you do join us on our sunset safari. We have Dr. Nikki from Panther joining me on drive this afternoon. It's going to be absolutely amazing. We're going to be just chatting about leopards and the conservation behind them. And uh and I mean, you know that I've always used their maps to show territory sizes.
So, make sure you tune into that. this afternoon. Yeah, buoy. Yeah, she's boom moving off. So, unfortunately, we could still get a view here. All right, we might still be able to do something here. I'm going to try my best.
I'm just looking how much water.
Sorry, I can't copy a thing you're saying that. Right, let's go now.
Hold on.
Y that's drainage.
Uh I think let's see if we can do it from here. Uh you can see them walking there. Okay, we're going to just try and quickly you got in there.
>> Yeah.
>> All right, they are moving off. Kathy, you got your lucky leopard socks on? Oh, socks. PJs.
>> PJs. Oo. All right, I got my lucky leopard socks on today. So, >> watch they're going to jump on each other now. Maybe a bit of play time here. Let's see.
>> Let's see what happens here.
>> They're lying in the grass. Maybe I'll see one.
Yeah, they're going to hear the monkeys alarm calling now.
What do they see?
>> Alarm calling again. I'm not sure if they have good visual of the ing where Cric is but they've yeah started performing again.
>> Yeah, thanks Pauly. Yeah, I think they've got visual of the two ing that's moving around towards Hoffman's Marty in the open clearing here.
>> Okay, thanks. I think they were here from last night cuz the mono were along pulling for a long time last night.
>> All right, copy. Thanks, Polly. I'm going to most probably take a look at at the back of your car towards new driveway that area.
All right.
So, it sounds like Cedric's had the perfect start to World Leopard Day and we getting as close as it comes. It's not a spotted cat, but at least a pile of big cats this Sunday morning. Um, we managed to get a little bit closer and angled the vehicle a bit more and we actually realized there's not just two or three lions here. There's a whole puddle of them on the left hand side of the road. Got this young male. There's a lioness behind him. At least two or three youngsters there with them. And what looks to be another young male on the far left. And best of all, it looks like person worries with these lions. Seems to have found his himself underneath a little bush here, separated from the rest of them at the moment. But who knows? We thought there was only one lion. Passenori could have another couple lions lying there with him somewhere behind that bush and we just can't see them.
But nice to know that they kind of did what we expected them to where yesterday morning when we found them moving the opposite way down the road. Their tracks seem to have come back up this way maybe from late last night early this morning and they've settled down here. There he lifts his head and I have a little scratch or a clean.
Good morning, dark man lover. And yeah, you're right. What a start to the day.
It's awesome to see them. This young male is I think particularly beautiful.
Not the person worry some privacy there. And he's grooming himself.
There you can see all the heads popping up. It shows you there was a lot more lines here than we thought.
There was a question the other day about um how it feels to be one of the very few basically majority of the time only vehicles here at Sandringham.
And um on moments like this, I'm super grateful that we're the only vehicle because it means that we have the opportunity to spend as much time with these lines as we want this morning and especially for me get time to get to know a lot of their individual characteristics, which is really awesome. Um, and yes, Huxley, I do think that especially these guys, um, from what I understand, when when Wild Earth first started coming onto the property to uh, capture, yeah, to do safaris here, a lot of the animals here weren't so used to vehicles. So, they definitely know we're here. I don't know about knowing whether we actually film them. Don't know if they comprehend that it's here behind the camera, but they definitely know that there's a presence here and that we are watching them, but based on their behavior, they really are starting to relax with vehicles around them.
A little yawn and a stretch.
It's still super fresh this morning. Um, it's quite weird for me that they actually aren't fully on the move right now, but we don't know how much they traveled during the night. Trying to see if that one's belly looks a little bit round and trying to figure out if they might have had a small meal in the night. It does look like it's bulging out to me a little bit.
Rio, yes and no. Um, I think the distinction comes when you talk about wild white lions versus white lions in general.
Wild white lines are pretty much just towards the well like how do I say it nuclear to this area of the Timbarti region. It's the wild white lines of the Timbarti. But now that the gene pool exists and whatnot, you can get like bred white lines and captive white lines I think all around in different areas.
They actually all seem I thought maybe with a little bit of a yawn and a stretch starting they might consider to be getting up, but they they seem to be hitting the snooze button a few more times extra this morning.
Person's finished grooming himself.
And he's also having a little bit of a stretch there. It looks like he might have his paws on like a log or something like you know when cats do. Yeah, you can see his claws extending and contracting.
Well, while we wait for these lions to stop hitting the snooze button and to maybe consider getting up and active, let's head over to David and see what he's got for us in the Mara this morning.
The mara is not misty. The mara is not rainy. We have one of our best mornings here unlike Sandringham. And I'm sure Mickey is going to be a very happy girl today having started the drive with lions and especially in seeing the white, you know, the white one there.
I'm sure she's going to have a big beautiful sunny day. Now we are starting here in the northwest of the Masimar National Reserve with Masai giraffe and frankly this particular giraffe it's very very close to the camp where my Peter Bong on camera stays and it's clear it's not as bright as yesterday morning but if I compare today and the last few days today is a great day. Now, this particular Messiah giraffe, it's very close to the camp I'm talking about just next door to what we would call a family tent of the very famous governor's camp.
Apparently, in the Masimara, we got about 250 camps or thereabouts. But I'm sure you know one of the most iconic camps is the governor's camp. And look at the distance between the two.
I got a feeling you do not even need to come to your balcony. You can see this particular giraffe from your bed while enjoying a cup of chai.
This is a classical family tent. And if you look at it carefully, it got two wings and there's a common area and every wing of the tent is self-contained. Have a WC and you're saying Petro this is a very good uh start and good morning to us Petro. Good morning back to you as this particular boy just passing outside another family tent. and Petro the day you make your way uh here Petro to East Africa come to Kenya come we stay together here and you'll enjoy seeing this wildlife and maybe very close to your tent so I think there about five family tents apart from the usual tents we have here and that giraffe is marching away and apparently is a quiet season now currently uh in Kenya. So uh these tents definitely are not occupied but when it gets very busy they'll get very you know they get occupied and we'll have guests inside them.
The times we call giraffes giraffalis.
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>> Think two days ago they had a whole uh kind of honeymoon going on. I don't see any of the females around. And I kind of had an idea it was a fake Easter because it would have lasted for 5 days, 7 days, but the time we even saw them together it was maybe 3 days.
You can see them just walking the beautiful landscape in the background.
Since our boy is coming towards us, I'm just going to move a little bit for him.
I don't want to I don't want him to come and shout at me being the roadblock. And he is the roadblock.
But he is very very handsome. Look at him, little Peppa. It is good to see him.
He's a big boy.
Actually, I don't know if he's going to join his brothers.
Hello, Alinkera. How are you doing?
James doing a good job. He has enough room behind us to pass. Ah, fantastic.
Oh, he's scratching his head on the car.
I can feel the car moving. I just hope he doesn't spray the car because um that means Big James would get a bit of the scent marking. But the other boys have just walked this way.
Yeah, he's still behind our car. It's moving a lot. He's just here. I can hear him banging on the back of the car. And they do it quite often.
They like to scratch a bit of, you know, scratch the head.
Yeah, I think he's still he's still there. So, it's not really uncommon.
These guys are used to cars since they were young. I remember seeing a long car when he was still a young boy. And I can't see him, but I can see him through the shadow cuz the sun is coming from behind us. I can see the car's shadow and I can see uh he is doing a bit of some scratching still. And he's walked away. Okay, great.
Nancy Jumbo Jumbo. It is a good start.
Can see half tail right there. Yeah, it's a bit of a squeezed one, but at least we got to see Alancho. just going to move a bit. But that was nice.
He walked on the road. He came to our car. He scratched. I'm sure he did a bit of scent marking cuz the car was kind of shaking.
And now we have a nice update on what happened to the boys. Cuz at first we were like, "Okay, where are they? Where is uh Chonga and his brothers also?" But at least now we have a bit of an update.
It's just the boys, no one else. No females.
And all the brothers are following Alankera cuz they keep on looking at him when they're in the grass.
And that was good start. So, looks like we're going to be having some good luck with lions. And I hear Mickey also has some lions. We're going to send you over to Mickey and see what her lions are doing.
Pride and we were just chatting with Nick about how it's still not the best weather for birding, but the lions have been gazing up towards the sky. So maybe they're trying to help us out and look for some birds for Nick. They'll often do that if there are vultures or anything like that, but I think right now they're just having a look around.
There's a lot more yawning and stretching going on.
One of the lionesses has gotten up and moved over to the other side of the vehicle, but there's not a great view of her there.
Oh, there we go.
Nice stretch.
Can see how it's that like not such a full man. There we go. Rubbing heads at the one of the youngsters.
Now we can start to get a better of idea of how many there are there.
Melissa, they don't necessarily have to have white line parents, but it's it's a form of lucism.
So we just want to um so it's lucism which is a genetic thing where the male and the female both have to carry the gene but they don't necessarily have to be white lions themselves. Um, I remember, but sometimes they might even have a feature of white. Like in the pride where I used to work, the one adult female had a white spot and that was her name, white dot. And she then we knew definitely carried that white gene. Um, and then when new males came onto the property, we were like, "Oh no, the dominant males aren't going to mate with are going to mate with these lines. We don't know if they carry the gene." And then they produced a set of cubs and one of them was white. So we knew that these new males had come onto the property.
Although they were Tory lines, they still carried that white recessive gene which comes which is much stronger here in the timber. I don't know if that recessive gene is anywhere else like up in the Mara. It's more like dark man lines and stuff.
These two lines that have settled down on our right seem to be eating the grass. And then the passenari was also eating grass a little bit earlier on before lying down.
We've been talking about it and thinking maybe they had a something not so nice to eat last night and they've all got a bit of a sore tummy this morning. Their tummies don't look full. So, whatever they didn't fully enjoy last night must have been quite small.
Trying to see if we can do a head count here now that the male has moved out the picture. See? One, two, three, four, five.
Mona, no sign of the tiny cubs here. I'm sure I I'm actually not too sure how old they are, but if they are as tiny as what we are thinking, maybe they're still just with mom. Um, and then later on when they're old enough to keep up with the pride, then then they'll come and join. But I'm super eager to to see if and when that happens.
So yeah, we've got five in this puddle over here that's still present on the left hand side of the road. Passenori somewhere under one of these silver cluster leaves hiding in the long grass.
And then this male and female. So we on about eight lines here this morning which is awesome.
The birds are slowly starting to call. A bit of a morning chorus chrying here in this mist.
A cute strengthening the bonds amongst one another there.
Max. Um, I think yes, they do to all one degree or the other. And there's always an agitation call. They might not have a defined alarm call, but they'd have a definitely an agitation or high pitched um or yeah, I think you know kind of >> in a sense there's a variation of their call which is hype, >> you know, hypen.
>> It's a bit like humans chatting. There's always going to be a way to express fear or something.
>> Yeah. So, you know, we've been just sitting here listening uh to the sounds of the the bush and the dawn chorus, which is while looking at the the lions.
And it's interesting to see how as they move, the responses in the birds that may be aware of them. And it's always like quite a key around finding out what's in the bush. It might give you some understanding as to what's going on or who's creeping in the in the back.
that you don't see. So, I pay a lot of attention to birds calls um when I'm in the bush as signs of what else might be around.
>> Yeah, definitely. All Yeah, all of us do. Especially as guides, if you know, we you often see I spoke about it the other day. We had stings and a drongo when you're like mobbing this area in a tree the other day and you think, okay, maybe there could be an owl, maybe there could be a snake. And there we found a a black mumber winding through the wow through the branches. Yeah. Trying to hunt. So >> birds can definitely be a telltale of what else might be in the area.
>> One little lion here is looking towards where these other two are and wondering what are they doing this morning.
Well, as we continue to spend time with this Black Dam Pride and see what they get up to this morning, let's head over to Ian, who actually is doing some birding this morning. Sorry, Nick.
Yeah. Yeah. Well, the weather here is uh pretty glorious and uh we've got a very calm, relaxed African wattled lapwing that uh hasn't done any alarm calling, which is surprising for lapwings.
They're often quite uh prone to alarm calls. Beautiful wle on the face and the red little strip there just below the foreground crown.
I used to get confused between this one and the white crown lap wing, but that red is a giveaway. There probably a few other uh distinguishing features and also habitat. White CRS normally around water.
Beautiful yellow beak, wle and legs.
An eye. Bit of eye.
Sebastian and I do enjoy the birds. Uh so yes, I would I'd say I'm a bird and learning every day. So always try and have a I'm always listening. I'm always watching out for birds. I try and walk around with my binoculars.
I find it very frustrating when I see a bird that I can't quite identify and I don't have my binoculars.
It's always nice to come to a new region because you get uh to learn about the birds in that region and often you know you got to keep keep fresh, keep keep learning.
Get your eye in, get your ear in.
And I I kind of play the Burle app every every morning. So I guess that tells you a story.
Uh, Mac, I I would say uh I'm guessing here. So, you got me there. Um, I mean, usually with the males, if it was the males, then I would say it's um, you know, it's it's display. It attracts the females.
Um, but I'm not sure. I'm not sure.
not the only WLE um wattled bird. You got the wattled starings.
It is a beautiful bird, Mesh. um when you can get a zoom camera like uh you know we've got this amazing equipment that we can get really close and you can really appreciate it and when it's sitting still and uh yeah just on the wle questions um I think it's also therma regulation I had a quick look online so thanks for that question we are going to go back to a bigger animal to blossom Well, yeah, get moving is because it's only by getting moving when things will be different and maybe get better. I'm trying to remember uh we had a viewer maybe a few minutes ago who was asking me whether we see animals in the camp and I spoke of one particular bulu an elephant uh could blossom I I'm trying to guess the name of this particular viewers Miller and if Miller you are still tuned in I would say speak of the devil because this is the particular boy I was talking about or particular kilome I was talking about. He is not a boy.
He's a huge huge male and he has been in m the last couple of days and his name is Blossom. Hopefully Emma Mila you're still there and you're going to and he's just walking in the road. He pushed us out of the road. Not that he pushed us, we pushed ourselves. Uh we have always known well these big bulls are in mashed uh they're sometimes very temperamental. We never want to take any chances. You never know what they want to do. But the other day Miller let me know when to stop it. Uh the the other day Miller uh he came very close to the vehicle.
What we'll do let's first go to Imara as we catch up with this particular boy.
Well, David, I'd love to meet Blossom one day, but it's nice to know that he does stick around the governor's area.
Maybe one day I will come and say hi. We have kept up with our R5 here as they're walking in uh some grass. It's kind of an old road. We tried our best to come up as far as possible so they can just come towards this area. But I'm seeing only four of them, which is interesting cuz again there's supposed to be five.
So I don't know where he's um where the other one is, where the other friend is.
I don't know if he's still then having one of the honeymoons cuz I wasn't able to look at the face and see if he has a spot similar to Olamina. Lumina is a big male for the wrong guy pride where these boys come from. But it's always nice seeing lions walking like this all together. Look at that.
Oh, I am so happy right now.
Cuz when you get to see them just walking like this, it's just you feel a whole unity, like such a big presence.
And they do attract a lot of attention for sure.
But they have lots and lots of space.
Oh, look at that. Now, if you're a photographer, this is a dream come true cuz you can get them all in a line. You can see a longer right there. Big man, big boss. Oh, look at that. When they rub their heads together, it's always nice seeing them walking like this. Now, the mains are coming in.
They're big boys. You can see how long carry is very social with his brothers.
He loves his brothers and the brothers love him back. They do trust him to be the leader.
Look at them.
Four big males walking together.
Oh, look at that. Willow, thank you for your question. Can see them just pass right there in front of us. A nice one.
Oh, beautiful. Well, they very are they are very social. They communicate in very different ways. One, they can even communicate with their tail swishing.
And that's why it's important even when they have the black tip of their tail.
So even in the tall grass it's easy for them to kind of say like follow me. And also they do have black marks behind their ears. So a lot of the time it's marks on their bodies the tail and the ears and also they do kind of uh you know sometimes call out to each other in the early morning. So all the animals do have different ways of communicating with one another. I don't know they've gone past us but that was really nice.
At least we got to see that. I'm I'm happy. Okay, I know people are coming in. I will give them a little bit of a break. But that was a great one. And uh with elephants, they communicate in so many different ways. Vibration, low frequency, lions, they can you can even hear their roars up to like 5 km away.
And uh they are very social, same as elephants. But yeah, guys, that was great. We got to see the R5. Well, there only four of them. Maybe one is having the honeymoon. We're going to send you back over with some other lions with Mickey. Let's go see what the lions are doing on the other side.
We just repositioning here because personary has decided to move and make himself slightly more visible here this morning. Still not the best of views.
He's got his head also stuck in this long grass.
But we just did we did get quite a good look at him walking past us a few moments ago.
He's looking good. So you can see his ears that white. He doesn't have those black tips on his ears like the rest of the pride. And if he were to flick his tail, we would see that he also doesn't have a black tip of his tail. So those two features show are the true signs of a white lion is that they don't have the the white tip of the black tip of the tail and black tipped ears.
It looks like he's also been eating a bit of grass. Yeah, you can see his tail there.
Little cotton ball on the end.
actually looks like some of the you can see some of the dew still on the grass this morning.
Then the two lines just to his right, they've honestly been feeding on the grass here for a long time.
That's that male that we first initially found in the road. He's moved over into this pile. And the female just behind him as well.
Very interesting.
So, he's probably about 3 and 1/2 years old. Just looking at the development in his mane and his general shape and size.
So Boston, I'm still learning a bit about the Black Dam Pride from from what I have heard. In total, there's somewhere ranging between 20 and 25, I think. But since the pride has split up and formed these little subgroups, um we don't know like which ones have been seen in a while, which ones haven't. The ones that haven't been seen, are they still alive? Like we do need to remember it is the wild out here. Um so yeah, I would say anywhere between 20 and 25 at the moment, but the ones that we have with us this morning, there's about eight of them. Um, we're just going to reposition the the camera a little bit. Some of the cubbies on the left hand side are starting to play with one another, which is really cute.
Tustling.
Get that paw on top of the other one's head.
You can see that proper pink pink nose of this one lying down. Always a good way to also age a lion.
Showing that it's still quite young.
The one on the far right is also chewing a bit of a a twig there.
>> You'll see him now as soon as he stops chewing. Said >> twig.
>> Me? No.
>> Maybe he knew talking about him.
But ah he's showing us his teeth. I think he's got a couple branch scraps in there. The way he's moving his mouth around like that.
Trying to see. This age it's sometimes a bit tricky to tell between male and female.
You got to start seeing if you think there might be a bit of a man starting to show. So, I'm actually not too sure with that lion.
Well, I don't see us moving anywhere from these lines this morning. I'm having such a great time with the Black Dam Pride this morning. And while we stay here, let's head over to Cedric.
>> All right, looks like Sabuya and a little one came back. She's busy. Yeah, it looks like they've just come to relax back onto little Gary again. So they went into Hoffman's uh they took the took the little one away from here and then they went back into uh Hoffman's and then now they came back into little Gary.
Oh, he's getting so big. As I say, you can see on the left hand side that's Sabu, the mother. On the right hand side is a young one-year-old cub, male cub. And um now you can see he's almost getting to the size of of his mom.
They are moving now. Unfortunately, looks like they might go in this drainage line, which it might be a bit of a tough one, but we will take a look.
Yeah, they're going into the drainage line now.
I'm thinking that side. Maybe they go up in that leadwood there.
So, we're just trying to sort of see what we can get this side. Just hold on.
Um BBO we got there can see from that side.
There you go there. Go B's going to try and uh and get into there. It's going to be a little bit of a tough one.
So typical. Yeah. Always. Oh, there comes a little one. He's talking. Mom.
Oh, watch. Watch. Watch. He's going to bounce.
Surprised mom.
Oh, now they're going into that into that dip now.
Yeah. Very difficult. Now, that's it.
Yeah. Unfortunately, what's happening here now? We're just south of um Little Gary's the owner of Little Gary's house.
So, we can't go further up this side. Um but we will try and see what we can figure out. I'm just going to speak to a pulley and then we can make a plan. I'm going to get the opportunity. Yeah. All right. While we're going to try and work out what we can do here, I think let's head over to Eric in Amaka to see exactly what's happening in the Eastern Cape.
Wow. Ladies and gentlemen, we are watching over the basin and um waiting for the the beautiful sun to come up, but it seems like uh guapo is somewhere down here. Our big male lion.
I've just heard him calling. Um, and it seems like he's somewhere in amongst those bushes there somewhere. But he is apparently on the move. So hopefully at some stage he will pop out, come out into the open for us. And for now, >> I think this is probably the best place for us to be at the moment. Um, sort of scanning from the top. And I'm not too sure in which direction he's going. It sounds like he's probably coming from left going right down into um the dip and in that little dip sort of close towards the top left hand side or top sorry top right hand side of the screen that is actually the river bed and um that is a crossing that we call boat crossing. So he's probably heading out into the open flats. It's going to be a warm day today. So, anything that he does, he's probably going to want to do pretty quickly before it uh starts to warm up.
As we know, cats and heat are not friends.
Well, these big cats, but uh he he does tend to like this area as well. Um it's an area that's very very well covered and he can basically if he climbs partly up the mountain he can like basically see all that's going around. Yaku indeed indeed they do and they do it fairly often. They do like to climb up these hills. um you know they can get a a good bird's eye view of what's happening um and uh it helps them with selecting their next meal. You know, if you can see what's what's around and what's easy to get to and what's not easy to get to in the form of, you know, are you going to have cover to be able to get close to this particular animal? If not, um, you know, then you you've got to think how are you going to get that animal? How are you going to uh manage to uh take them down? So, it it all depends, but I think, you know, majority of the time they do like to sit on top of these little mountain tops.
Where are you big boy? You know you're somewhere.
He might call one last time.
But who knows because the sun is now starting to come up.
And once the sun is up, you know, they don't tend to call as often.
It's not completely impossible, but they they tend to restrict their calling to those twilight hours or those hours where there is no sun.
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Oh, she's going to run off to impalers.
She's running off to impolers.
All right, everybody. That is that is our queue.
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>> Um I think I'm Marco. The I think what I'm going to go with on that one is the uh Marshall Eagle. That guy.
>> So Marshall eagle for lion.
>> Yeah.
>> Okay.
>> Yeah. Uh the leopard. Let's go with the um crowned eagle.
>> Yeah. I think Marshall eagle is a powerful powerful bird.
>> So both of them really powerful raptors.
And why are you giving Marshall to the lion and crowned eagle to the left?
>> I think the marshall is a bit more open savannah and then the um crowned is very much a tree and forest specialist.
So >> yeah, >> you're a bit like a a leopard who likes the trees as a you know snoozing, eating >> um pouncing position. I think uh that's I'm going to differentiate the two by that.
>> Also with crowned eagles often hunting like species like monkeys and >> things like that, that could also be a cool correlation between the two.
It's always an interesting way to start thinking of different lengths like that.
And if you were a bird, Nick, >> if I were a bird, I'd be a stalk.
>> A stalk?
>> Yeah.
>> I like the idea of gliding and just kind of hanging out in some thermals.
I >> think that'd be a pod king fisher.
I like that.
>> It's a lot of hyperactivity with >> Well, does that add up or does it add up?
>> Being able to hover over the water like that, then dive down. It sounds like a lot of fun.
Nick Nikki Beck um the yeah wind energy I look there's I I I think in terms of an alternative to fossil fuels I think it's definitely something that needs to be considered. I think there's a lot of work being done into it around painting a blade um black so um raptors and other birds that are sore around it can see them. I think that needs to be taken on a little bit more steadfastly than than it has been proposed. And there's been some real scientifically backed work around, you know, changing the the blade color so that birds can see it and, you know, the perspective of it coming down. Um, and therefore, you know, the collisions have been greatly reduced. So I think there's ways of of just acting swiftly when research tells you that you can actually uh mitigate some uh collisions. So I think there's where it where they're produced or where they're positioned I think is always important uh to consider not on major flyways and migration paths but that's why a lot of these uh studies go on to ensure that we know more about flyways and migration paths and don't put uh >> the big uh turbines in those areas. this >> young male walking past this thing.
>> It's got something on it. Bit of a scarring.
>> A little cut there on his side. I wonder what happened. But you can see how they're all piling up here under this bush. Each one slowly by like one by one has been moving from the one side of the road to the other and literally disappearing into this long grass of the bush. But let's head over to Eric. It sounds like he's also having some awesome line action this morning.
Well, ladies and gentlemen, there he is, the beautiful man himself, Guapo. He was down at the bottom of the basin. He seemed to have hiked up of it.
Um, and uh, he did it in good time cuz I mean, when we heard him, it sounded like he was right down at the bottom, but that was also how long ago? Like >> 10 minutes. 10 minutes >> max max 15 minutes I think but definitely about 10 minutes ago he was down there and um he's managed to climb all the way up to the top here. So very exciting. Very very exciting. We'll try and stick with him for as long as we can. Not too sure where he's going to go. I think he's going to walk along the ridge line. Oh, a little scent mark over there.
There was lots of around >> making sure everyone knows he's boss here.
Oh, this is the the tricky part becomes sticky cuz >> he uh there's lots of little paths that go into this kind of little forest of quaries and milkwoods at the top here.
And uh sometimes it can be a little difficult. Okay, he's starting to go up.
You big boy. Oh, there you go.
Hello. Oh, he is looking ripped. Oh, look at that beautiful boy.
That dark man.
>> Yeah, if anyone's interested, there's one longested eagle just north of the club along the line.
>> No, Benji, he wasn't introduced with males, but he was introduced with uh two females from uh the Eastern Cape. He's uh originally a Kellari male. That's why he's got that beautiful dark color.
Huh?
Lovely. Isn't that special?
What's the plan, big boy? Where you going?
Fanny, I believe he's about 8, nine.
So, he's he's well in his prime.
and he does look it as well.
Um, we've lost him now. We know he's in the general area, but how about that? What a what a lovely discovery. I mean, we heard as soon as we pulled up to this little lookout spot, we heard um one of the other guides saying that he's somewhere right below us um in one of the crossings or going towards the crossing. So, we're like, "Oh, okay.
Well, this is the perfect place to get, you know, a bird's eye view." Um and we saw a vehicle at the bottom and uh then that vehicle said he's coming up to the top and we were like, "But where?" And um now as we kind of started looking around, he then popped up on the little ridge line which was pretty cool.
Oh, Stephanie, he is the best looking boy. He is gorgeous.
Definitely come a long way. When he first got here, he was uh about four.
Um and he had very little very little hair, very little color, shall I say. Anyway, we're going to send you over to a highlight where Ian got up close and personal with some animals.
It's okay, big guy. It's okay, big guy.
It's okay.
It's okay.
It's okay.
Well, morning. Uh, we're back here at Amala and uh, yeah, >> quite an I mean, Mabula, I beg you pardon. Um, I was my mind is all over the place, but uh, yeah, maybe I'm still thinking about that amazing elephant sighting we had yesterday. uh really quite special for us and uh we are kind of looking for lion at the moment.
We've heard they're in the area. Done a bit of birding as well. Came across a southern pi babbler which was a nice one. Crimson breasted trike. Uh the the magpie or longtail trike.
And we're just having a a fun morning being out here enjoying the the beauty of the bush.
There a spur file in the tree there.
I'm just trying to get out of the sun.
We're sort of driving east and into the sun. So I can't even see what's going on there. Oh, sounded like a sounded like a um Swainson spur file. um where my grandfather sort of left me a a bird book and um and a friend of mine, we grew up in a about an hour outside Cape Town in the farm and a friend of mine, he he noticed a par African paradise fly catcher uh breeding just at their porch and um I was all excited and he called us over and uh I never forget we went and looked and there we saw and then we found this bird in the book and we got really excited. I think I was about eight or nine and um my friend Alistister, he he called us out to to come and see the the the African paradise fly catcher. We went and checked it out and um and then we was like, "Wow, there must be more birds." Cuz you know, we had this big book. Um and then we went walking on on where we were living. We were living on a farm. Um and we found the the what's it a golden bishop or yellow bishop um in those days and got all excited and then from there I just sort of managed to learn. I was also lucky enough to get to Batswana with lots of beautiful birds. So I was privileged enough to have that upbringing.
Ah, there he is strutting his stuff along the road.
I think he's going to do a full tour of the ridge line and then potentially drop back down. But the females were originally as the crow flies to his 11:00 12. no 11:00 10:00 in the valleys um where we were having a little squiz for them yesterday but >> unfortunately we were not lucky so don't quite know where they moved or where they got up to or what they got up to um last night but I imagine he is looking for them. He was on a kill yesterday uh according to some of the guides but quite far away.
still. Yes. Thanks, lady. Appreciate it.
We're still in the cave. Um, we're going to see. Please let me know if he goes past God's window towards the south and then we'll come up behind him and try and catch up.
>> We are very interested to see what happens here.
>> I also want to know where those ladies are.
Where have they gone?
Definitely using the road, the path of least resistance.
And uh I was expecting him to take a maybe a lower route.
Lots of little lots of little roads and paths um all the way kind of along the all the way along the side here um that we have seen them taken before. I mean, we've seen the female and him, you know, get really frustrated with the troop of baboons that were right at the bottom, you know, and these baboons were teasing them. These baboons knew exactly what they were doing. They were coming up and just waiting right at that spot where the lion could catch them, but obviously they were dipping down just before they could get caught. So, I mean, the baboons were just, you know, having a bit of fun. But, uh, there you can see the the beautiful environment to which he is walking on top. Anyway, we're going to send you from our lions here to Mickey's lines.
So, we decided to leave the pride where they are for now. They seem to have found their spot for the morning. They don't show any intention of moving around. And seeing as it is Nick's last morning with us, um, we thought we would just take a drive now that the sun is starting to rise and maybe look for some good birding opportunities to really get as much as we can from his wealth of knowledge on our last morning out. So, we're thinking of heading back towards Big Dam and seeing if we can find any more aquatic birds around there. I've been begging Nick for a couple birds that as if he can produce them as well as spot them. Um, so let's see what we find around Big Dam this morning.
>> Cleo, I'll let you have that leopard cuz I'm a big fan of leopards, too. So, uh, you know, we we'll definitely take one of those ones instead of a bird.
>> Nick fully agrees with you. I'm going, "Oh, are we going to find a leopard?" I would love it. But, um, I think the leopards will start popping out, especially as we move further away from the lions. That's where we'd have a better opportunity to see leopards.
But, as we keep making our way towards Big Dam, it sounds like Ian's already at a water hole. So, let's see what he's got for you guys there.
So we having beautiful scenes here of the big water hole and uh we came and spotted some birds and we were >> lots of grass, lots of backlit scenery and then we came across these three boys.
hold on mobile.
>> And what's great is that the last couple of times that we've seen them, they've been they've only been two. So now there's a the the three are back together, reunited.
It's a really cool pick over the water, but it was just so into the sun that we came a bit closer.
Always nice to find these boys. But I think we might actually see if we can get a little bit of a better view. There's another vehicle behind us. So bear with us as we let's head down.
Yeah, Desert Rose. It was he sadly I didn't really get to know that uh my grandfather he passed when I was still quite young. Um, and that's what he kind of left me and got me into birding, which was very special.
Um, I then actually had a Newman's book, which I recently had to relinquish because the squirrels managed to eat it.
Uh, which was quite sad, but um, nowadays, yeah, the apps are quite great.
We're just going to Give the other vehicles a space. I'm going to switch off. Let them get a bit closer. Let's enjoy the sighting here.
It's a bit into the sun as you can see.
But camera camera Cameron is uh is on it.
The three boys.
Lots of excitement as the vehicles are arriving.
that.
Well, Juke, that is a it's a good question. I don't think I've ever seen a lion eating a bird, but that's not saying much. Um, yeah, I wonder. I mean, I know the leopards will chase and I think we saw some great footage uh with Cedric the other evening where leopard chased the spur file. Um I've never really seen the lions do that to be honest. Um I not really the right guy to ask unfortunately.
They are quite a lot bigger than leopard and they sort of focus more on big game, better payoff, whereas leopard seems to be way more um has a much more varied diet. But that's all I've read about. I think lions.
Yeah, don't know if they would catch maybe a guinea foul. I don't know. I've never seen it.
Interesting one to follow up on.
It's always nice to see what these guys are up to.
Can't quite make out if they've been eating.
They're not too far from where we had the two boys the other day.
Can see the breathing there.
Yeah, Pam. When lines are on the menu, you take the lines.
But I'm sure uh I'm sure we'll get some good shots of some leopard off later on today.
We'll change focus once we've uh enjoyed the lines.
And from the lines, and speaking of leopard on leopard day, let's go and check in with Cedric.
I know it's International Leopard Day.
And yep, it is. As you can see, we still got Saboi here. Her little cubbies playing in the background, but she's just coming for a nice little drink here on the water hole.
Just not too far south of a treehouse pan. If you like take if you like to take locations down, that one's trying to go for birds in the background. Oh, he's almost got it. Oh, you missed.
Yeah, Polly. Um, yeah, just toilet again. Um, yeah, just uh just to the north of uh Cutline.
water flip and all of that can cross over to vessels.
>> Yeah, air flip.
>> It's very interesting that she's come here. So, this is where Sabui had Langa and Ashasha d sites is pretty much in this drainage line. Exactly where she's going now.
This is where she had those two youngsters quite a few years ago.
Now, I'm not too sure where she's trying to take the youngster. I wonder if it maybe she's made a kill a little bit further east from where we are now.
Oh, little one's in there. You can see the branches moving. I think he's going to find some. He's just inspecting.
He's still in there. H Duke, look. I'm sure this little one is going for small things at the moment at the year age of a year. Um he's going for little birds and squirrels, things like that. Just kind of starting off with that.
All right, we are going to lose them now. So, what we have to do, I have to turn around here. We'll turn this way.
>> Anybody the junction have to speak to Paulie quickly on little guy close to the lodge area. So we just have to keep in touch with him the manager.
Uh, poly poly.
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Oh, what a Tuesday morning.
Brilliant. Oh, wow.
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>> Doesn't ever get old.
>> This is of course the little prince or sana guides who've moved on to other things. Tangana's walking right in front of my vehicle.
>> These guys are the sausage tree pride.
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All right, they're still moving. We had them poly.
>> Yeah, I've got them here, but they moving now just on the southern side of uh that drainage line. I see you there.
They're moving. So, they're still moving east away from a little guy.
lodge itself.
>> I think Chris, Chris, >> I think.
All right. I think he says we can go there. So, let's Sorry, Jared. We're just trying to get what we can get here at the moment.
I just want to try my best here to see to manage this at the moment.
All right.
Go on to the log. Go onto the log. It will be absolutely fantastic.
So, as you can see, slowly but surely, she is, as I say, going up this drainage line here. So, this is exactly where she had uh uh Lunga and Sasha right here in this drainage line a few years ago. Oh, she's on the log now. Finally. Y looks like she's now is taking a little bit of time out with a little one coming approaching her as well. Now, just to the left, he's going to pop out there very soon.
There you can see him.
Might go and play around on this log.
Now, we're going to irritate mom a bit.
H Denise. I'm not too sure when this youngster's going to get a name.
Going into like very thorny, a little thorny spot there. He's not going to play around a bit. Typical with him.
He's just happy that mom's around. Maybe he's going to lie there for us. Oh, look at that.
Isn't that absolutely adorable, everybody? This is now amazing.
He knew exactly how to pose.
Yeah. So, I'm not too sure when he gets a name. I mean, it's not up to us and all that. So, we have a other lodges and other properties.
Well, at least he's got a toy, a little stick that he wants to break off there.
I think it's busy poking him.
Look at that face looking straight down the barrel of the camera.
He knew exactly how to do it.
I can hear the little rattling cysticular there on the left hand side going crazy.
Alarm calling for these leopards.
Reminding the rest of birds and mongoose and everything in the area that something is a predator.
predators. And that is uh right here.
Oh, this is too sweet.
I don't think he's going to lie there for too long. He's going to have ants in his pants. Yeah, he might even start getting up very soon. There you go.
trying to get Oh, he's decided to rather give us uh the African salute.
Clear. This is Amazing Zing. Definitely International Leopard Day. Definitely on the go. And uh nothing better than having these two entertaining us this morning on such a special day.
She's on a mission again.
>> I'm sure he's going to get up very shortly and follow mom.
I just heard her chuffing there now.
Ros. Yeah, quite a poser. I just heard mom chuffing. She's just moving off now.
I wonder if she didn't kind of give him a sign of saying, "Listen, maybe stay back a bit." Unless she hasn't got a kill. Stay back a bit. Maybe I'm going to go out again and in search of food cuz remember he relies a lot on mom at this point of time. Still at a year a year year of age, he's still going to be waiting for mom to make the kills, the substantial kills and coming to fetch him and take him back to the kill itself.
She's got that interesting trait about her. That lovely very very light pink nose of hers. So that's one way you can identify Sibui.
This is cleaning up paws. cleaning her up face. I think with all the wet grass that's happening around here at the moment. I think he's on in search of mom now.
I think he wants to do a little bit of stalking here. Let's see.
He's going to hope mom doesn't see him.
He's going to try and get close to her. Oh, he look back.
Oh, he's still he's talking.
All right. Looks like we might lose him for a little bit very shortly.
Um, yes, definitely. This is Talis Pan's territory for sure. Matti used to hang around. This actually used to be an overlap with Talispan and Matti, but Matt is no more. So, yeah, this is definitely a Tais Pan's uh little thing.
All right, let me just go a little bit forward here.
And I just want to try.
H, they're going.
Yeah. All right.
All right. So, let me All right. All right. Well, we're going to try and follow up on these two leopards and see what we can get again.
Uh, let's head back to Mickey and Nick.
Nick, you guys get So, we've driven about, I would say, maximum 2ks away from where we found the lions on Old Orin, and we found quite an eerie an eerie scene here on top of all these dead trees. There's a a lot of vulture activity.
We >> Yeah, it's still a bit chilly for them to have taken to the air. No thermals, but there's a good selection of vultures here congregating, all stretching and waking up. But we've got the Cape vulture.
And >> which one is the one?
>> The cape vulture was the one that was just stretching there was a juvenile.
And then we've also got at the very top a hooded vulture. Actually got three around, but the top left there is the hooded vulture. Um, >> you can easily see that one's a lot smaller than the other ones in >> and if you're able to just see its profile of its bill, it's a very weak bill. They kind of have specialist vulture that go in for marrow specifically of the carcass. So, they have a a much finer bill, not so large and able to tear meat. So they go in more for the marrow and probe out the little juicy areas. That's their favorite. Um and then on the far left >> of the >> um Yeah. If you you'll see. Yep. There we go. That's the cape vulture. You can see how much bigger it is than the white backs and a lot bulkier. Um, its plumage is more uniform.
Um, kind of a light uh brown. And I don't want to say toy, but a very kind of light wash to it's got a whitish kind of wash to it. Um, in this light, it's really tricky to pick up, but it's lovely to see this um gathering of >> of vultures.
>> So, yeah, we've been speculating about what could be happening here cuz there's a number of of different theories.
Obviously, we don't exactly know, but when you do see a group of different species alto together, it could be that there's a kill. Um, but at the same time, these are perfect trees for them to have come and roosted in the evening. So, Nick was saying to me, yeah, one, they could be a kill.
Two, it's just chance that a different species have found the same really good area to rest in the evening. Um, and so yeah, we've just now it looks like a couple are starting to fly off, but with the tracks of the lions coming down from this area, who knows, maybe there is something small down there. But if the lions have moved off, then these vultures would have dropped down. So yeah, there was a question about how long vultures can go without flying. I think that would more be to do about how long they can go. Yeah, I mean I think I think you know from a flying side of things, they will hang around for a long time if the weather is not uh helping them. They don't like expending a lot of energy. Um and thermals and that is where they they actually travel massive distances um on good thermals. So they'll hang out here. We thought it was this mist was burning off. Um but you know they the in terms of feeding they're going to need to scavenge and that's why they they will actually soar and they burn so little fuel while soaring and they can really go huge distances um trying to find even just a small little uh snacks.
So, we're not sure if there could be a kill below here. I have my doubts, seeing as they've all stayed up on the tree, but we might not have a kill here.
But it sounds like Ian has a kill where he is. So, let's head over there.
>> Yeah, we uh we were watching these lions and they were sleeping. The one got up, moved behind a tree, and then we realized, oh, they've got a kill here.
So, uh, no wonder these boys when the one got up, he looked quite quite full. And, uh, there you get some views of, uh, it's a bit tricky to get a shot here. It's into the sun. It's behind quite a bit of grass. But these boys are living up to what lions do.
Getting stuck in there. There a bit of protein for breakfast.
Looks like it's a wilderbeast.
Are you managing to catch us in the bushes?
Well done.
Lots of breath steam coming out there.
Yeah, I mean they they probably are quite similar. I think line teeth be bigger. Um the dental structure would probably be similar.
Um but yeah, I think uh you know they they've got to do the same job, eat the same food, but I think there's a lot more power in the line. That's just bigger.
They eat bigger prey.
So, that would be my answer for that one.
Um, yeah, I can't say I've studied the dental structures too well of cat teeth, but yeah, the line definitely much bigger.
I think someone Yeah, Beck, I think it is quite interesting that we have our preferences. Um, I would consider myself a leopard person.
I don't have anything against the lines.
I think they're amazing. And when you can't find line, oh, this one's just getting up.
Um, but when you can't find lions, you know, then you become a lion man.
But, um, there's something that captivates me about a leopard. Not quite sure what it is.
But I'll take line any day as well.
So this guy, you can see a bit of his belly there starting to get quite round.
He's finding the best spot in tricky light, tricky tricky angle here, I'm afraid.
But um yeah, from the line, let's go back to Cedric with some leopard.
>> Thank you, Ian. And uh yeah, no definitely. Look, I also love lions, but uh a leopard to me is always something that I can uh really sit with for hours and enjoy because they can become quite entertaining um even during the daytime because it's a solitary cat. You know, many times you'll find a leopard might be moving around during the day, hunting, doing its thing. It's always in the morning.
If you find a leopard here in the morning, the afternoon it won't be here because they're still moving around and doing their things. Um, but with lions, if you find lions here and they're falling asleep here now, you'll find that after you come back here, they'll still be here. Um, so yeah, know for me definitely a leopard is one of my favorite, if not my favorite cats. So, but we still got a sabui here. A little one is also just resting close by. Now, we're following here cuz I'm just um hoping that there is some form of food that is around here for this youngster.
Maybe it might be good for this afternoon's drive if she's got a kill.
Joseph here, I know. I agree. I think uh I mean, look, I've seen other leopards always moms playing with the cubs for sure, all the time. You know, you always get that. But I don't know if that I remembered my last, not the last one, my previous stunt uh with them poor and we had them just south of a net chua cutline and we had the two of them. I mean, we had at least maybe a good hour and a half of absolute playtime.
Playtime.
It almost felt like Sabui was a cub at that uh during that time. And again this morning as well. I mean while we were off air actually little one was talking mom and then mom tackled the little one proper. It was like a a good old rugby tackle.
You can see they're just now very much uh come to settled settled down now for a bit.
As I say, it's not going to this ain't going to happen for too long.
So the little male will get a little bee in his bonnet very soon and we'll come and irritate mom.
>> All right. Well, I think while we're going to follow these two and see what they're going to be up to, I think let's head over to David as he's back in the field.
I have been trying to look for a leopard for the last 1 hour. So today being the you know leopard's international day I have not been very lucky and I would say Cedric very well done. You have taken care of that for all of us and hopefully your leopards are going to remain there especially with your special guest for this afternoon because as you say they are quite relaxed.
I got one girl here who in general is never relaxed. She always will be nervous the times she looks like she want to charge the vehicle when the camoph is standing up doing his thingy uh she tends to show a very different body language but I have told Peter Bongay on camera with me this morning uh we first keep our distance before getting closer to her. we warm up with her first then maybe we'll give you a different angle. Now this is one member of the marsh pride and I'm guessing possibly and possibly this one here is Nusurika just because of her body color and her behavior.
Those two factors make me qualify her as Nusurika who is the youngest girl in the mash pride.
I wouldn't think she brought this particular buffalo down.
So I am imagining the other members are not very far from here.
And today has been a big day.
to have been able to reach the Bil Shakalaga and Harold as you say not sure you can see me very well Harold you're saying what a fantastic morning what a fantastic Sunday and it's just great to have lions as as you say and to have lions to breakfast because shortly after this special sighting Harold I am going to have a cup of chai and some craps or pancakes to celebrate this particular sighting.
And Harold is seeing this one particular girl feeding also makes me hungry. My sugar levels go down because my appetite is coming back and not sure who is coming. I'll be eat raw meat. Uh we have people or some tribes here in Africa who will always prefer raw meat than cooked meat. I used to eat when young maybe not anymore. Bill tons possibly.
Yes.
So I said earlier possibly the other members of the mar pride or my boys t boys are somewhere around here.
A single lioness bringing such a huge buffalo down.
I wouldn't say zero chances. We have always said never seen never out here, but I would say close to saying never.
And definitely this was last night.
We had a bit of showers going on and we found out lions tend to perform better when they're bringing prey down.
Julian, a very big jumbo from the mara Julian and thank you always for joining us. I think Julian, we were with you last night before we got rained off by the rains when we were watching uh those the excuse great crown cranes with the chicks. And Julian, you're saying this is lovely. It is beautiful and so wonderful especially to see the March pride being able to feed. They have taken quite some time before they brought another prey down. The last I remember maybe a week now. Peter was a week with the hippo.
>> Yeah, Peter sings about a week Julian since they brought our hippo down. And we all know we got Kalo with him who has done a wonderful job. Ko is another female member of the marriage pride and she got her two sons who are doing very well. Not sure between in the mid east of that hippo and this buffalo if they had gotten something else in between. I am not sure about that. So what I will do because Nusura and I would want all of you to confirm with me this is Nusura. I'll try and get to you a different angle, a different position and to give you the face of this one girl.
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>> Reserve is very different. It's got a lot of lush um tall trees which is you know kind of beautiful in this uh uh kind of season that we've had in the late wet season.
>> A lot of water around which bodess well for for the winter season. Um and we'll see how it all goes. But yeah, it's been really special seeing this side of the reserve.
>> Well, Nick, as you said, it's been awesome. So, as we continue to do our last bit of birding with him and absorb as much as we can in the last little bit here on Sandringham this morning, let's head over to Amakala.
Well, we left the area to which our male lion was. it became quite a a heavily busy area. Um, but it seemed like he had met up with two of the females. Um, and where they were was also quite an awkward spot. But I think we had a good sighting of him, you know, coming all the way up from from the bottom to sort of behind us. And then we did a little bit of a a switcheroo of locations and uh then got him walking along that road which is quite nice to see. Um so uh yeah, now we're looking at some zebra and a very very confused bless in the middle there. Um yeah, not too sure.
I don't think this bless thinks it's a zebra, but I think it's just there for safety.
in charge.
>> Uh Kim, no. Guapo is not part of the coalition. Um but in saying that, there aren't any other males for him to uh either join and become a coalition with.
Um he only has the females here.
So, um yeah, pretty much Amaka is his, although he doesn't really come this far anymore. They used to come come up this way quite often. Um, but now that you know there's so much so much land on the east and there's lots of prey there for them, they they prefer not they prefer to not really come up here. I mean, they don't really they don't have to. um like I said where they've got so much on the eastern side and that's where also a lot of the animals the antelope have moved to or to the new areas cuz there's just now new grazing opportunities and obviously following the antelope will be the predators. Um that includes the cheetahs. You know the cheetahs used to hang out on the western side of the reserve very often. They still do, but just not as much as they used to.
But um now there's generally quite often going to be a herd of zebra around this particular area. Nice water hole for them close by. lovely open spaces and uh well obviously very difficult for predators to uh very difficult for predators to sneak up on them. So Jude, we once upon a time had two species of zebra. We used to have the mountain zebra, but because the border between Tiger Fontaine and the main reserve or Tiger Fontain and Amma South has been opened, we no longer can have the Cape Mountain zebra and the plains zebra together. Um, they are not allowed to mix. So those uh Cape Mountain zebra had to be uh removed and I think they may have gone to Cape Mountain Zebra. I may be wrong but they are unfortunately longer no longer here.
So we just have the plains zebra which are the slightly bigger species of zebra out of the two and those are the two that you will find you know throughout the Eastern Cape. Um, but like I said, you can't have them together. So, I think it was very unique in the fact that Amakala once upon a time had two species of zebra to see. Um, and it was always quite nice to, you know, show the difference between the two of them cuz they are pretty big differences. The Cape Mountain zebra is a little bit smaller, but they have more broader uh black stripes or the black stripes are slightly bigger. Their ears are bigger and their mouths are more brown than black. But uh we're going to send you over to Yara and see what's going on on her side.
We've now left our lions. The survey pride. They're still sleeping in the grass. I wanted to check on one of the members. He did look a bit unwell. Maybe a recent fight or a bit of a sickness.
It didn't look too well, but we never know. We might see them again, but if they were sleeping, it's best for them just to take it easy and rest. And now I've come to switch over to some giraffes right there.
And also it being a leopard day, we're going to do our best to find a leopard.
But not going to promise anything cuz with leopards it's uh they're always very very uh tricky to find. But we're always kind of lucky. Like yesterday we were with Olamak who was Luca's son and it's always nice. Uh for me every day could be leopard day. Love leopards. But also spreading awareness about them is always great. And even for our giraffes right there you can see there more than three of them. four, actually more than four or five, all eating from this Gadenia tree, the Gadia bush, and they're all enjoying it quite well. And also, giraffes, they are very intelligent. All animals are.
And uh they're very, very good at being selective with their eating. But I'll talk more about that. But when I was talking about the leopard olyak, since it's leopard day, we like to show you what we got to see yesterday and uh show you the bit of uh leopard sighting.
This is this is Luluka's son. He had a kill. I heard he killed a rbuck. I don't know why he's going up the kill. I mean the tree without the kill. It's as if he's like I don't know lost it. I don't know.
He's just there and he went up like where he's going. Look at that. Look at him. Look at that tail. How he's using it. That's why tails are very important for leopards and cheetahs especially.
Lions, we've seen them missing a bit of their tail. But for leopards and cheetahs, balance is a very big thing for them.
Look at him. You see how the tail also plays a very big role in that balance.
How he's even sitting, not just the climbing part.
Well, that was really nice. I haven't seen him in quite a long time. He's now a big boy. He still seems like he's learning a bit here and there because the way he put uh his kill on the tree, he chose a very, very weak kind of branch and that's why it fell, but it is always nice to see any leopard, especially now Luca's son. And I was talking about uh the giraffes right here still with us, they are enjoying munching away, having some good breakfast. But there's a recent study actually showing that giraffes when uh they come together to eat, they do prefer to eat with friends or preferred companions or related females instead of it just being random. So they're very selective. And also when you see them eating together like this, they do prefer having their own space. These guys are very good at social distancing and having, you know, you can be in the same vicinity, but give everyone a bit of space. If if they're eating from the same bush like they're seeing right there, even that one has walked away to give some space. They'll always again have space instead of coming together in one section. The bush like that one, they'll walk around it from different angles instead of just all kind of huddling all together. The siras are actually very good with kind of keeping a lot of social distancing with each other.
Some nice shakes. I'm sure the oxeckers are around. I think I saw one or two.
And she's going for very tiny tiny leaves because there's nothing on that branch or tree or stumple.
But we're going to send you over to look more on leopard since it is leopard day and see what the leopard is doing today.
All right, everybody. Looks like uh we has just moved now. She's just come onto a termite bound. She's looking back east this way. Um we're just going to see exactly what she's going to be doing here. Just grooming herself a little bit here. Um her little one is also making an appearance. Looks like there to the left as well, but we're going to see. I think he's trying to stalk mom at the moment or he's not really bothered. I want to see him now.
And there he is.
All right. So, he knows mommy is on top there, but he's just waiting for the little moment where he can bounce. Mom's coming down.
And now she's going to go into this drainage line which is not going to be pretty for us at all. It's going to be a very very tough one.
But we shall see.
Oh, >> there's a cootie walking in the background. Almost thought it was a was a cootie in the background there.
>> Yeah.
>> Delta. I think it's either one. Male or female leopard cubs for for mom is either he's showing interest there now.
He's going after He's going after the kudu that side.
Yeah, he's going around. He's going after the kudu that side.
I'm going to hear the Kudu start alarm calling very shortly now. I'm sure he's going to give his location away. All right. Looks like he's gone after that side. While he's doing that, we're going to quickly try and follow Salesia Sabui.
Yeah. Yeah, he's still there.
We're going to try and see what we can do here.
All right.
>> A very interesting part here is apparently there was a a male lion that walked past us not too long ago.
I just want to see what she's going to do here.
She might be looking for something.
maybe a little meal here. But still, as I said, the little boy is still with her. So now she's decided to go go and lie down there.
All right, we're going to just try and reposition here quickly.
So, we've dipped down from Big Dam into like the cement crossing that we have here and we found ourselves a nice little pied wagtail.
So smart, eh? I mean, these little waders are on the rocks here. Got a couple of threebanded plvers. Well, quite a lot of them actually.
>> Yeah.
>> And then there was this little family.
looked like two adults and there was a juvenile um pi wagtail. The juvenile was just a little more gray and washed out in color. But it's so smart and they love the kind of running streams and picking off insects amongst the stones.
>> Yeah. and we just thought this could be a good opportunity to show you how easy it is to use the birds by color book to digest and identify birds by color.
>> So, as we've talked about it before, um the I'm going to >> Thank you. Sorry.
Each of those chapters are um the chapters are broken down into color and it's first impression of color. So a bird might be in more than one uh uh chapter, but we've kind of gone to the black and white section. And you can see it's got a sizing as well just to help you um zone in into the size of the bird. Small, medium, large, and very large. Um, so it's in reference to kind of a sparrow, something that most people would be familiar with in terms of small. And then you can go onto the page, uh, look at various birds that might be similar. And we've got wagtails over here in the middle. Um, so there's a cape wagtail, mountain wagtail, and you can see some of them look quite similar. And then the distinctive and clean black and white, which is known as pi in the birding world.
You can see those those wagtails all look similar, but then when you lock onto Loland Rivers small pie bird with bobbing tail and um >> I think I can attempt the Africans one on this. It's a buntwicki.
Do I do it right here?
>> Broi.
>> No, it says Twicky there. Bunt quickie.
>> Buntwicki. Yeah.
>> Yeah.
Been practicing.
There were a couple other languages there for you to try out.
>> Okay, >> baby steps.
>> They've just flown to the back of the car, I think.
>> And there's a little threebanded plver there, though.
>> Oh, Connor, an underrated bird.
>> He's gone.
>> Let me rack my brain a little bit on what that might be. We've got some uh threebanded clubbers coming in.
what I learned from the birds by color book uh and how to use it would be like I didn't realize it was not only by color but also um like with this guy with the the collaring so it's color collars bands there's a number of >> anything that's quite distinctive to your eye we've tried to just categorize >> I think these guys are quite an underrated bird >> yeah they are because they're quite common um and you know, kind of overlooked, but >> when you take time to look at them, oh, another under, sorry, I'm answering the question for you, would be, I think, like an emerald spotted wood dove. Um, cuz it's just a dove. Everyone goes, "Oh, dove," but then when you put your binoculars on and you see that that sheen in the in the spots of the emeraldness, I think that's >> Yeah, I agree. I think doves do get a bit of a a hard knock because they're just another dove, but actually there's so many in the dove family. Um, and as you say, that emerald spotted is a superbly beautiful bird up close.
>> Um, and spending some time with that.
So, yeah, hope that helps you Colin with Fansa.
It's quite tricky to talk about those kind of birds when when they're not in front of us. But something that I also was mesmerized by when I started getting into birding would be something like the redcrested kuran.
>> Pretty much just a simple >> brown bird. But again, when you get your binoculars onto its back feathers and I actually always said like I would love that as a wallpaper the patterns of their feathers. So a lot of birds I think >> very intricate isn't it? overlooked.
Similar to this little guy, I love how clear those bands are under his collar.
>> He's a smart bird.
>> Yeah, >> I think you know with animals and birds and you know >> in general >> it's if you spend some time with them, they actually reveal their secrets.
>> Yeah.
>> You know whether suddenly you see an activity that you don't usually wouldn't have usually seen. Um those are the special things and you know sitting in nature and just absorbing how it actually inter interacts and from a fast-paced city life is actually something that we forget to do. Sometimes we almost wanting the action shots continuously without stopping and appreciating some of the smaller nuances of animals and birds. I've heard that birding makes you smarter, makes your memory um sharper or something like that's what I've been telling myself.
>> I've heard that. I'm wait I'm waiting for it to kick in.
>> I've seen it kick in for lunch. Um my memory is like an elephant here.
>> He's definitely doing a good job at feeding. What What do they actually feed on?
>> Little insects.
>> Little insect.
>> Um l that they might be on the rocks if they are.
I'm loving the sound of the water like rushing by us as this dam leads into the timber vati.
Well, I think our plan from here is I know I I got full permission from from Nick to do this, but uh I would like to head back towards where we found those lions this morning and maybe see if they did decide to hang around or if they have moved off. Maybe they're in the thickets around there. So, I think from here that's where we're going to head.
Yeah, Jimma, I love a blue wax bill there. such a beautiful pop of color in the bush in the middle of winter when the bush is all quite gray and brown.
They're they're stunning and you know again the nuances between the male and female and they they're little busy bodies and and always always got a exciting little chirp with them. I enjoy them too.
>> A nice bit of bright color in the bush.
So, yeah, I think we're going to make our way up this um damn wall.
Had a lovely time with a couple birds.
And while we make our way to see if those lines are still there, I'd love to show Nick a final glimpse of a lion.
Let's head over to Cedric.
Hang back first.
All right. He's busy talking something.
He was talking something.
Just going to wait to see what he's going to do. I don't want to move and then he moves again.
He's going to his mom. Oh.
a little bit of mom and >> mom and son time. He wants a little bit of groom and a little bit of mom uh love from mom. There we go. Mom's got a pour around his his shoulder.
There we go.
very very nice.
>> Yeah, it Yeah, it I think Shibuya is a I find she's more of like a medium female.
I won't say large. If I'm looking at large is something, you know, if you look at Shadulu, >> Shidulu is a big girl.
I think I think I find Subui maybe the size of like Columbomba.
It is adorable.
And that's what we were talking about a little bit earlier that she's she's very playful.
He's very playful with her son.
I have an idea. I think somebody stand up. Lower it up.
She's just loving to lie under this uh terminia for now.
I don't think she'll remain here for too much longer.
Just having a little moment a mountaineer. Yeah, it is absolutely precious. Very, very precious. Is uh very adorable.
Nice to see that interaction again as always with these two.
It's almost like uh the little the little one is keeping um mom on a on a toes. We can say toes or paws.
Yeah, let's say toes.
I have no idea where he's gone now.
And he's just playing it. He's playing in the background somewhere.
on a mission.
Straight in.
I'm also pulling out your way in.
>> Yep. There we go.
As I said, she's looked like she wanted to start moving a little bit more.
All right. Looks like she's going away now.
So, we're going to try and We're not going to be able to follow now as she's going into this dip now.
Going to be very, very difficult. Going to go there back.
Okay.
Yeah, she's gone straight through this dip.
I don't know if she's going to be leaving little one now behind here. Um because he's left behind this side now. A little bit.
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It's tricky, but you never know. You never know. The leopard could actually just pop up right in front of the car one day. We have switched over from giraffe to elephants, from the tallest to the largest land mammal. Can see they're enjoying some nice grass.
They're just here on the side of the road, so I didn't have to go too far in, which is always nice. Enjoying some nice soft grass. The green ones are usually much softer. And I'm sure they're much sweeter. I wouldn't know cuz I don't eat grass, but with the elephants, they do prefer to go for the nice soft grass, the greener ones. So, I'm assuming they do enjoy it a lot. But they just don't eat grass. Elephants eat over 20 different species of vegetations from trees to the grass types, small shrubs.
So, their diet in with all the green they eat is kind of very wide, which is really good. And also, sometimes when they're not feeling well, they will be going to some specific plants that will help them aid in whatever they're not um not feeling the best. If it's stomach, they always know the right medicine. So, at this age, even there's a young one right behind our big one, our big mama right there. She There's another young one who will be learning how to follow what mom is doing. What is she eating?
When mom is feeling this way, what should I eat? How should I react even to vehicles or lions or any other type of animal, you always see the elephants?
Especially in the Masar, they're very calm with vehicles. And I'm sure even the parents, the mom, especially the matriarch shows them like, okay, this is this is how we handle them and go about it.
Benji, thank you for your question. I don't think so. These guys have really tough skin. The only times I've seen um an elephant having a bit of injury, it's towards the ears. The ear area has much thinner skin compared to all around. So their mouth area is the that area has much softer skin. Can see she's coming down on the side coming down to the road using her front legs for balance. But no, they have very tough skin. And the only other time also saw a bit of an injury on the elephant is a male and his trunk looks like he was maybe fighting with another male. Oh, look at that.
It's a full-on stretch. Uh-huh. Nice balance. Nice. Oh. Oh, very good.
She's very agile. I'm sure the baby will be like, "Okay, do I do the same thing?"
Cuz with elephants, you notice their front legs, they are much bigger than the back legs because they have to hold, of course, their heads. And sometimes when you have heavy tusks and you can see the young one following mama crossing the road.
But that was a really good stretch for mom. I think she also enjoyed it. Maybe a bit of like a nice back relief. And again, they do have very heavy heads in the front. cleaning up the trunk, the tusks, and then of course the bones of a elephant is quite heavy. So their front legs are usually much much stronger and bigger. And now they've gone that too.
We still have our other elephant right here. But I was smelling something uh elephanty, but a bit of musk. I don't know if it's a male maybe in the area.
Oh, small little trumpet from the mom.
But this one is a big one.
You're pretty big.
I think when you're in the ditch, you looked smaller, but they're not too far from another herd. So maybe this maybe they had a bit of a reunion. And sometimes you have elephants coming in areas where there's a lot of resources, water bodies, and they come together. Ooh, nice. Some uh soil being thrown. They come together, maybe even pass on some knowledge or like any Where did you pass? What did you see? And also for them to kind of socialize with other elephants, especially the young boys, because once the boys are 12 plus years, they'll have to leave mom and the other females. And if they've kind of socialized with other males from different herds, one maybe one day they'll find each other and uh just chill a bit and cuz elephants are social. I was talking about it even yesterday. They can be very very I'm sure it can be lonely and they would even like to have friends. There's some elephants you'll see if it's males.
You'll see them hanging out with each other because they prefer to stick together. And also, it's always nice not to be always alone.
It's enjoying throwing that soil on his body or her body, but I think it's a boy, Iraham. Yes, it is very true. With elephants, their feet are flat. You can see right there. At least on the road, we're able to see the toes even. Um, but they do feel it even using their trunk.
Sometimes I've seen a male putting down his trunk and he was following some females and he just knew where they were.
I was expecting this to be a male.
And the female who passed with the young one, that young one is two plus years because the trunk, the tusks, I mean, were coming in. And usually with elephants they they're not like antelopes who would uh you know there are many of them or synchronized birthing. You'll see a female one female giving birth here and there because 22 months of pregnancy that is a very long time and then obviously a lot of attention to the young one. So usually for elephants even just like hippos it is usually quality over a quantity. So it does take time. So if this female and her young one the young one is two plus years, she could be ready to have another another young baby. So I don't know if this is a male and he is following cuz I was smelling a bit of mask in the area. Could be wrong. I was trying to look under cuz usually with the females they have the mammary glands very similar to humans.
You can see them flapping the air. It is getting a bit hot.
Our elephants seem to be very calm and enjoying. And we'll move on. And while we move on, we're going to send you over to Mickey and see if she has the lions.
Got an >> We have We've come back to our lions here. And now they've mostly actually all come onto the road. Uh, but Nick would like to zone in on one of the unassuming birds we spoke about earlier.
There is an emerald spotted wood dove in the moving in front of the lines.
Actually looks like it's getting passen's attention over there. So maybe he's a bit of a burer himself.
>> That's my boy.
>> Except he's not a huge fan of a line.
But if the lion's looking at a dove, then different different of opinion there.
But yeah, it's it's still it's warming up now. The mist hasn't cleared and that's why these lines haven't found a thicket yet. They've actually come onto the road, I think, because the the grass is all quite dewy and wet. And here they can just lie in peace with no grass tickling their noses or anything like that.
And I was doing a little bit of background research on the pride, trying to get as much knowledge as I can to share with you guys. Even though I think now the wild earthers are more in tune with the dynamics of the black dam pride than me. But from my understanding, I'd say that Passenari is going on about 3 years old now. The last update I saw was that he was two in about March 2025. I don't know if I'm wrong. If anyone wants to let me know, I'm always open to learn more. Um, he does have a bit of a mane starting to develop on his chest a bit, but still that pinkish nose showing that he is quite young and sizewise, he's definitely not fully grown at all. So, very much a subad adult.
That young male's just behind him with the female kind of blocking his face right now.
I really do like how they are at such peace in the road here. So I have stopped a bit of a way away because as they are still they are relaxed with vehicles now but if you get too close they stand up and I don't want to disturb them on on this their morning here. We might have to reroute our route when we decide to go home. Find a way to keep them here and keep them comfortable.
That one youngster at the back who's kind of looking at us. It I always the first thing I notice when I look at a lion is that like white ey line underneath them. It looks like they're wearing a bit of makeup.
You don't really see it on the white lines like Pasamari.
But I'm glad they have settled here because if nothing else comes, if no herds of elephant come through here and chase them off, it means that this afternoon we should also be treated to some black dam pride sightings.
>> Moving towards those zebras that we just passed.
>> Yeah, actually that's a good point. If those zebras slowly move in this direction, we could even have a bit of action later this afternoon. Always hopeful for something like that.
going to it's going to have to be the two bigger ones I think.
Well, Eloise, lions and leopards, as we know, majority of the time actually keep their claws retracted. Hope that's the right use of the word. um they so that there's not so much exposure to scratching them on like harder surfaces and rocks and stuff like that. So I would say that keeps them nice and sharp. We also saw passenary earlier this morning. Often they'll go up to like a tree and kind of do that typical catlike um clawing into branches and stuff. And I'm sure that also helps in a way sharpen them and stretch them out.
They do look like super super sharp when they are out.
>> Yeah, you forget how big those paws are until you get up close to them like we were this morning. Big >> thudding.
>> Even those sharp teeth. Always the youngsters also have extra sharp teeth cuz they haven't been gnawing on as much meat as the older lions and the pride.
Sharp teeth, sharp claws.
>> You get a whack with one of those, you'll know about it.
>> Yeah.
>> Well, I don't see us going anywhere soon. I might need to consult my positioning system and see what our route home could be um if we like when we are done spending time with these lines. But for now, we're just going to sit with them here.
Well, we are now looking at a rather interesting uh tree or interesting shrub or bush um that has these very cool looking thorns. Now this is what we call the kuru nam nam which is like a a droughtresistant uh shrub that is native to South Africa and found a lot of in this particular area and a little bit north of us towards the karu. Um obviously giving it it's where it gets its name the kuru num nom. Now the kuru num num is loved by livestock. Uh the leaves are edible but it's not just the leaves. It also has these fruits. Now these fruits when they are ripe go this beautiful red crimson color. Um but when they are not ripe they are green and that's when you need to stay away from them. So we can eat them if we wanted to. Uh but usually leave them for the birds. The birds absolutely adore them. And that can be anything. That'll be your mouse birds.
It'll be your doves um and a whole variety of others. Weavers, wax bulls, all sorts will go after these particular fruits. They are quite sweet sometimes.
I actually just had one now and it's not very sweet. It was quite um quite bitter. But yes, Lola, it does it does have that little kind of like not numbing effect in your mouth, but it makes your tongue go m This is It tastes a little bit funny. It's got a little bit of uh milky latex in the fruit as well, but it hasn't got a high content of it for it to be a problem for you. If you were to eat the stalk of this particular tree or bush, then you might have a bit of a problem because then the content of milky latex is a lot higher.
But within the fruit, it's not as high as uh as uh it is in the stalk. So when livestock eat them, they generally will avoid eating the stalks because the stalks have also these rather aggressive thick and sharp thorns, whereas the leaves don't. So they'll go around and try and pick the leaves off. Um if not, they'll go for the fruits. And um you can also plant these in your garden. Uh they do grow all year round. They don't flower all year round. Um, but you can use it if you want to take the fruit seeds, you can plant the seeds, or you can use cutings. Anyway, we're going to send you over to Cedric.
Yeah. And you think a num num would make your mouth numb. I'm glad I'm glad that's uh not the case.
But yeah, got little little Sabui. She's climbed this jackalberry tree now. So she's lying right on top this jackleberry tree just looking at something. So there is Impala's alarm calling crazy behind us at the moment.
Definitely not for her and definitely not for the little one that's at the base of the tree. So I think maybe there might be another predator close by.
You can see she's just keeping an eye on it or keeping an eye on that area.
So, she's got a fantastic eyesight.
So, and she's got a nice and she's nicely elevated as well. So, it's even better. You can see she's not too worried.
He's even falling asleep.
Knotting off a little bit there. She's still keeping an eye now and again on on that one little position that side.
Now you can see that beautiful pink nose of hers. That light pink.
There's always a one of the traits of a a leopard is climbing up a tree and enjoying the treetops.
That's making that branch nice and comfortable.
Joyce, yes. Uh I've seen a leopard pretty much you can say almost not regurgitate maybe going to bring up a furball. As I said they haven't got the strongest stomach enzymes like your uh like your hyenas for instance where they'll devour everything. So see leopards actually can actually have something coming up and just getting the rid of the fur that is pretty much stuck in like a little ball and trying to get out get it out. But um as I said, I've seen it like twice before. Not a common thing that we do see really.
She's definitely a sleepy cat now.
She's got a nice position there. Nice branch, nice cover.
She's in the element.
>> There we go.
Looks like a little bit of a better position.
As I say, the little one is sleeping at the base of this jacket tree. Got no visual of him, but he is at the base there.
All right. Well, we're going to move on from here, I think. Let them be.
Hopefully this afternoon they're going to still be around. Now, while we do that, let's head over to Mickey in Sandingham as those lions are getting active.
So, yeah, as we were sitting here, suddenly all of the lines suddenly jumped up and a couple moved off the road. Person didn't jump up, but he definitely lifted his head. So, they they definitely got a fright from something. We're not sure what. Um, clearly not a serious threat because they're only moving off slowly. Uh, but the one lioness came walking towards us.
And here's person Warry also walking towards us. I think they might just then look for somewhere else to settle. I don't know what gave them a fright. We can't obviously see around that corner, but the rest are also following suit here. So nice to see them on the move.
That's probably the the most amount of step count they've gotten between 6:00 a.m. and 9:00.
I haven't heard any elephants or anything like that, but I assume it's something along those lines that gave them a bit of a fright.
And see this little guy's got a bit of a chewed ear.
might be an easy way to identify it as he gets older.
She Oopsie.
See, that's the one that I said looks like it's got a bit of a belly. I don't know what it's been maybe nibbling on over the night, but he seems to be fuller than the rest of them.
So, the adult lioness and personari have lain down in a very thick section. Uh, we don't have a view of them, or at least a good view of them anymore.
Oh, there's the female.
It is so awesome to see them. Shaina and especially him slowly starting to get get to be able to spend more time with with them is also really cool for me. First few days they were leading me on just with tracks and tracks and tracks. I don't know as I said maybe it's something that Nick has brought onto this vehicle. When you put the focus on birds and you shift it away from violently trying to trail lion tracks, then they just seem to appear.
Yeah. And while we're here, I just want to thank Bush Tech, Luxury Tech, for sponsoring this drive this morning. It's been action-packed here on World Leopard Day. We can maybe even call it cat day for for us between Cedric's leopards, our lions, lions on a kill. It's just been really awesome morning. So, thank you to the bush tent.
Luxury tent.
Here comes another lime.
seem to be a little bit more active now.
It's warming up a little bit, >> which is counterintuitive from a lion's perspective, >> but lioness looks looks like she's about to pop up on the road again in front of this youngster.
Look, he looks like he's almost or trying to practice a bit of stalking skills there. There she is.
And here we've got all of them coming along the road towards us.
Nick's slowly shifting down into the footwell.
I'm joking. He's just trying to help get let her get a better angle of the lions.
I'm just interested in not being eaten.
Interesting. They really are getting more up and active later on in the day than I would have expected.
This one's got like a slight limp to its gate. I see a little cut on its right hand leg.
And it really is fantastic. It's wonderful to be here with them this morning and also have a little bit of action from them.
Not sure what spurred the action.
Oops. Little trip there.
Oh, what birds are those calling?
I'm joking. Here comes Pasanari.
Absolutely awesome. I wonder if it's going to come and if he's going to come and settle alongside the other youngster that's laying down here.
Maybe rubber heads acknowledge it. Nope.
None of the above.
That one's got a couple wounds and scarring on his backside.
Well, at least they're making way for us to slowly make our way through here when we do decide to leave as they're moving off of the road. So, yeah, this has been absolutely spectacular.
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Morning you two. I'm here.
over the next 30 minutes, we catch up on what's been happening over the last few days.
>> Very majestic. Look at this guy.
>> That was epic.
>> Look at that, guys.
>> Oh, must feel so good.
That's the way it should be.
>> How How awesome is this?
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Open roads, total freedom, no limits, just the journey ahead. Brits equipped for adventure >> is to enjoy uh or to help in fixing jodies in the village and in myself I would use the natural sun to get the problem of jodis fixed.
Yeah, sorry. I believe we had a little issue with the sound. We're back again with these two rhino and they're on the right of us in front. And then if uh if we look here on the left, we've got some buffalo. So we sort of getting rhino on the one side and buffalo to our left in this nice open section.
Animals here all tucking into their breakfast.
It's not the biggest herd here. I can only count one, two, three, four, maybe five or six. There's also a wilderbeast and the youngster there. Um, yeah, sorry, the wilderbeast is out of shot now.
I guess they're still quite a long way away. Um, the one buffalo actually has just noticed us, but they probably the buffalo are maybe 100 m to our left and the rhino probably 100 m to our right. So, I don't think it'll be an issue. I think they they move past each other. I haven't seen too much of a altercation between them.
They've got plenty of food. plenty of food for them all to eat. So, I don't think that'll be an issue.
But yeah, it's warming up a bit. So, these buffalo are probably going to make their way into the thicker shade.
Uh, I think some people have to have thick skin, but uh, if I have to compare, probably the Ellie, the rhino, not sure.
Looks like it's a rhino, but um, I'm not too sure. macro life.
These uh trying to think of an animal that has to have thick skin just from uh you know the odd judgments against it. Maybe one of the big five. The the ugly five.
Hyena.
Warthtog. Wilderbeast gets a bad rap.
Maribou stalk.
Thick feathers.
As these buffalo slowly moving towards there's a a bit of a thicket here in front of them, but they're still grazing away. We've lost sight of the rhinos.
They've decided it's getting too warm.
They're very peaceful scenes here on the plains of Mabula.
I can feel the sun on my back getting a little bit lazy.
Contemplating breakfast.
Yeah, I'm glad you enjoyed it, Lindsay.
Um, we were lucky with our lions and uh sounded like uh there's some lions everywhere.
And then leopard with Cedric. What's usual about that? Unusual about that.
Um, great way to celebrate World Leopard Day, although we still got the whole day to enjoy that.
But yeah, definitely a great sunrise drive.
when uh you have these good sunrise drives, then you go into the sunset and you sort of have some expectations. I guess we're always having expectations.
Always hoping for something with the sunset drives going into the nocturnals.
Might get lucky.
I'm sure everyone's still looking for some more leopard.
And uh yeah, from the team all across East Africa, I know they've been having some great sightings. Mala sounded like uh Eric was having some good shots. Um Cedric with the leopards and Mickey with and Nick doing some good birding and having plenty of lines. It's been an amazing uh sunrise. Thank you very much for for joining us and uh be sure to tune in this afternoon and see what we can find for you.
Goodbye.
Hello, hello and jumbo jumbo everyone. A very warm welcome to the Masimara National Reserve. This could just be a bit sensitive, but again, this is the cycle of life. My name is David and on camera with me this morning is Peter Bong.
This is Mara.
A very warm welcome to Asani Masimara.
Feeling good. It's warm. The sun is out and I am full of joy because my two boys last night brought this buffalo down. Hopefully with the help of the mar girls and during the sunray safari I saw one of the girls.
I'm talking about Nusurika who possibly I mean that must have been Nusura feeding on this particular buffalo and should you you know should warn the sensitive viewers but again as I'm telling you this is how things work out here everything is done for a good reason and this was a huge buffalo and I'm suspecting it was brought down last night by my tea boys and my marsh girls. Today I'm going to call them my marsh girls.
Not sure exactly what time that happened. Not sure how many they were, but earlier I saw moving from you know these particular kas back to the laga and I am talking of the bilaka.
We didn't get very big rains last night and for that reason I was able to cross a few laggers before getting to this main one here where either the marsh guards the te boys if we don't get them around the marsh area they'll always come or we'll always find them near the bashakalaga I would say half of it is gone we got so many flies there. And I'm sure you know the flies also help in decomposition, blowflies, house flies, lous flies, and I'm sure at one point we should be having some bees, ants.
And remember ladies and gentlemen, we are live interactive and we love to get questions and comments. Please keep send sending them through for the next one hour because we promise you a lot of action.
Peter, if you go a little bit to the internal contents there and just have a look.
Yeah, somewhere there.
Yeah, it shows they did not remove as you know the internal the stomach content as they normally do. They still have left so much of them in there. Not sure they were very very hungry and they had to eat, you know, the flesh very quickly.
And if there should be any concern, Ryan Asantisana, and that's a great comment. I'm sure you know Ryan Asant.
Thank you very much. Great comment. We try to do the very best we can. And I tell you what, for only one reason, it's fun to be here. You enjoy every minute you're out and even Ryan when the drives end you want to be back here as quickly as possible. Now the I would say the masara have so many types of flies the so many types of flies and it is an interesting question. I wouldn't know how many particular you know types of flies we have here but like you can see here I said we might see the blow flies, house flies, la flies. I mean, uh, we might be seeing beetles later on, some ants later on, but I would want you to believe we got so many flies. Not forgetting we got the ces flies, which of course we rarely see Theodore ces flies on cacases like this. But an interesting question I might be finding out for you, but we got so many types of flies here in the ma. Maybe Theodore the one I would want you to take home today are the ces flies which my brother here Peter Bong on camera does not like.
Yesterday he was bitten by one and he almost cried. I mean they're so painful it's just like a syringe or a hot needle thrown to you and he wasn't very very happy. But we have quite a number of flies here. We also see a lot of lake flies. We also see much flies quite quite a number of them that we'll see uh here in the Mara.
What happened during the migration which we expect to see from the end of this month or early June the number of the types of flies do increase.
So earlier when we were here, we saw that one female Konosurika was feeding on this carcass. And as I said, I saw Otipo, one of the tea boys, moving from the carcass to the bushes and possibly uh to the orange lift croons. I would imagine he is there. And I got a feeling I mean it was not only and here uh the other boys uh still could be here because to bring down a huge big buffalo dagger boy like this you will need a few extra muscles. It's not easy. And the lions just know so well what they usually face when trying to deal with these immortal enemies of the lions.
Ladies and gentlemen, I'm sure you know during Marai we'll always have two feeds and we'll always have the other nice gentleman called Big James. So, we'll be moving from one corner of the Mara to the other corner of the Mara to Imara.
Hello. And well, David, it is true. It takes a lot of strength to take down a buffalo. Even for lions, buffaloos are no joke. But glad that the boys on that other side, lions are having their meal.
We have decided to take more of a scenic route and watch an elephant from a distance. Most likely a male elephant enjoying some nice soft grass in that what looks like a marsh kind of area.
Hello everyone, my name is Imara and on camera we have James. Thank you so much for tuning in for Mara Live. We are taking it easy. The area is very, very tricky because a lot of tall grass, but at least with elephants, they're able to stick out really, really well, just as you can see right there. And I would assume that this male, the two two assumptions on my end. One, okay, we know it's a male. Males are usually more solitary, but I think I saw another one, so they could be friends at least in the same area. And uh two, they could be much older. With older elephants, they do enjoy being around marshy area where the grass is much softer. It's easier for them when you know the elephants six sets of teeth and then that's why they live up to 60 years of age. So when they reach around their last set, they're going to go more for the softer vegetation. And most of the time you'll see like a male, even another female or just a hard sticking around like a marshy area. Yes, the green ones must be sweet. I'm sure they are very nice and tasty, but usually one is uh due to them getting much older. Even like us with human beings, the older we get, the harder food will be much harder to chew.
And it's the same for elephants. But I've seen elephants also chewing some branches. It's not saying that teeth are weak at all. They're very, very strong.
And uh I don't know, one day we might come across maybe an elephant skull. We might show you, but I have seen it somewhere, but it's very tricky to find it in this grass. But it is uh as big as my hand. Like just to show you, it's like much bigger than my palm of my hand. And it's one whole set. They're all together. And then they're usually two and then the bottom. So when it comes to grinding, it's like very thick.
But imagine now with a bigger elephant, much bigger than my hand for sure. So they have very very strong teeth.
I think there's some So that's the other elephant. And you can see that hill in the background that goes towards Tanzania. So, we've come much closer today to almost the border. You can see the marsh area. It's not as impressive as the marsh in Governor Side, but it is kind of pretty actually with the whole hill in the background.
I wonder if you guys can also hear the roofer snaped lark.
It's just sitting next to the car having a bit of a duet with another one not too far.
Very sweet bird.
We can't see it. It's just next to the car, almost next to the tires.
And see, it's a very, very hot day. Nice and clear. Not much clouds. But don't let that deceive you. Masimar is very good at deceiving people when it comes to the weather. You'll be thinking that it's going to be very uh cold and then out of nowhere it's hot. And then if you're thinking it's going to be hot the whole time, you never know what the weather might throw at you.
But it is quite a lovely scenery. At least better compared to seeing a carcass, a buffalo carcass. But I'm sure it is. It's normal. It's a cycle of life.
I think there's something else next to that Ellie. I'm seeing a bit of a white.
Could either be an antelope. Other animals would enjoy also the marshy areas, not just Ellie's.
KJM, thank you so much for tuning in.
You and your family. This is great. I hope they are enjoying seeing the beautiful landscape of the Masai Mara.
And uh yeah, just looking through the binoculars. Those are actually heartbeast right next to the Ellies in that marsh area, but we are quite far.
What I like about this area is the rules have to be really respected. There's no such thing as off-roading. And it always makes me feel actually happy because animals like our elephant here, they can just enjoy their peace and we can just observe them from a distance.
KJM keep enjoying the show and especially watching with your children and KJM this is what Wild Earth is all about. Not sure you're watching for the very first time or you've been following us, but we are the largest vehicle uh when it comes to safari in real time. I would guess the whole world. Well, Immara, you need to move on, which is always good thing to do. Just like me, I moved on from the carcass of the buffalo and found myself not very far from that caucus. This one handsome boy, a member of the T- Boys or the T- Boy coalition.
And this is none other but Otipo.
Now I'm seeing a mark above his right here that I had not seen before.
I'm seeing it for the first time.
Yesterday morning, was it yesterday morning? Saw him by the day before.
Yesterday morning we saw this boy by the airirst. Then he disappeared to the mash. I would hope I'm correct yesterday morning. Peter is also confirming it yesterday morning. But he was mobile. He was not stopping. He seemed to be in a rush. Not sure where he was going. I didn't morning. Yes. I knew it was not yesterday. Yeah, it was Friday morning.
Not Saturday cuz today Sunday. Yes. Cuz yesterday we never saw a single lion.
Saturdays we call them catch days and none of them showed us showed up for us and because he was mobile and ended up in the grass then finally in the marsh area I didn't have a good chance to see his face but today I've got enough chance bless you to see his face and there's that one mark not sure where got it from it looks like a wound, possibly a claw from another lion or possibly a teeth mark. I do not know what that exactly is, but this is definitely Otipo. The T- Boys, for those of you who may not be knowing KJM, I'm sure you've been following. It's your first time. As I said, as I asked you, the tea boys are always is a coalition of six six males. Now, now Rachel, we sometimes have to hold on to oneosis to, you know, handle the strong odo. But Rachel, for this particular case here, the carcass that's behind me there, it's very fresh and there's nothing smelling from it. So what you normally try to do, Rachel, is try to position the vehicle in a way that if it's windy, the wind does not come to our noses. I mean Peter Bong on camera is very sensitive when it comes to smell and not once he has told me you have to reposition the vehicle or I will going to switch off the camera.
So of course he's always joking but Rachel that's what you usually train and do. If you look carefully, Rachel, you can see the movement on the grass, the vegetation, and I'm talking about the orange leaf croons. So, the wind is from Otipo towards us.
That is fine. Slowly I might get bit you know bits and pieces of smell of but if that would have been the carcass and it not be a fresh carcass retro then we'll try and do the very best we can to be on the other side of the carcass.
Now this particular kill was done very close to the bilakalaga and inside the laga there's lots of water. So, this gives me some very nice, you know, heads up, uh, or rather makes my life easier in the afternoon because these lions, chances are 10 out of 10 they will still be here.
Sanjie, I don't know what to say about Vi Sanjiv. I have really been thinking and I'm not sure Sanjiev you heard me uh the other day when I was giving a small story about Sanjie I mean not Sanjie about Vouy I haven't seen him feed together with the mash girls and the tea boys I think the last time I saw them feeding together was it in either February or March That's the last time I saw volley feeding together with this particular you know coalition or the mar gas but I would still say if anything and they have to feed together you know he will show up and there's still I would say not much a bad you know bad blood between him and the other tea boys Sanjiv and is only that he behaved very very differently from the other T boys when it came uh to the time of dispass Sanjiv I was just saying the other day uh the tea boys apparently were not pushed out by their fathers their fathers I'm sure you know are the Salah's boys I think we have now two alive now and they were not they were pushed off I mean out there was no fight and what their mothers did at one point they just left them on their own and when they were left on their own they were left rless they didn't know what to do so they bonded together I would say the six of them and they were like where do we go what do we do and they were happy I wouldn't say they were happy but when they parted with their parents or their mothers that was it but Sanjiv Vully whose mother was called Autumn.
Vouy did not join the other six boys and he went and stayed with Autumn.
Apparently Autumn is a sister or was a sister to Kyong's mother called Summer.
And unfortunately at one point uh the mother died, Autumn died. And I don't think Sanjie Vouy was very ready because as soon as the mother died, Vouy was left without a plan B.
And I would say that is why Vuly have suffered.
So he had only one choice. It's tough to be a lion here out on his own. And Vouy was left with only one choice to go look for his childhood friends.
And I would say they have never never really accepted him back in like a way because if you see them on settings where they have a coakas you'll always see how bully is treated how he handles himself he'll eat and like move away from the rest you know of the boys. So he has never been really really well accepted unlike the other the six boys who uh will be fitting together.
Just to let you know Sanjiv Vou's dream wall the last he was checked he was seen with the carcass of a pig by the game rangers. So he's doing pretty well.
And of the other six boys from the T coalition, his best friend is Kiongi.
And I would only say so because I think uh Kyongi and Vouy are fast cousins. Vou's mother Autumn was a sister to Kyong's mother summer.
Maybe we might say here blood is thicker than water.
Otherwise, the other five boys, I don't think they really care so much about volley.
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Well, I'm sure the boys are enjoying having all that buffalo meat and the flies. Oh, the flies. They are a big part of the whole ecosystem, but they are quite annoying. They're very persistent. I'm sure even our antelopes and elephants do have a say when it comes to flies too. Not everyone's favorite, but they do play again a big role in the environment. They are food for a lot of insects and reptiles. So, they are a big source of food and also helped with decomposing even the organic matter like the buffalo right there. So, you'll see them laying their eggs. Lava becomes the maggots and then they'll be eating off. But sometimes when you have the hyenas and your rest of the cleanup crew coming in, they sometimes do kind of munch away what the flies have left behind. And here in our scene, we have some heartbeats, some topies, and some elephants in the background. So, it's a nice mix of different herbivores.
They're all looking in one direction. I wonder what they're seeing. But with the topi, they do like to stand on termite mounds. It's kind of a very good way to remember their name. top and then an eye. So topi like to be on top of a termite mound. And this is because usually the male likes not just the male but even in female it's good to have an advantageous point where you can look and see. And especially with this tall grass having to step on a termite mound will be very beneficial. So you can see if anyone is trying to sneak up on you like any leopard or cheetah or lion and they feel much safer having one of them standing on the mound. They have a lot of trust in that topi and they're very good at giving the alarm calls. And not once have we actually found lions cause of topies. They were able to give a nice alarm call like that. Almost like a snort sneeze kind of mix. And through that you're able to know, okay, something is going on in the area and you're going to find maybe a big cat or even something else. Sometimes you never know, it could even be a snake. We once saw a python which was really great. I hope we'll get to see one again. I know Big James doesn't like snakes, but I do enjoy looking at them from a very good far distance. I have very much respect for snakes, but from a very, you know, long long way instead of being too close. Our ties are also having a good view of some elephants right there in the background. This could also be some males. So, we did drive away from the marshy area. Kept on driving. It looks kind of similar, but now you can see the grass area is much drier. It's not really dry to be honest. Beneath the golden grass is a lot of green.
Noah, thank you for your question. Wow.
Well, elephant tusk never really stop growing. So, sometimes there have been some elephants. There's one legendary tusker. I think he was called Muhammad and he was from Sambururu area and his tasks were almost touching the ground.
Even Craig the one who passed recently he was another big tasker in Amboselli area and his tasks were so close to touching the ground. So they can actually grow that big and you know they still keep on growing all the time. What can happen to make them not stop growing is if they break it at a point where it's a bit too shallow or let's say too close to the base because sometimes yeah they can break a bit of their tusks maybe due to fighting or maybe pushing a tree or digging and then you know a crack happens in the tusk and it breaks off. So sometimes you'll see it can grow back keep on growing keep on growing.
But in some areas or some instances there are some elephants who have no task on one side because it was broken to the point where it doesn't it can't grow back. So these two elephants right there I'm guessing to be males and also I saw some other elephants in the other side. So I think there's a bit of a reunion that happened maybe in this area. There was a lot of elephant dung on the road almost like bumps. You had to really avoid them. And I'm sure they had a nice kind of reunion. See everyone. how is everyone doing kind of updates different maybe distant relatives and male elephants do like to hang out with one another. Sometimes you can't see them obviously being sauté for males that is very normal but having a best friend would make life so so much better instead of it just being you alone. And at least even with the antelopes we have here, they're not alone either.
But it's going to get much hotter today.
I can feel it. You can see them flapping their ears. I know right now they're giving us their back, but they're also facing away from the sun.
They're actually kind of standing literally next to each other.
So maybe they might walk over to the side where we saw the other male elephant in the swampy area. Maybe have a bit of some cool grass and some nice water. Maybe a bit of a splash, some mud on the body, help with the sunscreen.
Even topies like to do that when it's called like horning and or mud packing where they will dig their horns into mud and that way it does a lot of different things. One, the males like to do it to show like I'm do I'm dominant and I I'm more bigger because now with the mud, the horns start looking much bigger, much darker. So they find it quite attractive and intimidating to other males and also it helps with cooling off. So when you're here in the Masamar if you didn't have like any sunscreen or a hat or any shade, you'll just do what antelopes and uh even the elephants and hippos like to do is just enter some mud and keep your skin covered with the mud.
I wouldn't recommend that obviously, but that's the best way for this animal to keep cool, especially if there's no shade around and the sun is just quite high and quite quite strong.
Leopard queen. Ooh, that's a really good question. Well, it can be a bit of a nuisance, I'm sure, because what can happen is if the flies enter a wound, they will kind of lay maybe some eggs and you can find maggots in there. So, that kind of would be helping getting rid of like dead or um affected, let's say, part of the wound, but I wouldn't think it would help too much. It would be quite irritating for the animal itself. And that's why they like to also one if you're an animal like baboons or lions very social with one another and then you can do grooming with each other and help get to areas that you can't that's good. If you're not able to for example such as even elephants themselves they will be throwing mud on their backs. Even warthogs do the same thing and having mud is the best thing.
And with the big cats, they can able to lick themselves and the saliva does have a bit of healing properties in it and help them with their wound. But with the flies, I think it would be quite quite annoying. But if there was infected areas, maybe the maggots would be able to eat away the infected part. But now when it reaches that point, it's it's going to still be quite annoying for the animal.
You can see some heartbeat right there sitting in the grass.
They also feel quite safe having the topias around. No one is looking at us even wondering what are we doing. We're just observing you guys and talking about how you keep cool. And even though I'm sitting in this tall grass like that, it will help even with keeping cool. A little bit of shade. It's not 100% like the way you can get from being underneath a tree. But with the rains even, we've been receiving more rains towards the evening afternoon times. And I'm sure the ground is a little bit dump where it does kind of help them with cooling off. And even lions do that. But with today's sun, I think a shade for the lions would be much much better instead of just laying down on any dump ground.
I think I saw a young somewhere.
Alex. Well, with the horns, you can see with the topis, it's very, very interesting. Both male and female carry horns, but with the other antelopes, I'm not so sure cuz I've been more into the ones of the antelopes here in the Masamara. And the topi is a very iconic uh antelope here. But I'm sure that each antelope with their own horns, they're all very different and unique. And some do look very similar. For me, yesterday I was talking about how even the eland kind of looks similar to the Thompson gazels. Obviously, the size is different, but there's a bit of the shape, how it just goes straight up, but they all again very different. Even with the topies, the close relatives also are the heartbeast. They have similar body shape. Um, but the color is different on their coats and also the horns are quite different, different shape. So, they always have different uh they don't look all the same. If you even look at a Rowan or a sable, even their horns look similar but different.
And both male and female for the topis do carry even the heartbeast.
I've never seen really heartbeast kind of engaging in a bit of fights the way I've been seeing topies doing, especially in an area where I like to call the topi arena because we're always finding topis there, but the place is actually called, but a lot of antelopes do like to hang out there. Nice short grass and just able to see far and beyond.
Kwami, I do think so because seem to be a little bit more muscular than the impalas and a bit bigger. I think they're also much heavier. These guys are very athletic and I do think they could be much much stronger for sure.
I wonder if they would ever engage in a fight. I've never seen that. Usually the antelopes, they won't really fight each other like that. It's usually towards predators or each other if it's the sense of territory dominance and mating.
But when it comes to with other animals, other species, they don't mind cuz everyone is kind of minding their own business. They do their things differently. If you look at the impalas, they the male will keep his harm close by. And if you look at the water buck, if the male water bark has his territory is in an area where there's a lot of abundance in water, it's a nice water body and the females come into that area, they're his. So you see, even in the impalas wouldn't have there's no competition needed. Even when it comes to eating of grass, there's some antelopes that prefer the softer grass.
And if you look at the zebras, even with the wilderbeast, the zebras like to eat much of the tougher grass than the wilderbeast who like to have the softer one. So, everyone is a good balance out here. They don't have to compete with other species in that way. The only ones I do see kind of competing is the big cats. Um, lions don't like leopards.
Leopards don't like lions. Cheetahs, they all kind of don't like each other, but it's not because of just pure hatred. It's due to competition for food because they all kind of they're all carnivores. So they can eat the same type of animal and sometimes one will want to get rid of the other one so they can have more food. So when it comes to the big cat is a bit different.
Even some birds when they kind of prey on each other. But antelopes I think they are the most peaceful with one another. Even when you see some warthogs coming in the hobby have no problem.
They just want to survive and keep away from any predators trying to come towards them. Yeah. You always see even sometimes a Thompson gazelle hang out with the topies or a warthog. They don't mind. But when it comes down to the carnivores, it's more competitive because of food. That's why you'll see a bit more of like fights between the big cats.
Hello Topi. Your tummy looks pretty big.
So usually with topies, they are like similar with impal when it comes to birthing season. A lot of antelopes are where they just flood the whole area with young ones. And this now we're talking about predators and having um competition for food. The antelopes kind of play a big role where there's so many babies that they know at least maybe half of them will survive and the other predators can't finish them off.
Well, it's always interesting. There's a time I remember we were doing a particular safari and we were doing some uh wild earth expeditions and we were staying in a camp called Oliki and apparently I was with my friend here Peter Bongi on camera and one of my colleagues I think his name was Sam was able to catch a hatist or a you know I would say oh just flee away that was a fun tailed Widowbad. Ah, shame on you.
She just moved on. We also going to move on. And I think it was agoni or a heartwist. And some was very lucky and some was with big James. Big James who is with Imar right now. And they were able to uh broadcast that live for like a whole one hour bus process. So when uh Imar is talking of Topy's giving birth, I'm sure she'll be happy to see that happen. I just remembered uh that was Peter 2022.
>> It was in 2022 and we had maybe I'll first Peter stop here without getting very close so she doesn't fly away again. And we saw uh that particular hatbeast or congi giving bath. This looks to me like a font tailed widow bud. Hopefully she doesn't fly away again.
And we'll always see them around.
Come on.
It's gone again.
Well, I'll tell you Duke something. I have always loved bing and uh I worked for a company who valued or whose training for uh their guides was very very thorough and the company uh is still there. It's called Amber Croman Kent or Enk. So they were very thorough on the training. you had to do lots of geology, a lot of boty, you know, a lot of mamology. Anyhow, bing was also key. But Duke, apart from bing, they also would teach people foreign languages. So, Duke Kenya is a former colony of the British and most of us here apart from our mother tongues which are all different. Uh you know about maybe 45 different dialects here maybe three or four or five of them would be similar to each other but all the other 40 are very different. So at Duke I remember I was taught a Spanish or I took a Spanish class. We had a choice or had a choice of Japanese, French or Spanish. I wanted to do French. I don't know for a reason, but the lecturer ended up putting me in a Spanish class. Anyhow, in general, what I found out much later on Duke, unlike some guests, I'm talking about the Americans or the British who most of them will also love budding.
Most of the Spanish guests I was guiding because I ended up being placed in the Spanish department uh because of my Spanish. They didn't care about the birds very much. Any birds they care about were this size. I'm talking about either vultures, flamingos, big stocks, big herons, big cranes, but anything small like ciculas, smalls, you know, small grass buds, they don't care. And Duke, I have to tell you I lost my footing on budding but slowly I am now coming back because since uh you know joining world earth you know we do everything in English and yeah it was a number of years you know that I've been away from actual bing only speak of flamnco buth garas you know and bats like that but now I am back to where I need to be. Peter, stop here. I mean, these buds are playing hide and seek with us. And when the rains come, the grass grows quite tall. And I'm talking mainly of the red oat grass, the triandra, and many Jacksons, many widers will take advantage of that grass for breeding and making nests.
We'll see whether these birds that are playing hide and seek with me and Peter this time are going to cooperate. This a different one.
Levi, if you fly from here to Lake Kip here is about 1 hour 50 minutes. Maybe in a caravan. I'm talking of a one-winged engine plane. If maybe you take a twin, it could be 1 hour 10 minutes. and possibly if you take a dash it could be maybe uh just about an hour. So it's north from where we are Levi and that's where Lakeia is and it's a beautiful sport lakeia and I'm sure you've been checking on our website if you go to wild earth travel uh you will see in November we are conducting a safari that will be here in the Masimara National Reserve and also it will be going to Leipia. Now to the right of your screen or is it your left? Those are a black bird longtail.
And this to me looks like the red colored widow. It's not the very first one that was the fun tailed widow that kept disappearing and misbehaving from Bong's camera. And maybe behind him, I'm guessing the brown dark one there that doesn't look as beautiful uh as having a long tail like this one here could be the female of the same males will always develop those long tail.
during a breeding and we call it a breeding plumage.
>> Ah, sorry. It's flown. Uh, we're going to go back maybe to the one we had. Let me know, Peter, when you're there.
I hope I have made a bit of sense to you. Please let Jared know whether what I was saying was making any sense or I was saying a lot of nonsense.
I would want to believe Lola you speak Spanish or you understand Spanish. I mean I still love Spanish. Quite a romantic language.
There's one particular bad that is hiding in there and the director of the drive Jarrett is saying it's pretty good. I mean uh as I said I had a choice of I mean I personally wanted to do French but you know so many people wanted to do French and I was put in a class uh that ended up putting me uh in Spanish which I don't regret. I'm still happy to have done Spanish. So that that we had there was the yellow or the red colored widow. I'm sure they have definitely flown away.
And Peter, I'm trying to get a book or one of those birds there.
Holy mountaineer. What a great name. And you're wondering what these grasp I mean these birds are eating here. And you are absolutely right. They're eating seeds.
And I'll be showing you in one of my books here, Peter Lemino, holy mountaineer. Uh, holy mountaineer. I want to show you here. It has been claimed some of these birds that we are seeing here. And especially the males.
And I'm talking of this particular nail.
And I'm talking about this particular one that we saw earlier, the red colored, the red colored widow that the red you see here, holy mountaineer. Hopefully you see that.
cuz they will all all of them will feed on the seeds. But the red you see here on the color there's either a particular type of seeds they'll eat or they'll eat the same seed maybe lots of it and that will change this color either to deep red, light red or sometimes even going to orange. So you are right. They're feeding on the seeds from those particular grass and mainly the red oat grass or the semenaandra. But apart from the red colored window, there's one other widow bud that I love because it has the longest tail of them all and will start from the tip of the beak because this is what many B authorities will measure and especially during their breeding plumage. And let's let us walk with his body size there and you'll notice the tail. sometimes are always three, four times the size of their bodies. As we go to Mara who got more antelopes, it is always quite tricky to have birds stay still. They will not. It's always a big challenge especially for the camob but at least you're able to have the book. Oh, Topi put up his head really quickly. I wanted to show you the Topi sitting is another sleeping posture that they do. It's uh unique to be well it's unique for them actually because they have been observed to be putting their face on the ground like their nose touching the ground like their mouth as we saw earlier on. And uh some people think that it could have been a specialized defense posture to protect their heads while resting, which does make sense cuz right now this guy or female could be either cuz both male and female ties carry horns. Could have just been really tired and just said, you know, I'm going to take a small nap. It keeps on looking up. But there are so many other ties around. And also this top you can see has mud on the horns.
one this when I was talking about earlier around the horning or mud packing. Uh this is uh both for males and females to stock mud with the earth like to put it on their horns and uh it helps spread the scent across the stomping ground. So this area someone will know there are a lot of topies here cuz a lot of them have been doing it but it's also getting hot. It's another way of kind of cooling off keeping clean.
They have a lot of flies that disturb them. I can even see how the his or her ears are moving back and forth. That is all the flies in that area. Disturbing.
Josiah, thank you for your question.
Well, there is a book I have that shows you the tracks of different animals and the antelopes. And I think you just have to really look at it properly and look at the shape because sometimes you find okay if you look at the size if you're looking at a heartbeat and a topi could have been a bit of a small difference not too big but obviously if you compare Thompson Gazelle and topi thompsons are much smaller so their feet are tiny so the feet prints will be tiny but with the topi I'm sure if you just look at images and kind of compare if it looks like this cuz it's always sometimes a small little curve on the inner inner side cuz you can split it's kind of a split hoove almost and you'll see on the inner side sometimes the different shape all different antelopes have the different shapes of their feet. So, if you're able to get like a book or a PDF or images that show you differences between the topi and even the heartbeast with the eland, it will be pretty unique and pretty nice to actually be able to tell the differences. But sometimes I can tell buffalo for sure. It looks very cowike, but you can tell it's buffalo even because of the size. And giraffe, big big ones. So, that's also easy.
When the mara turns green, life surges, the air hums, the earth stirs, and the wild comes alive.
Here, the wonder never ends. It just changes color. Every storm, every sunrise, every sweeping vista is an expression of wild magic. Visit the Masamara. Experience the magic.
It's coming to say hello to us. There's no shortage of ellies around here. Here it comes. Oh. Oh, that is just giving us a very nice look.
He is a very impressive boy, isn't he?
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Introduce you now to the her. And the baby now grows up knowing this is who I am. This is where I belong and this is the specy I am. with the horn recognition. Maybe it could be a possibility. Not entirely 100% sure if it is how they do it, but I do know mom does take a lot of time with the young ones to know that this is your family.
I'm your mother and so on so forth.
And also when it comes to communications like for topies, when you see them nodding their heads, they kind of know.
So if a topi was raised with goats, it would be acting like the goats cuz it doesn't know that it is a topi. So, usually mom is pretty pretty good at letting you know who who you are. So, we're going to send you over to Espanol.
David, I can't speak uh Spanish. I did a bit of French. I wish I could speak Spanish, but let's go and see what David is talking about.
Mui Ben and I hope you have given a You lost me at one point when I was saying director.
So what I'm trying to say I am still waiting to hear what Lola is going to tell my director Jarrett about my Spanish. Anyhow I mean uh in Kenya I think we are very very blessed. We got people who will speak maybe two three four five different languages.
Lola and you're saying I am a bit rusty. Not like how I was what I was trying to tell Lola way back.
I used to speak pretty good Spanish, but then I ended up speaking lots of English. I speak my mother mother tongue and Sharon.
Wonderful to hear your name. You're saying a man of many talents. I mean, I won't call myself Sharon Multilingual, but I speak a bit of English, a bit of Spanish. Uh speak Kiswahili, which is our national language. And I also speak um a bit of ma and another language from the Banttos called Kikuyu and another dialect similar to Kikuyu called KA.
a few languages here just to get by and just maybe Sharon to celebrate myself. I've been tempted, you know, to come out of the vehicle. Peter Bong is telling me to do that so that I could come and sun myself a bit because it's pretty warm day. I only have to make sure there are no hippos here. And once in a while.
Uh there's nobody. If there was a hippo there, definitely he would come up. But I'm telling you, I could just even maybe confirm that just because of the levels of the water here. They are quite low.
Hippos will want to be covered by water.
Julian many thanks for joining us yesterday afternoon you are with us and I'm sure Julian you have been with us since this morning thank you so much Julian well I'd be saying to all of you Julian Lola and all of you wonderful viewers has gracias for having joined us this particular morning and I'm sure you know we are going to meet again and we're talking about uh 15:30 eat or 14:30 Central African time for another marive drive. Please don't forget to join us today. I'm happy I found one of the T- Boys. I'm talking about Otipo Nura and I'll be going right there this afternoon. Bueno, on behalf of Imara, Big James, and Peter Bong and myself, I'm saying much gracias. Thank you so very much for all your preuntas and com and comments. We'll definitely be seeing you again later this afternoon. And from myself one more time, much gracias.
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