Safari Live - Day 296 | National Geographic

[Music] This program features live coverage of an African safari and may include animal kills and carcasses.

Viewers, good afternoon! Everybody, I'm whisper shouting at you in excitement because for the very first time on Safari Live, there are the new additions to the Sausage Tree pride! I'm overwhelmed with excitement. My name is James Henry, and it's a joy to have you with us here from the Masai Mara. What we have there are the three brand-new cubs of the Sausage Tree pride. Isn't that very special indeed?

Now, I'm not going to get into any of the detail of what's going on here because what we're going to do is go to what we call an unscheduled broadcast so that we can bring as many people in the universe on board as we enjoy this magnificent sighting of the new cubs. Now, going to shut up. I'm sorry! Well, they're not quite ready for the unscheduled anyway! I'll tell you that you must ask your questions, of course. Send them through the hashtags for life on Twitter, otherwise, you can use the YouTube chat stream. I'm sure that all of you are as overjoyed as I am to be introduced to these youngsters. They were found early this morning with the other three cubs who we have yet to see. I think they are around here, and we didn't manage to get down here in the morning, but we came down here now, and Peter, our superb Ascaris, managed to spot them, and here we are sitting with them.

Kimberly, you say "so precious"! They are beyond precious, and I've always said I think that they are the cutest things in all the wilderness. They're totally incongruous, of course, with the terror of their parents. Okay, I'm going to shut up now. Hello, everybody! Welcome to the Masai Mara, where we have a tremendously special treat for you. Those are three tiny little cubs, probably only two to three weeks old, and they belong to the Sausage Tree pride. My name is James Henry. Please, ask us as many questions as you'd like to about these fantastic, magnificent little creatures that exist here in the wilderness that is, well, very harsh sometimes, utterly adorable at other times. Nothing, nothing in the wilderness personifies that like lions. They are utterly adorable, completely vulnerable at this age, and by the same measure, utterly terrifying as adults, totally dominating the plains here of the Maasai Mara.

Now, let's get into the nuts and bolts of what's going on here. Three cubs, we don't know if they're male or female yet. They are two to three weeks old; we think we're pretty sure they're around that age. They are the offspring of a lioness in the Sausage Tree pride called Mithi. Well, that's what we've called her, and she's known as that because she climbs trees! They all climb trees, but she seems to like it more than most. Their father is one of the Old Daniel Piik males. Now, I'm told the rest of the pride wandered off towards the south earlier this morning, possibly to go hunting. We've had no sight of them; we haven't gone looking very hard, I must confess, because once we saw these little ones, we decided to stay right here.

Natalie, lion cubs spend a lot of time alone while their mother is off hunting. These ones, of course, are too young to have been introduced to the pride. I say that I suspect the rest of the pride has probably met them, but because of the rest of the pride—what I mean by that—let me say that again. So, Natalie, they're on their own because their mother is not here with them. She's not here with them because she'll probably be off hunting. Now, normally, they're introduced to the pride between four and six weeks. They are, however, living, denning in the middle of the Sausage Tree pride territory. So I'm almost certain that the rest of the pride has met these little cubs, but they won't start moving with the pride until they're at least six weeks old. For now, they're pretty much immobile. They'll lurk there in that grass; they'll go into the little thicket to the right of them if they feel threatened or unsafe. They did that when we arrived, and then they came out slowly in order to investigate us.

Natalie, that's a great question! I think they're probably a little bit hungry. I suspect quite strongly that they'd like their mother to arrive fairly soon to feed them. Now, whether or not she will, I suppose is going to be a waiting game, perhaps as the sun sets here in the Maasai Mara Mithi will return to feed her babies.

[Music] It’s the most gorgeous afternoon all around us. It’s a perfect temperature. It’s probably about—I'm gonna say—25 degrees Celsius, 75 degrees Fahrenheit. There are starlings calling in the fig tree behind us, and there’s a gentle breeze coming from the north. It’s absolutely magical to be here on a Sunday afternoon with three brand-new little cubs.

And now they’re very tired. I’m sure they’re hungry, but they have been moving around a bit, and as with all very young mammals, they get tired very quickly. Bonecrusher Queen, that’s a very good question! We found them! I’d love to tell you that I found them through my incredible skills as a tracker, or my incredible skills as a spotter of animals. But we did have reports of them in this area; because we told somebody that the older cubs were here last night, so they came down here, spotted these little ones with the older cubs, and so then we came down this afternoon. Peter, our ranger on the back of the car, who has much better eyes than I do, managed to spot them, and it's fantastic just to spend some time with them.

I am told that the other three cubs are around here. This is where we saw them last night, but we haven’t seen them again today. I suspect that they are now old enough, and they’ve seen vehicles often enough for them not to be particularly concerned or curious about the arrival of a vehicle. And so, as with all lions, they sleep a huge amount, and they probably just haven’t woken up despite our arrival, so they’re probably in the thickets amongst the grass here.

Vetti, with lions it’s pretty easy to remember the little life stages of their cubs, and you do it like this: six-six-six. Their eyes open at about six days; they’re introduced to the pride at roughly six weeks, and they’re weaned at roughly six months. Obviously, there’s a lot of variation, especially with the last two figures for weaning and for being introduced to the pride. But you’ll find that they, in their eyes, round about six days old, so these little chaps will not have been using their peepers for very long just yet.

They will, in all likelihood, have been using them for around about two weeks now. Many of you are wondering: are they at risk? And the answer is absolutely! They are at risk; they are one of the most vulnerable creatures in the wilderness. It’s one of the reasons one in ten roughly makes it to adulthood. They are defenseless, like they are here; they are certainly vulnerable to any marauding hyena that might come through here. A hyena will be careful, though, because they’ll smell lion in amongst this area. And so, they’d be very careful of coming through here. Likewise, there are leopards in this area, a male and a female who use this little riverbed that we're parked along to hunt. And so, certainly, even the leopards of this area could be a real danger to these cubs, along with strange marauding males. If a buffalo came across them, it would certainly kill them; elephants might damage them; big baboons that came through here would hurt them!

So yes, they’re extremely vulnerable. We’re going to sit here, see if the mother comes back. I hope she does as the sun goes down! If you do want to join the risk to the safari, you can do so on YouTube. Just go to Safari Live and you can surf Safari Live on YouTube, and you can catch the rest of the show. We’ll be here in the Maasai Mara. There are another three people down at Juma for private game reserve, and you can join us for that into the safari as well.

So we’re just going to let you go as we enjoy this fantastic sighting. Keep rolling, keep rolling! Right, everybody, we’re gonna wait and see what happens here. Let's go back across to Jamie Patterson. Well, you're gonna introduce—she's gonna introduce herself to you for the first time this afternoon.

Hello, hello! What a spectacular start to your sunset safari! My name is Jamie, and this afternoon, Craig is on camera with me, and we are heading out into the wilds of Africa—not in the Maasai Mara, you'll notice it looks a little different where we are—but from Juma Private Game Reserve, which is in the Greater Kruger National Park area of South Africa. This afternoon, we are going to be searching high and low for all sorts of things. We haven't managed to be as successful as finding tiny little lion cubs. This morning, Chingana gave us the slip in the brief switch around where some breakfast was had. He decided to get up and move off to sleep the entire morning with Lauren and Craig; he bounced up and off he went, and he's vanished.

So we've put Steve—well, we found some tracks! I found some tracks going towards the western side of quarantine, so I've sent Steve in that direction, and I'm just looping the area where he was just to make sure that we are not mixing up his tracks with Husana's tracks. But really, I'm just being as thorough as possible for this afternoon's TV show. Otherwise, we had a wonderful morning. If you missed the sunrise safari, I had a great time. I was with wild dogs for nearly two hours, which, as most of you know, is quite an extended period of time for a wild dog sighting because they tend to move very quickly. They tend to disappear, and then you really struggle to keep up with them. So it was really quite a special thing to spend that long with the Hamilton's pack. I enjoyed it immensely. I think they were as still as they were because of this wind.

Juma is blowing an absolute gale. It’s a little bit better now; the smoke for this afternoon has dropped a little bit, but it really is still incredibly blowy. And what that’s done is it’s also confused matters looking at the freshness of tracks because they’re just blown away. Sokka—hyena lover—wants to know if I think that we will see hyenas on Drive today. It is definitely possible! There’s something—but it's not a hyena or a leopard. It is definitely, definitely possible that we could see hyenas. I saw a hyena this morning; it was very brief, and ran past the wild dogs. But I don’t see one, so yes, it is entirely possible.

Oh, there goes our big— that was a warthog! Can you see it there, Craig? Is it still there? The glare is so fierce, I actually can't see. I think it—yeah, there! I can't actually see it in the gap of the trees there! Looks like a male warthog; struggling to see that far. Definitely potential leopard prey, but of course, the warthog can also be very, very dangerous for a leopard! Even a fully grown male leopard like Tingana. I haven't seen him on a warthog killer in an extended period of time. I did! We did see him try!

Okie-dokie! We’re going to continue on and see if we can catch up with Tingana and Husana, and Tristan has found a lovely bird for you! Let's go and see which one it is.

[Music] Well, good afternoon, everybody, and welcome to Rusty Anstons before! Sometimes it seems as though we are going to have signal issues, much like we did yesterday, which is going to be a trying afternoon, that's for sure! My name is Justin; on camera, but says Andre once again! Hopefully, we will have a better afternoon than we did yesterday from a number of points of view: one, because of signal, and two, because of a sighting we had yesterday that was very, very sad, which I'll get into during the course of this afternoon.

But actually, I suppose we should stop right now, given that time sensitive because—economically. Yes, I can't actually tell you about anything else! Initially, we were in Utah—we're going down to the dam and we spot a hippo! That was—I'm sorry about that, everyone. It really actually is a serious story that Tristan has to tell you, but unfortunately, the gremlins have been playing havoc with Rusty, our vehicle, for the last few days. It’s a long story, but unfortunately, she doesn’t seem to be doing very well this afternoon, so while Tristan tries to sort that out, I'm sure once he's up and running, he will share the story of the hippopotamus yesterday!

I don't feel that it's my place to finish off his story. Well, first of all, I wasn't there, and secondly, it was a very intense, very emotional sighting, and I feel that he has to share it with you properly. Fortunately, it wasn't one that he was able to go live with; but to be honest, there was a great deal of intensity to that particular sighting, so I will leave that for him to continue once he manages to battle off the gremlins. Now, we're on Gary cut line, which means we too could shortly disappear off your screens, but for now, we're okay.

So Emma, just shout when you need me to stop driving this way. I'm just checking to see Husana. Last night, during the rehearsal, he managed to lose me in a ditch; he went through the ditch, then he went past the front of our company, then went down towards the dam. But he wasn't picked up on the dam cam, which makes me think that perhaps he crossed a little bit further to the north, or perhaps to the east, and he slunk past somehow, possibly behind dam cam itself! Actually, none of us picked up any tracks, but this morning, they spent the morning with the wild dogs, which is great! I didn't cover any ground at all, so I've got no updates on the Inkoos. It looks like they are elsewhere, because I saw some pictures going around the various WhatsApp groups asking about the composition of the pride, so I suspect that they are hopefully united.

Awesome, cool! So we will look for Tingana while sitting still. I’ll just go back on myself; it's fine, it’s not a problem! Ah no, I won’t. I’ll carry on because the good news is that Steve is up and running! Apart from his peculiar game drives this afternoon, he seems to be able to hear what Emma's trying to say to him!

Good afternoon, everybody! Welcome to Juma Private Game Reserve! My name is indeed Steve. I’m joined on camera by Sebastian, who had a wonderful birthday yesterday! And while we are out in the African bush trying to see what we can find, please—as I'm sure you've been told—send through questions! Hashtag safari live, or throw them in on the YouTube chat stream. Let us know what you'd like to see this afternoon! We obviously are trying to find some of our characters, and well, who knows who we're going to find? We’re just going to cover the whole property in search of Tingana. I think Jamie’s putting some effort in to see if she can find him. He was left around Galago pan this morning. Lauren tried to follow up after breakfast to see if she could get him, but he had moved, of course!

It was a very nice overcast morning; nice and chilly, actually! So we’re now in the center just trying to see if we can find any tracks. So far it’s been a very quiet afternoon, but nonetheless, it is going to be a wonderful day. This is a very popular area; the right chap for Husana! I’m gonna see if we can find him, and it’d be really nice. I’m sure we do have a TV show this evening; he always pops out just in time! But in the meantime, just go over to Tristan, who’s got a feathered friend!

Well, we’re going to try this all again and see if Rusty is going to behave itself and not give us so much trouble! And we’re going to do that with a beautiful little bird that is sitting so elegantly on the edge of Twin Dams. It is called a barn swallow, and there’s barn swallows all over the place! Yeah, and they’re landing on this brushing or brush-packed material that’s on the dam wall that’s trying to stop erosion on the dam wall itself! And from here, they can fly out and be able to hawk all kinds of different little insects, as well as be able to drink! And they all fly down and kind of scoop water from the dam itself, and this is a really nice place to kind of see them! Most of the ones that we’re seeing here are non-breeding adults.

Funny enough, it's quite interesting because they’ll show a brighter coloration when they’re breeding; get a much more chestnut kind of color on the head area, and blues, and a lot of these are quite pale at the moment. So I would imagine inside the youngsters or non-breeding individuals! And that particular one, there’s a youngster within the group at the moment. But very, very cool to see. I’m trying to actually see them nicely. It’s so much clearer on the little screen that I've got. I can't actually see too well! It may be that's not even a bon swallow! Difficult, is it?

Does it have watch on? Andre, now I believe a lot of you are saying these are beautiful! They are very, very pretty little birds, and generally we don’t really get clear views of them because of how fast they fly! It’s very difficult for us to kind of get them on camera, and they normally dart around far from us! But because of the proximity of the brush packing to the water, they're actually sitting really close, and so we can get these really nice views, and you can see how they’re struggling with the wind this afternoon. It is a howling gale that is blowing at the moment, which is making it very difficult if you’re a bird trying to balance on a branch like that! So their feathers are designed to kind of catch wind, and so these guys are being blown about all over the place at the moment.

Which is nice when they are flying, but when they’re perched, it’s not so nice! Now, Lily, 8 years old, wants to know what gives the bird its shiny feathers. I think that's what I got from all of that, all the gloss on this particular bird, and you’ll probably find that there are a couple of things there. So one is feathers themselves contain certain pigments within them, so types of cells that are able to reflect light a little bit. The other thing is that they all have preening oils that will come out of their skin that will often be brushed through that feathery area, and that gives them a little bit more of a glisten! But most of it is to do with pigments, and so the way that the light is hitting those cells and coming back at our eye is cool using that iridescent kind of gloss to come back at us. It's the same as things like starlings; that kind of shiny appearance that they’ve got is often due to that reason!

Very cute little birds! But now, just now telling you about our sad story! And so I'm going to use this opportunity, given that we've got signal—which is going to be a rarity at this rate. So we went to check for damage, Andre and I, and we were sulking at our signal issues. And we hadn't found our leopard that we were looking for, and we were having a rather sort of morbid day!

It's quite worse because basically what happened is you ain't dammed and Jean Ray pointed out quite excitedly, "Look! There's a little baby hippo that's sleeping on the bank!" And so we thought, "Oh, that's very cute!" and we kind of looked at it for a bit and then drove on and really paid too much attention because we're trying to see if we could find signal! And we got to the little baby hippo, and then kind of some part of me, I don't know why, just didn't think something was right there! And so we drove along and then we stopped, and I said to John, "Right, now I need to have one more look!"

And so we went and looked with binoculars, and we kind of saw this little hippo was sitting there, and there were others that were nudging it, and this poor hippo was not moving! I said, "Chandra, something's pretty wrong here!" So we went back, and it means to go and have a look at what happened, and what has transpired was probably one of the most roughest and hardest things that I've watched in a long time. Essentially this poor little baby hippo got violently attacked by another hippo, and it was picked up and thrown around all over the place, and the mother tried to defend it.

There were crocodiles that came in, and it was really quite something to kind of watch this whole process take place. The poor little baby got kind of really badly injured, and its legs got broken, and it was a really horrible thing to see! So I was quite glad that we didn't have it live, and if we had signal issues at that time, it would have put a really big dampener on our afternoon yesterday!

Eventually, the little baby did succumb to its injuries and just disappeared under the surface of the water, and we didn't see it again, but I think the Crocs must have got it at that stage! But it was, like I say, one of the more kind of depressing things that I have watched in nature! Unfortunately, it is part of nature, and there’s not really much you can do about it. But watching that little baby being picked up by that male and being shaken and run around with it was really quite traumatic, to be honest.

Mrs. Elam, you said it sounds quite terrible, and it was really not very pleasant! Well, no, it was horrible to watch! It was not very nice at all! I mean, but you know, the one good thing about the whole thing was that the hippo kind of got attacked, and you could see it was suffering, and then eventually just went underwater, and I think maybe a croc got it and just pulled it underneath, and that was the end of it! So it didn't suffer for hours and hours, although when we first got there, it was already injured.

So who knows how long it had been going for? But shame, that poor little baby was trying to fight with all its life to kind of get itself back towards the bank to try and get safety on the land! But unfortunately, it just couldn't get itself out with its legs damaged! It kind of got to the edge of the water and was trying to pull itself, but it couldn't. So it was, like I say, one of the most heart-wrenching, horrible kinds of things that we've watched.

So Nick, you say you're glad that wasn't live? Yes, I'm pretty sure you and many others were glad that it wasn't alive or wasn't live! It's at that point we are gonna hit that wait in case maybe the carcass is there now and that, you know now that it’s dead, it's not so bad and, you know, various animals will feed on it! It might be interesting to watch Vlad and Boris go about a kind of feeding session. But yeah, it was a terrible thing to watch, that's for sure! One, like I said, we need something to improve our moods! Chandra and I owe a beautiful sighting today because we had the hard one yesterday! And so we need a good one today to just kind of balance things out once again!

Well, Chandra, you got puppies this morning, and what did I get? I got cold with the wooden gate on! Don’t wrap it in so many simple population pressures! So basically, there was a population issue that in Chat, oh damn, it’s gone from 20 odd hippos to over 60! In fact, I was told there were 63 hippos counted in the dam the other day, and so that means that there’s just far too many hippos there!

What was interesting about the whole thing was that it was a very young male hippo that was doing this, and was bullying this poor mother and her baby. And then all of this commotion had happened, and the big male hippo actually came, and he came swimming across the dam, and he went in there, and immediately all the nonsense stopped, straightaway. And he kind of disciplined everybody, and once he was there, it all calmed down. And the poor baby, but the damage was already done at that stage, and the baby kind of moved over to the side and was already hurt.

But it's all just to do with too many hippos in too small a space! And now they're starting to fight with one another and maybe trying to bring that female back into heat. That's a young male; that’s testosterone is flaring! And so he’s trying his very best to kind of get that female back into heat to be able to mate with her! That's pretty much what it is! Much like lions killing their cubs; it’s just too many hippos into smaller space that’s causing this.

But still, very, very sad! And I was really surprised at how that young male was able to even bully that female into it. She knew he was about the same size as her, and I think she’d just been fighting with him all day long. She looked like she had no more strength left in her because at times she was kind of trying to bite him and run next to him, but there was just really nothing she could do. He was just intent on grabbing that little one and in hurting it, so not very pleasant at all!

Right, now, unfortunately, I once again am using signals, so I can't really move from this spot, which is not very ideal at all! And the problem with that is that when one can't move, it makes life a little bit tricky! The other thing is that we're having terrible concept problems as well on Rusty, which means I don't even know if we're still live!

Oh, you found a bird for me! Well done, John Dre! Now, I can talk about just over there. They're on a termite mound, and they will be roughly the size of a pixel, I think, on your screen! But we will make our way across there and see exactly what it is that they're doing! I suspect they’re just sleeping!

But we’ll see how many there are and then decide whether or not we're going to go with them down towards the wrist or whether we’ll just sit with him for a little while! Very exciting stuff! I have no idea what happened to that hippo, Don! Adjacent sounds like an absolutely fascinating sighting, but I'm afraid I have no idea, so I cannot comment on it!

Apparently, we're having technical difficulties! I don't know what those are either, but I apologize for them, whatever they are! And I do apologize for the banging noise; that is the—sorry, I don’t know what’s going on. What are we talking about, Emma? I don’t even know if we're live anymore!

Oh, he was Tristan now! Oh, right! The technical difficulties with Tristan! You're with me, okay! Good! Bit of confusion, there; managed to sort it out now! As far as I remember, there isn't a road that goes here, so we're just going to have to book off across the fields, which is no problem at all! It’s quite fun! And just get past this little bottle—slash drain! Let’s go this way!

Kermie, I’ve got no idea how the new pride will react to the cubs, other than to say, probably like most lions react to new lions—they're normally quite curious! They are normally very affectionate to start with; the mother is normally fairly defensive initially because obviously she wants them to be safe! The mother will also be quite careful about making sure that the youngsters aren’t bullied by the bigger youngsters!

I’ve seen two lionesses here, so I don’t know if they’re all here, but that’s gonna be a look-see. It is amazing how easy they are to spot when they pick their heads up because the white on their fur really does reflect the light! Now, the big trick here is going to be to decide whether or not we stay with these guys to see if maybe one of them is the mother and she'll go back down to feed them, or if we go down and sit with the cubs and wait for her to go to them. I don’t know what to do; we’ll make that assessment once we’ve seen how many there are here and what they are doing now.

There are at least two lionesses there, and see one just over the other edge of the termite mound! I would go a little faster if I wasn't afraid of mounting us on a rock like I did yesterday during our rehearsal. We had to get out and, well, extricate ourselves!

Oh, and I think I can see others on the termite mound beyond! We might have the whole pride here! Those are the lions—or they’re just bits of lion-colored dirt! Um, tell I think their lives nearly there, another two hundred or so meters—500 feet plus months!

Sorry, Jenny! Your question broke up! It’s just about there slightly! I got DG did Mara da da dee da da das Danny! Oh, off-roading is permitted in some parts of the Mara, Jenny, and not in others because of the amount of activity! So, in this area, there’s very little activity, and so we don't—you would never have thousands of vehicles driving off-road. But up where the Olololo pride is, obviously, it’s right close to the main entrance gate, and you’d have far too many people driving off-road to look at the animals, so there’d be tracks all over the place and ruts and nasty gashes in the bush. That’s basically why! So this particular area is relatively vehicle-free; we’re quite toasted, sent an Xeni and border, and that’s why we’re allowed to go off-road here!

Naturally, these guys put themselves into a rock field. Hello! Ah, and another one up! That one! Iko! This is not technically a national park! Technically, this is a conservancy, so it is paid for by donation, businesses, private enterprise, a little bit of government funding, that sort of thing! But it is attached to the national park, the Maasai Mara National Reserve, which is just across the Mara River!

There is one lioness; there are two! That's not the one I spotted. There are two lionesses on the termite mound to the left of me! At least we are going to do a little arc and look around here to see! Now, I don't know how many of you are good at identifying lions; I’m utterly horrendous at it, so whether or not that is Mithi, either tree climber or not, I couldn't begin to tell you, I'm afraid! Certainly not at this distance anyway!

And then let's look at the others! Moon game! XI, that one is not interested in us! So remember if you have just joined us, the Sausage Tree pride is five lionesses! That’s one of them! There are two more over there! And now there are six cubs! Now, the only reason I saw them from the distance that I did is that one of them popped her head up, and you can see the white fur on her throat that’s what we saw, reflecting in the sunlight!

And they’re using these termite mounds, obviously, for vantage! I think this is the first week in about four weeks that we haven't seen them devouring the buffalo. They are fast asleep because it is really a Sunday afternoon that has that sort of feeling about it— a sleepy, pleasant, gentle Sunday afternoon!

I think the final controls are talking to us from Gary, which I have got no comms! I just see the little arrow going! Oh, I think that was me sitting on my own radio! That’s what it was! There we go! Alrighty! Let's go across to Jamie! She is searching for leopards! I am going to look around here and see whether it’s star radio searching for anything!

Actually, to be honest, that's the unfortunate reality that, as a guide, you know that on a windy day you’re gonna struggle and not really in terms of things like—necessarily lion sightings. Obviously, this morning we had a leopard sighting and a wild dog sighting, but just generally, oh, sorry! Craig! There’s some bad driving there! Just generally, you’re going to struggle to find anything, even in the general game area, just because they’re all so nervous!

Everything hides away! There’s a reason why a lot of people get nothing spoken about this, why a lot of people get irritable or anxious or jumpy in the rain and wind. Some people really struggle to tolerate it! I'm one of those people; I get very short-tempered in windy conditions! If it blows and blows and blows for days at a time, I find it affects my psyche slightly! I think that’s also part of living out here and being very closely connected to the weather or exposed to the weather! Animals really don’t like it!

It’s just basically that simple! So we've done a whole loop around Gallagher's SH pan and up all the way down Gallagher shortcuts. And during that time, a fly bit me on the ankle, and I'm very cross. Very ex-celtic!

Wants to know if there will be any sightings of polka Maureen? No, yes, no! Not on Juma! Haha! I’ve got it, Steve. Don’t you worry! I’m in there! [Music]

Thanks, orbs! I’m on my way! Teehee! Oh yeah, we got good news! Or respond to Ghana! Jonin, are the funny news? He’s in exactly the same place as he was!

Oh dear, Lauren! He must have just disappeared down into some shade or something! Oh dear! Okay, well it also serves me right! I should have gone and looked properly! I didn’t! Okay, well, that’s good! I’m nearly there! I’m basically nearly there! You okay, pressure? Loss pressure’s off a little bit! Yeah, okay! Well, that's greatly comforting and very unusual for Tengana, I must say! I'm very, very surprised that he is in the same place, I really am!

And this sort of weather, it's in Ghana likes to move! But it’s fine; he can hold off until 6:30! Cheek-cheek says, “Well spotted, our cheek!” I see what you did there! It is definitely a very popular Safari Live joke about the wild spotted leopards, so well done, bravo, cheek-cheek!

Indeed, I still haven't spotted him yet! We’ve got to just get around Galago Pan, and then we’ll be there! That is hilarious! It really is! Thank you! Under the arch, Linda says, “Blame it on the wind!” I do! I do!

Okay, so then what we need from you guys—I do blame it on the wind, is if you could please keep a very close eye on the dam cam! Obviously, don’t stop watching Safari Live because I would be a very poor, poor presenter indeed if I told you all to stop watching the show so you could go watch the dam cam! But if you could watch the dam cam at the same time and keep a very close eye out for Husana, I mean, I would have a sneaky suspicion he’s very close round there, perhaps behind the dam wall somewhere that side! So, if we can keep an eye out for him, that’d be awesome!

Okay, now we just gotta hope Steve has some luck! Okay, I’m nearly at our leopard!

I might take me some shuffling around to get us a nice view! So while we do that, let us bounce you back across to James and the Mara, who is still with his lions!

Let’s see what they’re up to! Now, they haven’t moved! We've come around and looked about the place here—the loss of rocks! We found, we also found that there are three lionesses! That’s all there are, no further!

And so where are the other two? I've got a horrible sinking feeling that the mother has gone back to the cubs already, and we managed to miss her! I could be entirely wrong; they could have gone hunting somewhere else and be lying in the long grass! But that's the sort of conundrum! I'm constantly faced with “Do I go back to the cubs, or do I stay here?”

You’ve engaged, said, “Why don't you ask the viewers?” I suppose I can’t ask! You can’t! I tried today; I’ll try the cubs again! I will tell you the cubs have disappeared into the thick grass. And I also need to carebear in mind, of course, that we have a television show to deliver later today.

Well, cubs in thick grass versus flat cats might be my choice! It’s all free! It’s all very tough! Everyone, yes, I'm not surprised, you pull that. You say cubs, cubs, cubs! One game predicted that much as well. He said he said, “Why don’t you ask the viewers? They’ll tell you to go back to the cubs!” He was exactly correct!

I don’t blame you! I think I probably will, you know! We'll sit here for a few minutes and then we'll probably go back to the cubbies and just wait it out! I think that's our greatest chance of spectacular success!

All of you saying, “William, go back to the cubs now!” Okay, that's your fault! Gabriel, that depends entirely on how long you have for me to answer you! Why it is that this area has got no trees! You see even this lioness is quite interested, fascinated by the subject of why there are no trees here!

The answer basically is humans and elephants! Humans and elephants are the reason that there are no trees in this area.

So the story goes, roughly as follows: By the time the turn of the 20th century came, so the end of the 19th century, this place was pretty full of Masai people and their cattle! It was also full of wildlife! But it was, and they kind of lived in what we would call an uneasy harmony! Lots of people like to think of rural Africans living in harmony with nature; no human being has ever lived in complete harmony with nature because by the very act of existence and eating means that you cannot live in complete harmony with nature! But that is an entirely different discussion!

So basically, let's go back to 1898 when we had the Maasai living in the area! They used a lot of wood; they used wood for furnaces to smelt for iron, they used wood to build their homes, and there were also a lot of elephants in the area at the time! Then what happened—and say, you probably would find that this area looked very similar to what it looks like now—then what happened was the Italians who decided that because all the other European powers had a colony in Africa that they should have one too landed in Ethiopia! Probably a mistake; possibly the most organized African state at the time!

They certainly took a number of fearful beatings from the Ethiopians, or Everson Yun's, as they were known then, but they eventually managed to get a foothold, and they brought a whole lot of cattle into the area! Now, the cattle carried a disease known as the rinderpest, and their African crowd animals, both domestic and wild, had absolutely no immunity to this disease! Every—just about every cloven hoofed animal down the Rift Valley, all the way from Abyssinia down to South Africa and the Kruger Park, died of the rinderpest brought here courtesy of the Italians who wanted a colony back in 1898!

I think it was 1898! Anyway, what that did was result in a total exit of the people from this area! The Maasai lost all their cattle, so they disappeared out of the place! The loss of the cattle and the thickening of the bush brought back the tsetse fly; it got very thick in this area with the tsetse fly, which meant that the cattle and the people didn’t come back!

Once the rinderpest had gone, and there were very low game numbers at the time! And then, what happened was probably around about the 1930s also, the elephants started to come and come back! They started to clear out the bush a little bit, and there was also a ban somewhere around the mid-20th century on hunting in the area! And so the elephants were left alone to deal with the space, and that’s what they did!

And the elephants started to clear away the thickening bush! That said, the tsetse fly disappeared from areas like this; dust will occur in the woodland of the Serengeti, down in parts of the Serengeti, but in this particular area, it disappeared! And that allowed for the refill or influx with the repopulating animal numbers, the wildlife animal numbers, and as the area was just sort of designated a national park, the cattle were never allowed back!

It has been maintained pretty much as it was since about 1970 or so! They reckon that the wildebeest and zebra numbers reached their current number, so they haven't changed a huge amount since the 70s! So the whole point of that story is that this is—yes, it's a wilderness, but it is very heavily influenced by man and also by that other supreme ecosystem architect: the elephant!

And also, the interesting thing about that story is that people tend to think of this great migration as being millennia old! The current one isn’t! It's only about 50 years old—40 or 50 years old! Which is quite interesting in its current form, that animals migrated these plains in the dim mists of prehistory is almost certain, but the current migration's current form is probably only 40 or 50 years old! That's quite interesting, I think!

So there are the lions, they're still there! Alright, Tristan’s managed to find himself some signal! He’s had a very frustrating time of late! I hope that it manages to maintain for him! No, I'm sure that was very interesting! James generally does have interesting things to say! And this giraffe probably was listening intently about all of that history too because he looks quite happy and content with life as he chews on whatever it is that he's regurgitated!

And eaten! And I say he because it is a boy that is sitting there! You can see a rather large male that is behind us at the moment! It is a very, very big giraffe, actually! He’s a very large individual and very relaxed! Funny enough! Most of the time, giraffes can be quite sort of shy with you! They’ll typically—particularly here in the Sabi Sands—not so much in the Mara, but in Sands often just kind of see you and then they move away! But this fella is really quite happy with us being here! Looks completely unperturbed by anything at the moment as he chomps down!

Like I said, regurgitated balls of leaves that he’s eaten during the course probably of the morning and is just slowly ruminating and having a bit of a rest! Remember that giraffes, when they do rest, this is how they do it! They’ll rest standing up a lot of the time, and their sort of sleep pattern—it’s probably only about 20 minutes a day, and so they don’t really sleep that much! But this is a time when they ruminate, and they kind of resting pattern starts, and so that’s all he’s doing at the moment!

And keeping a very watchful eye on us! Now, the reason we found this guy actually is because we went past Quinn's old hyena den—not because we were looking for hyenas, but we heard a Franklin go absolutely crazy there! And so we thought, "Maybe, just maybe, there might be a leopard somewhere in the area!" And so we came and had a little bit of a look! But alas, we haven’t found anything!

And so we’re just on that little track at the moment and kind of bumped into this fella over here! And you can see how he sticks up out of the bush! And with that long, long neck, he really is a very kind of elegant-looking creature, that giraffe! One notice, one thing though! We’re talking about their neck: now I thought—I thought this would be the case! Giraffes go and Billy, age six, are happy to see giraffes.

Yes, I know that you really enjoy giraffes, so I'm glad that you've managed to find one on Juma! Of course, there's a different species to the one in the Mara; this is a—you know, southern giraffe as opposed to the massager that you see that side! And you really do get to see a lot of giraffes in Kenya! As opposed to here, I know that you can often do days and days and days without seeing one of these fellows!

Now, saying this, Nick, you can see there’s actually damage to his neck at the moment, so he’s got a little wound on it, and I'm just trying to see if it's a mange-related wound, or if it is something to do with—maybe, you know, it looks very much like potentially a bit of mange that it’s got on its neck! Often, you'll find it's giraffes; they get all kinds of different things—viruses on their necks! They can suffer from warts all over them! They can get these kind of abrasive patches like this! So it could be that; it could be an old wound that was opened up by something that has just healed up!

It's very, very difficult to kind of say at this stage, but it looks very much like maybe a little bit of mange that developed there that he’s rubbed raw! I know, Nick, you're wondering about what that is! So it’s quite common to see injure off, particularly big males—we often see all kinds of war wounds on their necks and all kinds of bits of parasitic growths and things! It’s quite common to see!

Anyway, we’re going to carry on; we’re gonna try and see if maybe we can find whatever was causing this Franklin to be very upset with its life! And it certainly wasn’t this giraffe! But Steve has got another one of Africa’s iconic big animals!

Yes, indeed! Well, they are generally regarded as being quite grumpy! We found a small group of four buffalo bulls that were just hanging out in a little watering hole! We first had a look at it—a knob-billed duck, which was quite interesting! And then we heard oxpeckers, and so followed the oxpeckers, and there we have got four very grumpy looking boys who are in very, very good condition! They’re jumpy though because the wind is blowing!

And well, we all know what happens to these animals in the wind—a little bit skittish! Obviously, they’re always concerned about lions trying to track them down! Isn’t he a magnificent specimen? The enormous boss on the top of his head! Hello, Bobo! Do you think he’s grumpy?

Well, it's just what they look like! I think they’re just very badly understood, poor buffalo bulls! They say all they want to do is just carry on with their day! And, well, most animals! Well, lions love to chase them! This is hard to ready! And when there are big bulls like this, they isolate from the herd and are in far less larger numbers—it’s much easier to catch for the lions because they can isolate them! But not an easy thing to pull down a buffalo; the big boys like this maximum, maximum weight is up to about 2,000 pounds. Probably closer to 1,600 in some cases!

Very big animal for a lion to try and tackle! But you can see they haven’t lost too much firm around the face! The bosses are in perfect condition! So I’m going to guess these guys are towards the end of their tenure within the herd! They’re not in the prime spots anymore! And that first guy we looked at on the left, said his horns are worn down quite a bit!

Yeah, that’s a great question! I think that’s you in the same direction, and I’ve never really paid attention to that! That's all about the movement of the lower jaw against them! The molars in the top and the bottom! And I think that they’re always in the same direction! Let’s have a look, shall we?

That seems to be the same direction! They’re hiding behind this small bush, thinking we can’t see them! Busy ruminating and building up their condition! It’s been a very long year! The last rains that we had were in about April, and we did get some green vegetation from that! But all in all, these buffalo are quite happy with the rain that has fallen! And that is exactly what they are doing!

[Music]

Okay, well, we might move off from this buffalo! We might do a little loop around to see if we can find the lions trying to track them! But it means: let’s go back over to Jamie with the Juke of Juma!

I have had some luck, and I owe that luck entirely to Aubrey, who showed it, but more common sense than I did this afternoon and went and checked where Tingana was! And didn’t buy into the tracks that we saw earlier! So there we go! Anyone would be forgiven for not knowing he was there!

I mean, really, he’s underneath a weeping wattle in a thick patch of grass! I mean, if you didn’t know he was there, you could so easily miss him! So that's where he is! I’m parked here because it's the one patch of shade! But since the sun's very kindly gone behind a cloud, I can’t actually take you for a better picture!

Semi! Maybe a second! As clutch keeps, I thought it was me! I thought I forgot how to drive! A few days ago, and I was just letting in the clutch too fast! But it’s not; it’s actually the clutch isn’t doing so well!

When we were talking about animals' pickup lines, I thought I’d forgotten how to drive, and I really hadn't! We’ll get it fixed eventually! But if you see me suddenly jerk forward and Craig lands in the seat next to me, well, he isn’t a seat next to me anymore; he lands there! Then we know!

Under yes, ever was not! I was distracted by thinking of pickup lines! I felt like we weren’t doing our best; we weren’t living up to our potential there, which is the world's worst pick-up line!

There we go! So good to get! Let me just see! If someone was looking for me! I think that was actually for Steve! Give me one moment! He has been easy! Look at how flat in the grasses he has been having the best time!

Hey, my boy! You found yourself a little Kevin of shade and shelter away from the wind! Dingana! Oh, that looks incredibly comfortable! It really does! It looks—you know, when you read children’s books when you're a kid, and you read books about people flopping down in the soft long grass, and it always sounds so romantic! And then all of a sudden you actually try it yourself, and you find that there’s a blade of grass up your nose in your ear! You're itchy because you're having a skin reaction to it! Or maybe it's just me! Grass is never as comfortable as you think it is!

Or maybe some in different parts of the world— you've got some really nice grass! I remember as a kid with nice lawn grass, I suppose! But really it was never quite as comfortable and experience as you expected it to be! Tingly doesn’t seem to have that problem though! He really is quite content where he is!

Yes, mister big sleepy kitty cat! When are you going to call? I have not heard you call in weeks! I know that he was calling the other morning! Sydney had him, I think it was with Craig actually! Are we looking for them? Give you one second, guys!

Standing by, Dave! No problem, Dave! You actually need to take the first right, but it’s quite far down! So there is a two-track about halfway down the road that you must ignore! But it’s very clearly a two-track, not a road! And then you take the first road to the right, and you’ll go through a dip, and you should actually see me as you come up through the other side! But I’ll let you know when I hear you!

Obviously just giving some directions! It occurred to me as I was saying take the first road to the right so that if he did that, he might actually end up at the ANU road hyena den, which would not be ideal! My one needs a fearsome sense of direction out here, particularly in the Mara, but here on Juma as well! Let us hope that James is able to find his way back towards the lion cubs!

I think I’ve got a good direction at the moment simply because the sun is obviously to my left, so I know where I’m going! Slightly disconcerting because at this time of the year, the sun sets very far southwest as opposed to west!

So that is not west; it's much more over there, but disconcerting! Well, so we've left the lionesses! We’ve left the lionesses on their termite mound because you told us to! And so we’re now coming down towards the big fig tree! I’m taking a slightly different route back to them from the one that I took to them, simply to see if the other two aren't between here and the fig tree!

But there’s really not much going on! There’s particularly a really big herd of elephants off to the left, it's just keep going and quite far away and into the sun! Oh, sorry, let’s go! Cluster! Steven's got dogs!

Welcome back! We have found the Hamilton pack of wild dogs! We're just on the southern side of Garry main right now! Not far from where we were moments ago with those buffalo! And they are behaving like dogs do! If you look closely, then lots of the—well, obviously the younger ones are begging! That’s very hard to tell the difference, ah, they’re all very much the same size!

But I've never seen this many dogs before in my life! Is this so incredible! See all their ears! They flat, trying to—some of them are begging, trying to get some food, it seems, from the adults! It's possible that they've maybe hunted! I can't see any carcass in anywhere near! It’s super, super special to spend time with wild dogs!

But unfortunately, they're just on the southern side, but they seem to be taking a little bit of a rest now! Who knows how long how far they’ve moved! There we go! The life of a dog!

Cool! Breeze! It would be very special if they did! But hopefully, if they made a kill, they’re on our side of the road, and that should be much, much better, wouldn't it? You probably hear some people laughing, there’s a couple of vehicles in the sighting! Obviously, they’re all here to see the wild dogs as well!

And I can’t get over the smell! They've got such a particular smell! I can’t really place it; it’s like a sweetness but like a dirty sweet! And I’ve smelt it before when I followed them, and now when we were sitting here, there was just this lingering sort of sweaty sweet smell coming off of them! And it’s a very characteristic smell!

When you've smelt it once, always recognize it! Do you know what I mean? Said the sabers spent a lot of time with dogs; he knows exactly what I mean! They are enjoying a little bit of shade! Hopefully, they come north! Wouldn’t it be marvelous if we got to see them on the TV show this evening, get them running through Juma and hunting?

It'd be very, very special indeed! They are regarded as great particular animals! They're diurnal animals! Safari love! There’s a sourness to it, but it’s a sweetie! So it’s very hard for me to really put my finger on that smell! Um, I wish I could bottle it for you and send it wherever you are so you could smell what I smell!

It’s like a dirty sweet! Art critic; that’s as good as I can explain it! But they've probably been active during the day! They're probably—well, a clan—a pack of the SAS needs to hunt regularly! 18 wild dogs require a lot of food!

But formidable they are! Any animal that they come across is fair game! Such one got a col se? Yeah! Yeah, there's that one of the leaders probably! There’s lots of research being done in South Africa with regards to cheetah and wild dog! The movements, the distributions, and it really is quite incredible how far these animals are capable of moving constantly in the search of food!

Only really resting when they have puppies in a den site somewhere! Other than that, they're just moving through the landscape! Jamie says we should do a scratch-and-sniff book for a safari! That should be a great idea, Jamie!

We'd be able to get all of the wonderful smells! Lion urine—I don't know at us right now! Elephant in masks, that should be a good one as well! Waterbuck! Definitely waterbuck! Wild dog—we might leave some of the really bad smells out of there, though, because they are some horrible smells that you really don't want to be sharing with anybody!

Like lion poop, says Sip! Indeed, lion scat or leopard scat; not the most ideal smells in the world! If you've ever driven in some of it, you will never ever forget that smell!

But we could get at least a number of pages! Even the texture book as well! A smell and a texture! You could feel, 'cause I know Tristan was talking about the feel of wild dogs yesterday, and what exactly they're like! So that would be nice to be able to touch!

We’d have to leave the poop section completely indeed, Emma! I don't think any poop is really worth being smelt!

I don't think so! Actually, the elephant dung has got a nice and sweet smell to it sometimes! The contrasting smell of elephant poo versus the elephant's skin itself! It’s a very, very nice organic sort of smell!

Okay, well, we're gonna stay with these dogs! Hopefully, they get up and move on to our side! And in the meantime, let's go and get Jamie’s thoughts on a Sam elephant!

I am smelling absolutely nothing! Unfortunately, the wind is blowing the scent of the elephants away from me! But if it were blowing the scent towards me, I would be smelling the smell of dry skin and grass! The scent that I associate with elephants!

I've been over the scratch-and-sniff book thing with many of you before; we’ve discussed it on the live safaris quite often! And the thing is, you've gotta have the full experience; you've gotta have wild aniseed, wild basil, jasmine—elephants! Yeah, big fan! Nearly! But you've also gotta have to do, because in 40-degree temperatures—and then you know when we’re sitting next to it, we’ll say to you guys, “Kate, turn to page 294!” Made that reference before as well!

Those of you feeling really sharp this afternoon! And you will smell dead buffalo today! Old dead buffalo or something nice! You all smell the smell of Africa after the rain!

That I feel is the most elegant solution to how we can involve your olfactory senses in this experience! You know, we can let you listen to the sounds—usually when it’s not howling with wind! We can let you watch what’s going on, but we cannot include smell! It would be quite a book! There’s quite a collection! You know, it's all sorts of things one would have to include in there! Prince Pete!

What else would we include, Emma? Nemesis—that doesn't seem relevant! Listen, as part of the safari experience, you've gotta, you ought to be all-encompassing! All the girls—no, I will stick with the animal smells!

I can say the perfume and stuff, but I think we can scrap that sunblock—you have to, at any point, you have to be able to smell the smell of sunblock as well! That’s a crucial part of this whole deal!

I've left in Ghana! Obviously, I have not left him for good! I’m going straight back there! I just saw these guys dashing across with a true elephant water walk—which is basically they’re thirsty, thirsty, thirsty, and in a big hurry! And I know that I knew the water was just here!

So I just ditched him for a little bit! He better not go anywhere; I’ll be very embarrassed if he does! Oh, what’s he doing? He’s trying to steal water out of your friend’s mouth! That’s not going to work very well!

I’m so thrilled for Steve that he got to see the Hamilton’s pack! I had such a wonderful sighting this morning, and I know that he was quite jealous! We were talking about it this morning and how excited he gets seeing wild dogs as we all do! So I’m really, really glad that he got to see them!

Especially because he was helping me out searching for Tingana, so I’m very happy with that! Alright, I’m gonna head on back to Tingana before he decides to happen off in a different direction! We’ll send you back across to James and perhaps he can tell you what he’s smelling in the Maasai Mara!

So here you are, your wish! Our command! We are sitting with the little cubs! With exactly the same place as we were! But all three of them just snuggled together! It’s just—what’s it like? It’s a lion cubs back; didn’t love to snuggle and play and suckle! Planta Jamie’s wondering if I’ve had snuggles with the cubs? I couldn’t believe Jamie really asked if I had snuggles with these cubs!

Now the answer’s no! I haven’t! That would be a silly thing to do! Oh, it’s apparently she was talking about elephant smells, and she wants to know if I can smell anything! Not the reciting here, no, I cannot smell anything other than the grass around me, which is delightful!

I suspect you’ll find that lion cubs don’t smell very much at all! I know I do bang on about this, but I think that the fastidious cleanliness that the adults subject them to—the surface—subject them to means that they don’t smell like much except lion! And I think you'll find that that's enough to deter most creatures from an area like this! They’ll come in here, smell lion—just avoid it! They won’t smell lion cub!

[Music]

I mean that said I don’t know what lion smells like! I know what wild dog smells like, but lion? I don’t think there's no very strong at all! Allen, the only thing these things eat at the moment is Mother's Milk, I’m afraid! It’s also one of the reasons that lion cubs are a lot more active than adult lions!

Her diet is full of fatty milk, which gives them a lot more energy than the meat of their parents! It's just really very special! My last wish for the Sunday is that they continue to perform like this as we go into our TV show because if they just disappear into the bush and lie down, our show would be deeply disappointed with them!

I suppose you might also be able to hear a couple of frogs calling! Nothing—there's a bubbling casino going in the stream below us! I must say it's one of the great disadvantages of driving cars around the bush as opposed to walking! And that is the ability to smell! And here, obviously, we’re sitting now, and so we can hear everything, but the odor of a vehicle like this is fairly overpowering!

So unless you’re in some pretty aromatic vegetation, you can basically smell Land Rover 90% of the time! And when there’s Land Rovers, the sold that’s not entirely a good thing, and this breeze blows across the car—on which guests in the glorious smells of the bush tumble to the fall!

Okay, I’m gonna disturb you and ask you to put the camera in the top of that gardenia bush! They’re mine! Some little finch-like birds naturally there! And the next bush in the quarry bush flying around and gone! What a pity! Naturally, as soon as we decide!

Oh, there we go! Oh, little waxbill! I think it’s a common waxbill or something similar! Yes, Puma! As we go back to the cubs, I will try and identify that waxbill for you!

Now, I’m 99% sure that if a human was to touch the cubs, the parents would— or the mother would definitely be able to smell it, and I think she’d be deeply put out! But I don’t think she would reject the cub at all! So that was just a common waxbill! That’s what I thought it was!

I’m pretty sure because they can look fairly similar, but I’m pretty sure we had a common waxbill! There are only things it might have been confused with—it’s a crimson-related blackbill, which we don’t get inside!

I forgot, the common waxbill we do! We also get lions in South Africa, of course! Not at the moment, but we do get them there! This is the most adorable stage of lion life! I’m sure if you have a small child, the thought of handing one of those things to them as they go to sleep must be extremely appealing! Because they look so cuddly, they look like they're just snuggled up to whatever came near them!

And they will grow so fast, and they lose this teddy bear look in about three weeks! And I know many of you are not moving and eyeing and say this is a totally or total cuteness overload! It is absolutely! Now you can sex them at this age if they were to turn on and lift their little tails, we would be able to do it!

So we could be able to tell whether they are male or female, and guys just got a small part of tuberculosis! He’s trying to give it up! I actually think he’s just eaten some nuts, and that’s what he’s confident!

[Music]

Okay! If we were sitting at a concert of Mozart's 23rd piano concerto, it would be used—but coughed out! Let’s do the quiet section! You know, now, everybody—that it is definitely live, because we would never edited! Boom, guys cough into it!

Learned still fascinated by our presence, which is fantastic! I am, to quote Brent Leo Smith, keeping my head on a swivel to see if I can spot any of the others around him! Giraffe girl, Mr. Ham fried! My brain exploded when I looked again at these cute lions!

Well, cats! Pat’s this—sorry cannot catch! Passes, just pass? Isn’t it Pat? I don't know entirely how they know, but they do know! Obviously, as they get older, sorry! Just realized I've moved my hat, which is gonna sound terrible! Lifted learn up!

So does cats not pet cat? I don't know how they know to stay! They do know to stay, though, and as they get older, they will move around a little bit more, and their mothers, you'll find, will have to go and look for them slightly!

So they’ll just slowly start to explore more and more as they get a bit older! But we watched last week with the older cubs when the mothers smelt something that they thought they wanted to investigate! And they did something, and it was totally impossible to see what it was that they did!

But the three cubs turned around, walked in the opposite direction, and went flat in the grass! And the three lionesses carried on! They went to investigate around a termite mound! Quite possibly they thought there was a warthog there!

There wasn’t a warthog there! They got on to the termite mound! I think one of them made one little contact call, and the cubs came back to them! So how they told the little ones to go away while they hunted, I don't know!

It certainly wasn't something that I was able to pick up! They've got these dark deep eyes at this age—slightly navy blue tinge, estare! Arco you'd say their little sausages! Will they, aren't they a little chipolatas at this?

Oh my goodness! We just have to hope that this day is here! You can’t see the little claws of the one there on the belly sticking out! They remind me of my nephews!

Alrighty! We’re gonna go back to Steve and his dogs! I am NOT going anywhere at all!

Well, thanks, James! Unfortunately, our dogs have just gone a little bit too far from the road! And all we can see is bushes! So unfortunately, we did have them for their foot to go up, but they’ve just moved off a little bit too far into the bush now, and they’re all lying down! So, we can’t even see them anymore! Trying to get another view!

Happy managed to get two in the open surprisingly camouflaged, the wild dogs! She’s quite a better dolt, yeah, good! That’s her thankfully telling a little bit of age.

So I was mentioned before, the Thera garden is diurnal hunters! But when it’s very hot, they'll really be active in crepuscular time!

So dusk and dawn, but very efficient hunters! Probably the most successful out of all the predators when they hunt! They are always—well, generally successful! They pull down medium to large-sized prey, such as Impala! Couldn't I? Never seen them go for a vole!

That would be quite interesting to see what they would do with her! For the best! I think the wildebeest would turn and use its horns to defend itself, but 18 individuals would be quite something to try and fend off!

The red-crested cohron, somewhere in the middle of them in the middle of the wild dogs being a very brave bird! So we spent a lot of time last year with the investigator way, and these are apparently the Hamilton clan pack!

Also, so nice to see your dogs on the property! But I suppose there's nothing cuter than a leopard cub! But a second place would most certainly be the new cubs of the Sausage Tree pride!

Now, especially when they’re playing! Nothing cuter than cubs! Look at those little claws that have come out there! They will be sharp as needles! They don’t come out when scratching brother or sister's face!

Oh my goodness! This is just too wonderful! Snuggling and playing all at once! Andy, I don’t think mum would be concerned with us around the cubs if she arrived here! I think she is familiar enough with vehicles to not see us as a threat at all!

And I think if we were standing around on foot, trying to hand-held shoot this scene, you know, walking about the place—I think then she’d take exception very quickly! But no, I don’t think she’d be upset if she found us here!

I just can’t wait to see if she arrives! I keep scanning the clearings either side of me! So far no sign of any adult lioness here! So we did have the three back on the termite mounds there!

Like I say, my ability to identify lionesses by looking at them in this, they’ve got half an ear missing is really very poor! And so I don’t know if the mother was one of the three that we saw!

But I don’t think so! [Music]