Safari Live - Day 31 | National Geographic

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

Dry-season day. This is Safari Life, standing by. [Music]

Good afternoon and welcome to our sunset safari on this chilly, overcast, windy day. That is a wildebeest, and it is snorting at us for some unknown reason, because well, there's no predator between us and it. My name is Justin, and on camera today I have got Senzo. We are coming to you live from the Kruger National Park, well, Sabi Sands Game Reserve, actually, to be exact. That means that we're interactive, so hashtag Safari Live on Twitter or on the YouTube chat if you want to ask any questions.

Now, I don't know why our wildebeest is alarm calling at us. I think he's, for some reason, a little bit perturbed by the wind today. Maybe there is a scent of something that's blowing around. We'll see. It could be just a little nervous of us, given that these conditions mean he can't hear very well. He's seen a car, and maybe he's had a bad experience before where a car has been around and a predator was close by, or he might have even seen a predator at some point today.

You can hear him—it's very difficult over the wind to actually hear him snorting. But he's got this nasal snort that he lets out from time to time. He's going to keep quiet because I said so, but it is really tough to hear him over this wind. It’s why this afternoon is going to be a tough game viewing experience because when predators move around, often we rely on alarm calls to locate their predators. I can hardly hear that wildebeest from this distance, so we're going to have to be right on top of any prey animal if it spots a predator for us to even hear what's going on. Hopefully, the wind will settle, and that will help us a little bit later.

Now, the Mara team should be joining us maybe at some stage. They have Brent Leo Smith being pelted and battered by some serious amounts of rain, so Brent is busy tucked away in his little makeshift tent. I think Taylor is still hunkering down at base camp, so we'll get to them probably a little bit later.

For now, it's just me, and hopefully, it's going to be a busier day than we had this morning. Although we did have a wonderful morning. We had the inclusion of the Birmingham males, and I'm sure they're going to be around. So our plan for the afternoon is probably to go and check around to see if little Tumba maybe is back from his traumatic experience this morning. For those of you who don't know what happened to Tumba, he killed his first big male impala and it was stolen by the hyenas, and they chased him. So maybe he's come back to the turndown for a little bit of a drink.

We're going to go check around there, and then later we're going to head towards the lions because I'm pretty sure they're going to be quite active tonight. There is apparently a rather large herd of buffalo on its way southwards from Boulad’s Hook. It's apparently close to 300 buffalo, which can you believe it? That is an amazing number because we haven't seen, I think, more than 10 buffalo this whole year. So it's going to be incredible if we get that herd coming down, and I'm pretty sure if that herd starts to head in this direction, those lions will pick up the scent and pick up the noise, and they are going to be up and moving pretty quickly. We know how the Inkuma pride loves a good buffalo meal.

So let's hope that by the end of the drive, those buffalo are starting to come into Juma, and their lions have picked up their scent, and we might be in for an incredible finish to our afternoon and our week, because we've had the most amazing week, right? But let's carry on. Our wildebeest is very upset with us, and we want him to relax. We don't want to irritate him any more than we are. Not that we've done anything wrong; we've just been sitting here and our wildebeest just thinks that we are the worst thing in the world by shouting at us.

So how have you been chasing the wildebeest around that it's scared of you? No? Okay, excellent. Maybe it's just jealous of all the wildebeest in Kenya at this stage. Now, I’ve got to quickly just go down and do our little time-lapse. Senzo is going to hop off the vehicle shortly as I move along towards the edge of quarantine. This is a Sebastian's project, but Senzo is very kindly helping save about and doing it while he's away. On a day like today, it’s the perfect kind of day to set it up because you want changes in weather and clouds and all of that, so it makes for a perfect day to do a bit of a time-lapse.

Are we going to just leave our little time-lapse then, you know, a couple of shots and then we'll carry on probably towards treehouse, from treehouse to twin dams? From twin dams, well then I’m not quite sure. We will check before we hit onto the lions. Like I say, a little bit late in the afternoon. I was hoping though that this wind was going to stop. The wind has been absolutely howling all day. I was thinking that maybe by this afternoon it would blow itself out, because these weather conditions are not the worst if it's not windy. The problem is when it is windy, it doesn't really help us very much at all. The animals don't really like it, and things like elephants and buffalo, even the cats, will go into somewhat of hiding.

They go into drainage lines and thickets, so we're not going to get that amazing experience that we had yesterday, where the elephants were running to water. Unfortunately, that will be curtailed by the windy, cold weather we're having today. Now, I believe a lot of you are very excited about the prospect of a buffalo herd coming onto Juma. I know, isn't it exciting? Not that we have even enough water to sustain a herd of 300 buffalo. We're going to get into a situation where our dams would be drank absolutely dry if they arrived because they are animals that do drink a lot. They will muddy it up and cause quite a lot of disturbance, which is not ideal, particularly if they go to Gauri Dam because Gauri Dam at the moment needs as little pressure as possible.

Although, what we saw yesterday was quite interesting with the elephants, because we saw a herd that kind of left and another herd arrived, and that actually didn't really drink from Gauri Dam. So the water wasn't lost to drinking; they more just splashed and played, and the water itself actually really stayed in the dam, so it was quite an interesting thing to watch. I would have thought that that herd was going to go drink, but they didn't. They actually went right past Gauri and further on, so maybe they went to drink around Gallagher Pan and the surrounding area or northwards towards Tambuti Dam on the northern side of the buffalo boundary.

We find that they often go drink up that way. It’s kind of a route that they walk up the Miliwati drainage and then all the way into Phala. That’s a couple of really large dams that call Manzi and Senzawave. I see Senzo's got one glove on. Are you Michael Jackson today, Senzo? I know he's got his path to clean the lenses, so Senzo was looking very spiffy while Senzo finishes up his time-lapse. Let's go across to the Brink, Leo Smith, who's hiding away from the rain in his little... in the pouring rain.

I've got some very important tools that every time we spring a new leak. Gaffer tape, cables. I'm starting to get a new leak at the moment. You'll notice I've added cable ties all around, and we've just started to get a new one. Excuse me, pop. Try sure... yeah, not long enough. We need the double cable tie. So it's been raining solidly for about 45 minutes. We are getting leaks again. Light, so Fergus is telling them to put the lights on. Here we have lights now, and it's raining so hard that I was actually worried the canvas roof was going to burst while matric drives where it started sagging. We weren't concentrating while we were trying to fix other leaks, and all of a sudden, looked up and it was like a pregnant elephant barely above us full of water.

Lots of different tricks to stay dry out yet. Here we go, a few little gaps that we're trying to control. We're going to have some fresh air, and yeah, otherwise it'll get quite bad as well, but that's basically it. We're not moving; unfortunately, I think for the rest of the drive. Even if we wanted to drive anywhere, we can't actually. We always try to find that beautiful cheetah. We even tried to get out to find the cheetah. Taylor was smart; she was leaving at normal time, so she's still safe and dry in camp, and we...she's raining so hard we can't even actually move the vehicle at the moment.

I think just getting up the hill to Ngama is going to be a challenge in itself, but we will keep you updated as we search. I think we're probably not going to move for the next while. Lots of lightning around, but while we wait out our storm, let's go back to Tristan, who's expecting rain but is still dry. That's you.

So I believe we're live; unfortunately, my comms again are letting me down. Our little earpiece and, so your piece thing is a bit of an issue because there's apparently a shipment that is supposed to be coming to South Africa that's been waylaid, and I would imagine it's maybe something to do with the hurricanes that have been all over the US side. I think they come from that side; I'm not sure. But anyway, there's a shortage in South Africa; nobody's got them. And so we’re waiting patiently for new earpieces.

So I'm with a problem earpiece, and problem earpiece sometimes means that I don't hear anybody—and well, at least we can hear Lou now, so that's good news. Not gone very far; just been able to catch around quarantine. There we go, Lou. I can hear you now, thank you. I just have to fiddle a little bit, and then sometimes it comes back if it's very intermittent. Lucky I've got Senzo at the back here to let me know what's happening a little bit. So I do apologize if we go live and I'm just sitting there staring blankly into space, which is what sometimes happens.

Although this time I was actually looking for animals as we were going around the corner, but we're just meandering our way down Philemon’s stop. We're going to slowly head towards Treehouse, like I say, to do the other time-lapse that Sebastian is busy with. It's a little psycho over there. Right, just get back where our dacha is gone. I think our dacha has run away, which is fairly typical of dacha. They don't really sit around too much.

Phil, no, at the camera traps, this is just something new that we started with Sebastian. He's just trying to do a little sort of story on the changes of the season here at Juma, how drastically it changes from summer to winter, and how we go from dry desolate bush like we're seeing now that’s very thin and it is yellow and browns and no leaves to full dams and green and grass and lushness. And so that's the kind of thing. So what he's going to try and do is do a year's worth of pictures every single day at the same sort of time, and then what he's going to do is pull this all together, and it'll be a short little clip as the days go on. Hopefully, it'll be really cool just to see how everything goes from brown to green, back to brown again.

It’s going to be really cool, so I'm quite looking forward to it, and I'm hoping that it will go really well. The plan is, if they succeed and they work the way that they want, is that we'll start to do a couple more around, and we'll try and look around. Well, we also want to do at some point is to try and see if we can do a bit of camera traps work. If we find that, say like the other day when we had that white-tailed mongoose carcass and tracks for the honey badgers, just set up a little camera there and leave it and see what we get on it the next day.

So we will do stuff like that, but at the moment currently, no, are the camera traps on the property other than what we've got currently? And I suppose these aren't really camera traps either. There goes a little stand book over the road, there it goes.

Tony Tutus, well, according to your name, has feet on the brain, and you want to know how Senzo's socks are looking today. And I actually just asked Senzo that very question. We are the fancy socks today! You said to me, "No, today is no fancy socks, because the weather is not conducive for fancy socks today. It’s the dull brown socks because it's a gray dull day."

So we're not going to put those socks on camera because, well, brown socks don't work for anyone. So he promises me the next time it's sunshine, we're going to see some more brightly colored socks from Senzo, and I think this could be the new thumbs of Senzo socks. So instead of thumbs, we’re going to have socks from now on, and hopefully, we’ll get some really interesting ones.

I feel like Senzo's got some hidden gems in his bag somewhere. He said he's going to dig around in his bag for some special ones. So I’m sure we’re going to see some very interesting ones. I reckon we should get Senzo some socks all the time, and we'll just give him all random colors and all random shapes and sizes and see how many difference we can get him to put on camera. Of course, it will be quite an interesting thing. Like I said, instead of seeing a thumb at the beginning of the drive, we will see, well, socks at the beginning of drives.

Oh dear, that’s how you're going to have to sort your drives from now on! No longer fingers; you're going to do your socks and toes!

We left it. Senzo, all kinds of fancy ones. I'm sure there are lots of interesting types of socks out there. When I go leave next, Senzo, I'm going to go look for some socks for you so who says now we know what to get for birthdays and Christmas indeed.

Now hopefully this little bird is going to stay still. Stay still, little bit. No, you're not supposed to fly away, because there's a beautiful bird that is right here. If you’ve got it, Senzo, back or forward, back? Okay, so Senzo says he’s got it. Say when. There we go. Okay, well done, Senzo. Very good. So there is our little beater, and they are beautiful birds, and on a dull day like today, it's nice to get a bit of color—a splash of color in the bush.

These little guys provide a lot of color. You can see bright yellow throats, that orangey breast, and a back with the little blue eye stripe that goes over the top of it. And so these are Toby eaters, as they are called. They will jump around and fly around with a lot of agility and hunt varying insects that we get in this area. So real gets things like little flies or bees, as the name suggests, that they'll go often, and once they grab it, they often go to a branch like that.

If it's something like a bee and it's got a stinger, they'll wipe it on that rough bark, pull the stinger out, and then swallow it like that. So they're really cool birds to watch and really difficult birds for our cameraman because they are super fast and agile as they fly and turn and twist from these small little perches.

Now, the cool thing about these guys is these guys are here all year round, so we see the little beauties in the winter months. A lot of our beaters are migratory, and we know that migratory birds are coming back, so I would expect any day now to hear the European beaters starting to come back, and they are a beautiful bird, so they should be here soon. Then after that, the carmine beaters will be the next ones, and the carmine's are probably my favorite beater. They've got this rosy sort of maroon color to them, and they really are vibrant and beautiful, so hopefully, we will see them towards sort of December as the next one.

Now, I know yesterday we were talking about, or this morning I think it was about the next migratory birds to arrive, and I was saying cuckoos will be the next ones and all of those, and I forgot completely about some of the other migratory birds that we should be seeing. So we should see the woodlands kingfishers, which are normally around the end of October, beginning of November. I know because it's close to my birthday in November that we normally see them for the first time, so I always use my birthday as my guess as to when we're going to see them.

It, of course, is not always the case, but we do sometimes get it right. I think one year I did find them on my birthday. Same as the impala lambs; they also get born around that time. Then after them, we’ve actually got red-back shrikes that should arrive. I forgot completely about them, and there are lists of grey tracks as well as some of the others. So that’s still what we can look forward to coming our way, but I'm really hoping that the cuckoos start coming soon, because they are vibrant, and they add a lot of color to the bush, particularly the classes and the Diedrich.

If we really were quite lucky and we got onto the Maraki, and I don't think it's been recorded in this section, but you might one day have one, is the African emerald cuckoo. The African emerald cuckoo is a beautiful bird. I've seen one down at Lion Sands on the Sabi River. You hear them a lot, but you don't see them very much. And so I will show you exactly what that looks like because it is an incredibly pretty little cuckoo species to have, and I'm not sure we’ve ever had it on Safari Live. But I’ll have to ask Brent because he’ll remember if we have.

Now, where are all the cuckoos? Quickly find them for you. Cuckoos, of course, when you... Lou, if you can ask him about the African emerald cuckoo if he's ever seen one here at Juma. I don't think any of the other guys have seen one, but this is what I'm talking about. If we look down here at the bottom is the African emerald cuckoo. Look at how beautiful that male bird is. It's got this iridescent emerald green back with this bright yellow chest and those white wings. It is a magnificent bird, and I promise you, it sparkles emerald.

So it is a wonderful bird to see in that we don't see it very often, and it's got this very conspicuous call that you hear every now and then, so it's a nice bird to listen to. And it's basically sings a song that says Georgie. So that's how its song goes. And then these are the other two cuckoos that I was talking about that we do see quite regularly and that I'm hoping both will come. So the Diedrich on top, which has got lots of coppers and greens in it, and the classes cuckoo below. So those two, funny enough, their names are actually linked, which is quite cool.

I will get into that one day when we actually see them, and they are around. I'll tell you why they are called Diedrich and classes, and they are actually linked to one another as well as the song. They're pacing. Now, for some reason, I feel like some little fly flew up my nose, which is not—oh my goodness! This means that there is going to be a hailstorm. There’s going to be snow, and Armageddon is coming because Brent Leo Smith has not ever even seen an African emerald cuckoo, only heard its call. And I don’t believe it! There is a bird in the Sabi Sands that I have seen that Brent Clare Smith has not seen!

In fact, actually, that makes two birds Brent Clare Smith hasn't seen because, well, the golden puppet of January 2017 is also one that's on the list that Brent has not seen here in the Sabi Sands. He has seen it elsewhere, and in Kenya and Tanzania you do see them, but not here in the Sabi Sands. So that is a miracle for me to have seen a bird that Brent hasn't seen! Well, though he's got a couple that I haven't seen, so I suppose we are probably even Stevens. He said the corncrake as well as the purple banded sunbird. So we are fairly close in terms of birds that we've seen in the Sabi Sands. But actually, what I would love to know is what other birds he's seen that I haven't seen here.

Likewise with him and me. With Brent and I, it's always a competition. We've always got to see who has seen the most birds here in the Sabi Sands, and we're having a good...each other about it. It's all friendly banter though, so don't worry. We're saying just now that a fly flew up my nose and it's now causing massive amounts of issues because my nose is itching even though the fly is gone. Now it's still itching like crazy, so I do apologize if you see me rubbing my nose. It's only because everything’s gone a little haywire. And I don't know really what else to do about it, and this is a horrible feeling to ever—it almost feels like the fly is still in there fluttering about. Since I was busy giggling at me because he thinks it’s highly hilarious, but I can tell you it’s not a comfortable feeling having a fly up the nose.

Hopefully that never happens again! You would think it’s very funny. Luckily it didn't go up my nose and then into my mouth. That would have been quite horrible. CJ, you wondering why the female cuckoo is so dull in color and why? Well, it's pretty common in a lot of birds. A lot of birds are—the males are a lot more brightly colored than the females, and that's generally birds that have quite a lot of competition for mating.

And so the males have to be brightly colored to attract the females’ attention and to show themselves off in order to get the females look at them and to be able to then mate with them. So it's normally when you've got birds, especially migratory birds, or ones that because birds altogether here and they don't mate with the same individual every time, they will then try and go after one another and try and sort of compete for mating rights. And so the more brightly colored you are and the better you look, well, the more likely you're going to get a female.

So that's why the females are often a little bit more drab. What's interesting though is there's a theory that because they often are breeding chicks, that their camouflage needs to be slightly better in order to not attract attention to the nest, and so that's why they do. Funny enough though you would think with these brightly colored birds like the classes cuckoo, Diedrich cuckoo, even the African emerald, that they would be easy birds to spot.

Archer, with emerald green feathers and lots of yellow around them, that's easier said than done! Those birds arrive here, it does not look like it does now! It will be lush! It will be green, and those birds blend in very, very well. That’s only when they fly do you actually see them. Outside of that, they are very well camouflaged, and it’s difficult actually to pick them up.

It is the tracks for our mating pair of leopards from yesterday that went south, unfortunately, towards little Gauri. Aaron, you wondering if there's any bird in particular that I'm looking forward to seeing? Well, I think the woodlands kingfisher is always a bird that all the guides look forward to seeing. We completely sort of get irritable about their call by the end of summer, but before summer arrives that's one of the birds that we all look forward to. It's bright, it’s beautiful. It's got this call that just reminds you that summer is on its way, and a change of this dry winter season.

So for me, that's one of the birds I always look forward to seeing. Like I said, the carmine bee-eaters, they are a beautiful bird. Cuckoo species, booted eagles, Wahlberg’s eagles, so there's a number of them. In fact, all the migratory birds because they generally add a bit of sort of dynamic to us. They add a bit of extra variety, lots of colors. And so it's a great sort of splash of color into the bush and a way of just sprucing everything up and getting everything going.

Now there's a beautiful bird that has just come out, talking about a bit of vibrance just on this tree here is a woodpecker. Now it looks like a golden-tailed woodpecker. There it is. You see, it’s just arts and about one of the smaller woodpeckers that we get. You know it’s gone behind a big tree? Hopefully it will come out.

Let’s just be patient; maybe we will get lucky, and we’ll see it coming out. I can hear it pecking away behind the tree. Is there another one here? Because it sounds like another one picking as well, but it doesn’t look like it’s going to come out. Senzo, I’m going to try to go forward a little bit and see if we can change the angle. Maybe we will be lucky.

Well, there it is; it’s just hopped up there, it’s going up the branch. So there it hops; it looks like a little golden-tailed woodpecker, and off it goes again. That’s nice to see. The golden tails have a beautiful gold tail, and that’s where they get their name from—me little red cap that they have. And they're one of our smaller woodpeckers that we get.

Just so we have the very large bearded woodpecker, which is the biggest of the grouping. Then we get the Bennett's golden-tailed one, and right at the back is the little cardinal, which is really quite small. Cardinal woodpecker, and they're beautiful birds as well. Now, while I drive around and contemplate the cold of the Sabi Sands, the wind that is howling in the grey overcast clouds, I can still count myself very lucky that I am not sitting in a very wet, soggy tent like Brent Leo Smith.

We're still here; we're still in the rain, and the first storm that hit seems to have passed, and we're in a bit of a lull. Unfortunately, it looks like there's another storm coming from on top of the mountain, so we're not moving anywhere soon. I noticed Tristan was there talking about the golden pipit and hearing themselves as really wonderful birds for the Sabi Sands, but Justin, they can't compare with the purple banded sunbird.

But, oh yes, the corncrake, you can forget the corncrake. Now, speaking of birds, my head every now and then unless I see, I can see some really big flying ants coming out. So the birds are going to be very happy about that, and I'm hoping that if we do have a little bit of a lull and it stops raining, we might get some birds really taking advantage of these flying ants. If it stops raining, unfortunately, if it continues to rain, we are pretty stuck.

Fergus is too; he's trying to get me wet. The boulder live from behind—here we go, getting the water off the roof. I can see a little bit of lights down towards the east, but unfortunately, there is still a wall of water heading towards us. Now when it rains like this, we have to stay on the main sort of big access roads. If we ventured off-road or onto any of the small little tracks that we normally use, we would probably be stuck and not very popular, because generally what happens in these type of soils is you get stuck, someone comes to rescue you, they get stuck, someone comes to rescue them and they get stuck. Then somebody’s got to call a tractor or bulldozer, and they're not very happy when you got to call a tractor or a bulldozer to pull you out.

We will be—if we do manage to get moving—and I'm hoping we will—we will be sticking to the sort of very big main access roads, and that's the update from us. And we've managed to keep most of the leaks to a minimum. It's a little bit of a drip there, but that's not too bad. Holding arms well, and I know it's my fault; I didn't even bring any hot water for tea today—silly, silly Brent! I should have brought some water for tea.

I can hear some birds; there’s one very unhappy-looking starling flying away. What goodness— I don’t know if you can get it! The road that was actually flooded over—you can’t even try—just to try quickly again. Hopefully tweak the wind’s coming from the other side. Just for Fergie, can you see the road there? There we go. That's the other storm I was worried about; it’s coming from the other direction, so there's that.

I’m just trying to remember which trees you’re on. Where are we looking? Okay, I’m done. See you see where I'm looking at the flight there? Oh goodness, sorry, mamas. Let me try this. You see the water, Jeremy? So we're going to be sitting, yeah, better just hook my thing back in and keep us dry.

So we're going to sit out, and hopefully, we will be able to move. As I said, we're going to be very limited in the areas we can move, and we're just really hoping that really big storm from behind us doesn't hit us as well as the initial storm. But while we do that, spring is in full flow here in the Mara, but it sounds like some of the little early signs are starting to show at Juma. They are indeed, and this is the first one that I’ve seen on this particular gardenia—that's at Treehouse Dam. I've been looking and hoping that this gardenia will flower, and that's the first little bud of a flower that's starting.

So soon we're going to have a bush that will be covered in these beautiful creamy white flowers, and as they start to age, so they'll start to turn a more yellow color. But that's the beginning stages of it; you can just see the top of it where it's going to start splitting out and forming the petals a little bit later. They have a beautiful flower and become very aromatic. This plant—it's wonderful to actually see, so I'm super glad to see that.

Philip, you're asking which flowers am I looking forward to turning to this area? Hulot’s, there's so many flowers that cause a bit of color. There's actually an older yellow flower that's already opened and is now drying up and shriveling, so that's the yellow color it will turn after being creamy white. You can see that one's a little bit drier and has been blasted by this heat that we've had over the last few days.

But for a burn, I think probably my favorite flowers that we see in the summertime—roadside pimpernel is one of them, I like the blue comalinas, yellow comalinas, yellow just ishes. What else do we see? I see that the African violets; they were always very pretty as well. So those are some of the more common ones that we’ll see quite a lot. But my favorite flowering tree of the spring summer generally is the sausage trees. I always loved when ours—its Lion Sands, and watched the sausage trees flowering.

Man, just a number of different species that we used to get feeding off those flowers because they form a really big tubular flower and lots of nectar, which means you get a lot of different types of animals, birds, and insects that congregate around there—lots of nicks in them. You used to find Bushbuck and Yawl and Kudu and Impala. You'd find Baboons, all kinds of things feeding off the flowers as they fell.

Then in the trees was, you know, monkeys; there was brown-headed parrots. You would find all kinds of green pigeons—all kinds of things that would go there and feed off that nectar. After then, at night, you would also find the bats would go and feed off them. So you'd sit there at night, and you would get these bats coming into these beautiful big maroon flowers. If you sat for long enough and you use the light the right way, you could get some of the most incredible sort of views of bats feeding on flowers.

Funny enough, the sausage tree is biggest now–what's the word? I’ve forgotten what the word is. The biggest pollinator is actually bats. You find bats are one of the biggest pollinators. Obviously, insects and birds play a part, but bats are one of the big ones for sausage trees. So it was really amazing to watch that. And like I say, it’s a beautiful tree. You get these long sort of stems that come down, and then eventually the sausage, the fruit grows off that.

So wonderful to see, and a really nice addition to a colorful environment—or actually, I suppose a drab environment because they flower early in the summer or spring time. Unfortunately, here on Juma we don't have a sausage tree that flowers. We do have one sausage tree that I’ve seen, but it doesn't seem to flower; maybe a little bit on the young side. Hopefully, one day we will start to see it flowering, and we will see those big sausages forming.

We get them at Chitra; if we go to Chitra, we will find on the deck of Chitra Lodge there’s a big sausage tree there that’s produced a lot of flowers and a lot of the sausage fruits. So the next time I’m at Chitra Dam, we’ll try and zoom across the dam wall and see what’s going on. Now that reminds me that I’ve been saying all week I’ll go to Chitra and check on the jimmy g nest, and I did actually have a look the other day when we had the mating leopards at Chitra. I went past the jimmy g nest quite late, but there was no sign of the jimmy g.

There wasn't any at that stage, unfortunately. I came round with a whole bunch of lights, so maybe it flew off before I got there and before I saw it. Strawhead, you want to know how animals know how to avoid poisonous plants, flowers, and mushrooms? Well, I suppose now it's all pretty much instinct as well as learned behavior from the adults. So after a while, the adults won't feed off something, and then the young ones only get taught to eat what they see their moms eat.

Effectively, so that's one part of it. But most of the poisonous or toxic, should we say, plants generally have some sort of coloration to them that the animals will avoid. So they know bright colors tend to mean things that they mustn't eat, and most of those plants they are, animals that are plant eaters or eat any sort of mushrooms or anything like that have good color visions, so they'll be able to see those aposematic colorations, which are generally reds and blacks, reds and whites on mushrooms, for example. Those kind of things they’ll know straight away; that's not something that they can eat.

So it's a combination of colors just red on its own is fine. They’ll find they’ll feed off that, but like I say, combinations of reds and blacks, reds and whites, greens and blacks, blues and blacks, those kind of things all mean toxic. Although some animals have developed systems that can handle certain toxins or mating. Duikers' mating; his love is in the air. They've now running away, but there was a duiker on top of another duiker right there. They've just trotted behind the bush.

You can see them moving; they look. You see their mating? Look, he's going to try and jump on her again, so the male at the back—there we go—oh no, she's not having any of it at this stage. She's decided she's shy. She doesn’t want to be seen on camera. This is not the way she wants to grow up and spend her life as a woman. She does not want to be shamed by the world, so she's going into the thicket for some privacy! Exactly as Lucy is. Imagine if her mom saw this!

Well, do I think her mom would be a little on the embarrassed side? But she’s going for privacy; at least he doesn't mind too much. He's just trying his best. This is what will happen with antelope species. They try and mate, and often the male will try and jump onto the back of the female. She'll keep moving forward when she's not ready, and eventually, she gets tired of it, and she succumbs. Eventually, the mating takes place, but see, look how he’s sniffing towards her genital area. So he’ll be picking up the scent of urine and see what he will be—he’s actually even tasting the urine so that he can work out how she’s doing and if she’s in heat and whether or not she’s receptive to mating.

But he's certainly trying his luck. I know it's not the best view, but you can see every now and then him jumping on her back trying to be able to copulate with her. Keep trying, buddy. She’ll eventually wear down, and it will happen for you. Betty wishes she was more like the leopards, in that the leopards would force the females—force it on the males. I think that's what he would prefer because he’s getting nowhere at the moment. What? So he’s a very young male; you can see those horns are tiny. He's almost smaller than her as well. That’s maybe why—maybe that's why she's also moving away, is because she's thinking, "Well, you’re sorry buddy. You really aren't what I want. I want the beefcake stud of the bush, not a young upstart to be mating."

But they're coming out into the open. There we go. He's drying. Oh, there we go again. Paula, you want to know about duiker gestation; well, first Paula, these are not duikers; these are dik-diks, so it's a little bit different to the duiker. But in terms of weights, I want to double-check it, but I have an idea it's somewhere around five months, but they're going to just double check it quickly. Seven months is their gestation period. So they've got a slightly longer gestation period—of seven months—quite close to actually the impalas, which is quite strange given how small they are in relation.

So it's cool; that's not something you're going to see every day. And we know that our dik-diks are normally very, very shy—not today, that's for sure! I wonder where they went off to. Did they run off, Senzo? I didn't see how, I was too busy looking in my book. Oh, there they go! They’re just busy chasing off to one another. Now, that's what a leopard wants. A leopard wants to come across a dik-dik like that, because they're so preoccupied with mating and him messing around, pushing the female and causing noise, that they won't be able to see a leopard coming.

And then it's perfect conditions for a leopard to be hunting and be able to then try and get to them. And it’s not uncommon. Like I said, seen Tandy taking out space of dik-diks, often in the mating season, and you’ll come to a tree and both of them are in the tree, and she's sitting panting there. So if she's around, we know she does hang around in this particular section, and then they're in for trouble.

Now, this is the area where Tumba made his kill. In fact, to the drag mark for it is just up ahead here, and he dragged it towards that big tree. So his intention was really, really good. He was trying to go towards that big burbeam that we see over there, and, so, it’ll be better when I go around the corner. So don’t stress about it just yet. But his intention was to try to get it towards a big tree, and I’m sure he was just not strong enough to get it up and into the tree itself, and then the hyenas arrived, and now as the end of that.

He did try his best, that basically it was somewhere here, and I think vehicles probably drove over it by now. But he was dragging it towards the tree and trying to get it up towards that big burbeam. If he had been able to get it there, he might have been able to eat a little bit and then take it up into the tree itself, and that would have been a perfect place for a little bit to have a carcass. So poor boy, and what’s he didn’t get that far, but at least he...

Philip, you're asking if Hassan and Tumba will be renamed when they get chased out of this territory. Well, Philip, unfortunately, they might depending on where they go. And the thing is, is that they shouldn't theoretically, but sometimes they go onto certain reserves where they feel the need that they must rename animals because they don't like the names that they've got already when they come to that area. So we might see a situation where some of them get renamed, and you might find a different name for them. I'm hoping it won't be the case. I'm really hoping that they both stick with the original names, and we have a situation where we get to still follow them as they go along.

Like I said, wherever they end up, I would love to maybe go there one day and see them as big adult males. It would be wonderful to watch their progress and to actually see them as big units. But they might, their names might get changed, but the thing is now is also with the way that we follow animals and the way that it's kind of these social media we can still use their name for our purposes. So they will always be Hassan and Tumba to us at Safari Live, no matter where they go. That's what they're going to be called. So hopefully, wherever it is they end up, that the guys do decide to keep their names because it would be a travesty if they change them.

I like both of them, and I like both of the names that they've got at the moment. They seem to both kind of roll off the tongue and suit them, so it'll be really a bit of a travesty if they change them. Ah, look at that, Senzo! You see the snakeskin? There’s a snakeskin over there, which I would imagine is from a snake that had skinned over this warm period. The snakes will get a lot more active when there's heat. So there's the skin, and it probably didn’t shed where that particular branch is. It probably has been blown by the wind today and then just caught up in that buffalo thorn.

Difficult to say what kind of snake it is. I mean, we could go do a scale count on it, which would then indicate exactly which snake species it is, but quite big oval-shaped scales, so it could be a Boomslang or a vine snake. I can't see the head area too well; that's all shriveled up, so it would be easy if we got the head section and looked if it's got a big round eye, then generally it would be Boomslang, which is Afrikaans for a tree snake, so we call it a Boomslang, and it is toxic.

But you'll find a lot of this at the moment as the snakes are getting going for the summer. They will have grown a little bit through the winter, so they can then separate from this older skin and then they start to pop out of it. So they get the new skin that's flexible and soft, and then they'll go on a massive, massive feeding mission. That’s when it starts to get warm, so it's really cool to see. This is the second snakeskin I've found in less than a week, so it means that the snakes are starting to move, and I hope that we'll start to see a few more of them on the drives. They are an interesting part of our ecosystem and something that we really need here because otherwise, the rodent population would get out of hand.

Funny enough, if rodent populations get out of hand, so it can cause a catastrophic effect in this area. The rodent's urine sometimes—well, certain rodents carry a disease that can really affect elephants, funny enough. So you would think that elephants would be able to combat any rodents, but their urine on grasses and things the elephants come and feed off, they seem to be very prone to this type of disease. It attacks the central nervous system, and they die from it.

So you've got to be a bit careful with rodents, and that's why snakes are vitally important that they're here as well as owls. Well, they all seem to have disappeared over the last...but maybe it’s because they all nesting now. And when we were seeing them, it was because they were vocalizing and they were trying to find partners and trying to build nests, and that's maybe why we saw so many for that two-to-three-week period when Byron and Taylor were here. It really was quite crazy; we saw owls all over the place, which was really cool.

Right, Twin Dams. Come on, Tumba, be lying here somewhere. Maybe after the struggle of his kill, he wants to come and have a bit of water and he’s decided to come and lie at the dam. It’s a long shot because he did go south, but you never know.

I didn’t catch the name. New if you can just repeat the name for me, please. Francis from Israel, you want to know if it’s mating season or do the animals mate all year round. Depends on the animal, Francis. Some animals will mate anytime of the year; others will mate at certain spots in time.

So we know within parlors, they tend to be April, May, maybe a little bit to second rats into June. But generally around April-May, which is when a lot of the other species were also mated. Kudu are a little bit earlier than that; they generally in March that they mate. But you’ll find things like buffalo, elephants, the cats: they all mate at any time of the year. They don’t really matter when they mate; they just will mate and produce. And it’s normally linked to the way that they sort of life works.

If they are an animal that is a predator, there’s always going to be prey items, and they’ll always be able to find food within that system. And so it's okay for them to be able to have cubs at any time. If they are a herbivore, generally they try and coincide with the summer months so that they can produce little ones that can feed off the new trees and nutrient-rich grasses that are around in summer. So you'll find that it is the case with the herbivores. Things like elephants—which is a mega herbivore—can find food any time of the year. That's why they’ll produce at any stage. Also, a very long gestation period, so it's a time that... Right, would be your Nyala.

Possible to get it right. So that's why you find differences in them. No sign of our little leopards anywhere here. So David, you went mating a honey badgers next, because we've had mating leopard and mating Dik-dik. If we see mating honey badgers, I don't know. I think I would probably do a flick flick off the vehicle if we saw mating honey badgers, because that's not something you see every day.

And I've yet to see mating honey badgers, to be perfectly honest. I’ve seen honey badgers with babies; I’ve seen male and female honey badgers, but never them actually in the act of mating. So if we see that today, well, like I say, then I'll do a flick flick off the front of this vehicle and hopefully not kill myself. Whether or not we will see that is anyone's case, of course, so I’ll try and see maybe a little bit later if we can find some honey badgers. It would be nice, but no leopards around...

Yeah, I can see at this stage there’s just a vehicle that hasn’t noticed me at all. Look there, they go driving past. Haven't seen me in the slightest. Just goes to show how people can miss even a big hulking great vehicle with a white antenna. So you can imagine how easy it is for people to drive past things like leopards. Hmm, wonder now, should I go? Maybe Milwaukee has been good to us. Just want to check up here quickly, because I know Tumba often spends a lot of time in this general vicinity.

Elizabeth, you want to know what's going on with Janet Jackson? Don't worry; we will go past Janet again. This morning Janet Jackson was in very vocal spurts, and I don't know if there was a second Janet in there or if they were attacking the lilac-breasted roller nest. I am not sure if these young ones are in there. I really am unsure of what was going on with Janet Jackson. But we will go pop in again just to have a look.

I'm just going to quickly say hello to Surprise. He was from Chitra, so just quickly say hello to him. Hello, it's Abby! How are you? Very well, thank you. Good way off too. Okay, cool. It's a much cooler slam beam before, so coming south they say like... 300? Yeah, it's coming, so hopefully it is. My ninja movies know... duty now, the increments are close to the Triple Aim as well. I'll let you know if they cross, yeah, just north of the transformer side.

Yeah, I’m fine. Walking fine. Yeah, yeah, also to my daughters. So people are asking if they can be on camera, which obviously we know doesn’t work quite like that. So they want to say hello, and since... shout out to people, I just have to explain nicely that that doesn’t work. So what we’re going to do is, because I was gonna look for Tumba, well, I'm not going to do that anymore, because Surprise told me that the sticks are busy eating something, right?

So let's go and have a look at the sticks pride. It’s been a while since we've seen them, so we’ll go pop into them. We’ll be having a lion-filled afternoon. We’ll do a little bit of the sticks, and we’ll go to our Inkuma Sam Birmingham’s right towards the end of drive, but we might as well go and see the sticks pride while they are around. Like I say, if they're eating, then that's a perfect opportunity to go and see them.

But I do need to radio and tell the guys I am coming. Otherwise, they’re going to be a bit confused as if I just arrived. Peter, Peter, Peter. I wonder if they are going to even hear me. Give them my earpiece; probably not. We’ll have to get a little closer. I can actually see the tracks for the sticks going all along the driveway here, so I’m sure they will be eventually on Chitwa Chitwa.

Peter, Peter, Peter? Nope, another sound. Nobody can hear me, so I’m gonna try to get up over the ridge and down towards the dam. Hopefully, by then they will copy me, and hopefully, nobody is on their way there that we push them out of the sighting, which would be quite nice.

Now, Brintley Smith is forever kids at heart; he pretends like he's an adult, but he's not really. He’s, like I say, a child still at heart, and it sounds like he apparently has found himself some flotation devices for his arms so that he doesn’t get wet and he doesn’t get carried away by the torrents flowing around in the Mara at the moment.

We haven't moved a muscle; we’re still in the exact same spot, and it is still raining. It’s definitely let up a bit, but we sort of seem to be on the edge of two storms. Now, apparently, Tristan's being very romantic; he’s saying all the animals are in a very romantic mood. I think it's probably because Ali is back in a camp. He’s feeling all soft, warm, and fuzzy on to Big Boy.

But anyway, we've got a question from Justin; he wants how many different uses are there for duct tape in the bush? Well, the government... well, I could probably say just off the top of my hand they make screen-door-like shades for their eye pieces with duct tape. We use it pretty much for everything. Another good thing you can use it is to keep the cameramen quiet; they talk too much. You can just use a big piece, and you put it around their head, so it pulls there, and then they're generally...

What else can you use duct tape for? You can’t really fix a puncture with it. I mean, we use it for everything, really. Keeping cables on the roof, fixing your shoes—it’s a very good one. I've actually seen someone make a pair of flip-flops out of duct tape, and that's a pair of flip-flops, right? Goldar chair! I mean, the two things that we can't really live without, just in case of needing to fix something in a bind, are these two things: the one day actually, Vermin, our roof broke, and we held it together until we could get to a welder with cable ties and duct tape.

So it does have many uses. It’s probably—probably one of these are the two most useful things, coupled with the Leatherman, and then you're sorted. You can fix pretty much anything. Right, now I'm trying to keep a lookout! It definitely has slowed, and see, I can only see out. But once I diploma to—don't know if there’s other way of coming.

Still, unfortunately, it’s still, we're unable to drive. Leah, who's eight years old, is wondering why we can't drive in the rain—in the rain! Yeah, unfortunately, there are a couple of reasons. If we drive, we tend to get water in the air, and we've got lots of very expensive electronic equipment and the cameras. And thingamabobs that make signal go jig image AG all the way to you, to you.

And then the other reason is that you're not gonna see many animals because we drive in the rain. Even if I do drive in the rain, it may be soft enough for me to start driving. I can see me fighting my steering wheel as we slip and slide across the road. And because we're not gonna be able to look out for any of the animals because it's raining too much.

Otis, I'd like to know: where do animals go in the rain? Do they go into dens, or are they out in the open? Well, things like zebra and stuff, they're just standing out there. Somewhere there's some someone behind us. There's some elephants in the distance as well. But no, they just stay; then some animals will try to go down to it.

Then actually, really heavy rain, in some cases, brings animals out of dens and their holes will flood. That’s why it's a very good time to see blind snakes, right after rain, because they've been pushed out of their holes and they're on top of the ground where you don't normally find them. Sometimes water holes get flooded, and they’ll have to leave their dens. Same goes for mongoose and... and art furs, but it is quite uncommon.

So you'll find a lot of art dens, for example, go very, very deep and then come up, so there's a little raised area that the water can't get into. Okay, well, we're gonna maybe try and move a little bit and see if we can possibly get close to those elephants, who might be able to open up one side and keep the rain coming from one side.

So while we do that, let's go back to Tristan, who’s on the hunt for lions. I've already found the lions because the lions are directly in front of me. It seems as though they're on a kill of some sort. I don't quite know what it is just yet, so can we see the sticks pride? It's not often that we get to see them, so I'm looking forward to catching up with them for a little bit and spending some time with some little cubs that are feeding.

Hello, guys! It's good to see the sticks pride; it's been a while since I've seen them. A few vultures are around as well, and how cool is that? It looks like they've got a warthog; that's what they've managed to bring down. It was a massive open area right in front of the lodge, so those guests must have had a wonderful day watching lions feeding all day long.

Look at the fat little bellies of those cubs; they are full, full, full. So nice to see them, and their manes are not looking too bad as well. They're looking a little bit better than the last time I actually saw them, which is good news. There's one or two that are a little bit mangy, but not as bad as I thought there'd be. They seem to be coming right a little bit, and hopefully, they'll be able to just last long enough for the rain.

Once the rain comes along, then we're going to have a situation where these guys will be absolutely fine. Remember that the mites in mange proliferate during the dry period. As soon as we start to go into a wet period, then they start to calm right down, and the mites start to disappear. And then the little ones will stop itching; they'll stop scratching, and they will grow back nicely, just like the Inkuma cubs have, and they will be okay.

Look at the one on top of the tree; that is poking its head over the top. There's a fallen-over tree, and this is one little head that's on. It's come down again, unfortunately. Oh, there it is! You see this little head just poking over? What are you doing? Oh no, now you’re down again! I was having a little game on top there, so none of this tiny, tiny cubs are here. They've only just been born, so they won't be introduced to meat yet.

For those of you that don't know, the third female gave birth about, what is it now? Four or five weeks ago? Very similar age, maybe a little bit older than the Inkuma cubs that we've got. So it's somewhere around there—the third female. I don't see her at the moment. I think she—Shh—no, I don’t see her at the moment. I think she maybe is with those small little cubs after feeding.

They often will go to the little cubs to go and get food, but the other cubs are like beach balls. If they can hardly move at the moment, they’re kind of waddling around, which is great to see. So very cool to see the pride, at least feeding well. This will all help with combating those mites.

Aiden, who's six years old—hello Aiden, I hope you’re having a nice day—you want to know whether the lions will swim in the dam. Here, no, Aiden, they're not going to swim. The lions are a bit scared of water. They don't like water on their coats, or so today, it's very cold, so they don't want to go into the water because then they're going to be wet and cold and miserable.

And these crocodiles—crocodiles are very dangerous for especially little lion cubs. I’ve actually seen a lion cub being killed by a crocodile, and so you have to be very careful with crocodiles. And rightly so, crocodiles are animals that you have to be very nervous of. We’ve actually got some water back that are still right here close to us that are watching a lion feed.

I wonder if it maybe wasn't a youngish one from one of these adults, and that’s why they’re sitting just watching the pride feed on them, which is not very nice, but it is the way it goes. That's how life works. Archer, you’ll find that sometimes if it's a mother or a young one for that mother, they will spend hours just watching the lions feed off them as kind of a workout.

What's going on and trying to come to terms with the loss? There comes a hooded vulture that’s going to land directly on a branch. That's very nice! Isn’t that wonderful? The hooded vulture is coming in at eye level close to us. It’s a very cool sight!

Now, hooded vultures are the ones that will feed right at the end. They are going to be the ones that get food only at the end of this carcass. In fact, you'll find the white backs first and in the hyenas, and then only will the hooded vulture get food later. There’s the light-backed vultures on top, and there's a number of them still arriving. The clouds are seeming to part, but if sunshine is coming out, that means we're going to get a situation where it will be perfect conditions for vultures to fly.

We will be, but it's going to be nice thermals that will start coming out, and they'll find this fairly quickly and then come and try and finish that caucus once the lions move off. Then you’re asking why it is that the sticks pride always gets mange? It’s not that they always get mange; they just haven't recovered from the mange from last year.

Remember that it’s not exactly been a very wet year, and so the mange itself is still present in the adult females, and so they've had their young ones, and then unfortunately what's happened is that they've continued to carry that mange. As it's gotten dry again, so it's proliferated and expanded, and it's gotten onto them as well. Remember that the females, even though they're able to deal with the mites, the cubs—when they're younger—their immune systems are not as good.

They also lie together a lot, whereas the females will kind of separate themselves a little bit more—grooming themselves a bit better—because the cubs are rubbing up in and constantly in contact, and so that mite crosses between them a lot. That's coupled with the fact that you've got a situation to look at those faces; how cute is that? And that’s a cub. To the fact that these cubs that, like I said, have a weak immune system in the adults means that they get the mite a little bit worse.

Remember that cubs from last year died, and these are new cubs, so that mite was introduced to them when they were still young, and that's why they've been battling with it. If we get a few years of wetter weather and these cubs survive and they build up an immunity to it, in the next dry season, they should be a lot better off than what they are currently.

You can see that all the cubs in the background actually look a lot better than the newer cubs, so the one is rolling off there; they look a lot healthier. See, they’ve controlled, do you asking if lions always carry the mange mite? Yes, they do. In fact, most animals carry the mange mite; even people have mange on them. It’s tiny, tiny little mites living—it’s completely natural; it occurs.

But like I say, when it goes through a period of very dry conditions, that's when that mange populates, and you'll have a situation where it'll get really out of control. Particularly in young animals, the adults tend to be able to deal with it a lot better, whereas the younger ones tend to get a little bit out of control.

Now, I do apologize if you guys are picking up a lot of wind. It's just here on Chitra Open, it is completely clear of any vegetation, and that means it really blows through here, and we get a situation where it's gonna gust, and so I do apologize if the wind sound is quite loud. It's unfortunately very little that I can do with the wind.

And it would be nice if it did stop. At least, it's blowing these clouds away, and we look at least have a nice clear sky above us. So hopefully tomorrow will bring about a little bit warmer weather and far less wind than we've experienced today. How beautiful is it? The sticks pride means early afternoon, but it's beautiful.

Okay, you're wondering if the notches on the ears are caused by the mange, not necessarily; it might be. They've scratched, and they've caused scabbing, and they've caused a bit of injury to their ears that is now healing, and you're getting those little notches that have formed. It also can be by ticks.

So ticks would feed off the ears of cats, and they cause these little V’s as well as fighting around carcasses. You saw just now that the two little cubs were giving each other a bit of a hard time and belting one another, and that will cause a little bit of scarring and scrapes on the ears. Every now and then, but most of that’s to do with the mange; it itches, and they scratch the ear, and they cut it, and they cause a little bit of a disturbance.

In fact, when you see mange, it often is really bad around the muzzle area, the ear area, and then underneath the belly. If you look at Tindo, he's still got a little bit of that mange on his tummy as well, so it’s normally in the warmer places—the more difficult-to-reach places where they battle to groom, that it proliferates and causes a little bit of damage.

So these lions are going to be very, very content by the end of this afternoon; they probably loving the fact that they have a nice meal that will help also with the colder weather. If they've got a meal, the body will be using energy to try and stay warm, and so this meal does help keep that going.

They were sort of water close by. It's nice and open, so now with a bit of sun in the afternoon, I'm sure the little cubs are loving it. You can see the fact that they're lying—most of them aren't in the open. It shows you that they’re not worried about the heat of the sun at all. In fact, they're probably enjoying that little bit of heat, but their carcass is all but done.

Jared's buddy, you say you've never seen the sticks pride before. How old are these cubs? Well, the sticks pride—so we don't see them that often. They spend a lot of time to the south of us, but in terms of the ages of the cubs, you've got two older cubs which are the ones on the far left at the back there behind the female. So those two that are lying down at the back, and they must be now about 9 to 10 months and things; somewhere around there.

And maybe a little bit older, just trying to remember exactly when the first time I saw them was. It's been a while since I've seen the sticks pride too, but somewhere around there is hard. And when they were born, and these newer cubs are about six months old, so they're a little bit smaller and not as large as what we see with the others.

Now, look at this vulture’s going to come in. No, it landed short! I thought it was going to come and land just on the termite mound above the lions; I think if it wanted to! Then it realized, hang on a second, that’s not a good idea to land right on top of the lions and just pulled out and then stopped right where it was. But it’s really cool to watch the vultures in this wind because the wind holds them up. This one is coming down now as well since, oh, it might be quite nice and fortunate. It's gone behind the tree, but let’s see—the wind is just holding it.

So it's floating in, it’s really cool because they come over fairly slowly, and then they just turn. No, it’s caught the wind and has now gone off, but as they come in, it’s quite nice, because they just sort of float and glide in, which is very cool. Giant Spidey, the vultures, know they won't start getting close to this carcass yet because these cubs are now eating.

If you see behind that cub's backside, there's one vulture that's a little bit further away. You’ll find that the hooded vultures generally are a bit more brazen and will come a little bit closer—a few vultures talking behind us—in fact, actually, tawny eagles building a nest by the looks of things behind us that are making some noise. But if you look behind that cub, look! The cub’s trying to drag the carcass; that’s so cool! What are you doing?

But there’s a female there—a big adult female, so if any vulture came anywhere near that female, she’s going to chase those vultures away. So the vultures have got no chance whatsoever, even with the cubs—they won’t risk it. These lionesses would chase those vultures long before they got any win yet.

And the cubs themselves, I suppose if they were by themselves and didn't have all females, which would be pretty much impossible with lions, then maybe they would bully the cubs off. But you know there's always going to be some adults around that would take them from these vultures. So they've got nothing to worry about. So the vultures will only get this once the lionesses take the cubs away and they move off completely, which will be shortly.

You'll find a situation where they're going to move off at some point. Do they have a kill up there? So it seems like the tawny eagles behind us are making a bit of noise. You can see one right at the top, and Senzo says he thinks that one of them has got something in its talons.

So I wonder if they haven’t got a piece of this carcass or if they've got something that they're feeding on? Difficult to say. Lots of talking going on between those two. Unfortunately, there’s the lions in the way, our present light, so since those battling, hold on. Senzo, just try this; let me just try and see because I want to see where exactly what these guys are eating—whether they’ve got a piece of the carcass or whether it’s just some other food item that they've got.

So where do you see it there, Senzo? Is it in that with the bird itself or above it? But that one's got nothing in its talons that I can see. Has it got something in its talons? Jeff, you're asking what type of carnivorous birds visit or in the Sabi Sands?

Jeff, there are lots of carnivorous birds. Remember that the insect eaters are also considered part of that, but in terms of our meat eaters: vultures, tawny eagles, bataleer eagles—and out of the vulture species, there are five that we see here regularly. Four regularly, one not so much. What other birds of prey are there eating strictly meat?

A number of the sparrowhawks, pretty much all the eagles we’ve got, falcons, we've got normal hawks and goshawks, so lots of different straight-out meat eaters that we get in this particular area. And we're very fortunate that we see a lot of different birds of prey, and it's a wonderful place for birding—the Sabi Sands. It's amazing watching these birds actually coming in.

Here comes another tawny eagle, straight over us, and the cart is going to land right... yeah, there we go! The cart just hovered in. Amazing—you see how much control these birds have got and how they use those wings! They just sort of slowly descend down and then drop onto the branch.

It’s not the softest of landings, that particular one. In fact, it even landed on a small branch that I thought it might fall. Imagine if one of these lions got a branch to the head! That would certainly not impress them at all, given that they can’t get to those vultures.

But it's always interesting to see how they interact with those vultures. Like I say, I’ve watched them fly; we had that wonderful sighting the other day of the two of them right over our heads. They'll often be hunting down the road as well, there is another one looking.

But unfortunately, I'm going to have to start moving on because there are others that want to come into the sighting. I'm going to leave the sticks pride now. I'll let them finish off their water buffalo kill, and we're going to start heading across towards the inkuma pride. So hopefully, then we can get the birmingham's roaring as the sun sets, but while we do that, let's go back to Brent, who’s got his own lines on his own kill.

Well, imagine this! While the rain was pouring down, the Ngama pride took advantage. Of course, the animals would not have been able to see them approaching. And they, I can't see what they've killed, but they've killed something. So we've just opened up the one side of our vehicle to show you the Ngama pride, and looking very happy. The cubs were quite full this morning, but the lionesses were hungry.

Now I'm pretty sure they used it as that big storm came in. They moved out into the short grass and took advantage of an animal that couldn't see them coming through that wall of water. Now I don't know how long we're going to be able to stay here; there are more rain on the way, so we will stay for as long as possible.

But isn’t this exciting? Where there’s a will, there’s a way! We ended about 400 meters from where we've been sitting waiting for the rain to go, and then Ngama's have made a kill, and it’s quite fresh. I would say we probably missed it. It was while we were sitting tight waiting for the rain to abate that they caught this. I think they would have caught this probably in the "East" sort of eye of the storm.

Francis from Israel says, "Wow! Another kill." Wow indeed! And these girls have got 12 hungry cubs to keep well fed, and they’re doing a spectacular job of that! And I says these cats are better groomed. I assume you're comparing them to the poor sticks pride and their bedroom because they've got a better price.

Generally, only a bit of any easier diet, and a lot of the animals here will be in better condition than Juma at the moment because it is sort of the small rep beginning of the small rains. There's lots of lovely green grass, so the animals that the lions are eating here are in prime condition, whereas in Juma you’re coming right out of the dry season, so the animals will be suffering a little bit from condition.

As a little bit of a family disagreement—but who gets the tasty last piece of liver? Rebecca's wondering how long will it take them to eat the whole animal. Vic, I can’t see what animal this is, but it’s probably nearly done already, and there’s just a pile of lions on top of it, hence we can’t see what it is now.

Quite funny, and some of you might have seen on Twitter or Instagram or even on Facebook, I put up a little video of the road we took to get here. The road is a river, and we got stuck. While I was fiddling around making a video, unfortunately, we managed not to get stuck. We are about halfway up the river road.

We will try to continue up a little bit later. As I said, yeah, there is more rain coming in, and you can probably still hear the pitter-patter of raindrops on our roof. Kylie is wondering how does the blood not permanently stain their fur? Well, Kylie, what happens is they will lick it off. Other lions will help them groom it, and it just comes off quite quickly, comes off their fur.

Now we’re quite lucky; the lions have moved to where they are now. If we had to drive the road that they were on this morning, we would certainly have got very... a very stuck if it stays like this. We should be okay to such air for a while; there were some more lightning to the south, but that’s not what I'm too worried about. I’m actually worried about there’s another big storm directly behind Final Control, so I'm hoping that doesn’t come down over us.

And, as I say, it’s almost... Uncute Alicia says they still look slippery. Well, I’m sure that's absolutely soaked. They weren't able to submit