Safari Live - Day 329 | National Geographic

47m read

·Nov 11, 2024

This program features live coverage of an African safari and may include animal kills and caucuses. Viewer discretion is advised.

Jumbo jumbo! A very warm welcome to our sunset drive from the Mara Triangle. My name is David and in little cameras, Boom Boom! Good afternoon, sir. We have said fast to show you the beautiful view of the Mara Triangle. I'm at one of the highest points of the Mara, and I'm sure all of you knew the elevation of the Mara is about 5,000 feet or 2,000 meters or plus. That's the elevation; it's a lot higher than Juma. Just look at that beauty of the Mara Triangle.

Now if you carefully, we have lots of open spaces, and in the midst of this huge open space that we call savanna, we go to the forest. We've got smaller patches of green areas and we've got scattered trees. That is what we call the Mara savanna. Now, not sure you can see on the screen, it is a pretty, pretty warm day here, and we are talking of 33 degrees, about 32 degrees and 91 degrees Fahrenheit. 33 degrees Celsius and 91 degrees Fahrenheit, and that is very, very hot for our standards here in the Mara.

But that does not detail from going down there and getting as many animals as possible. Most important, ladies and gentlemen, don't forget we'll always request you to send us any comments you may have, any questions, keep us busy, hashtag Safari Live as you show on Twitter, and that will keep us and you engaged throughout the three-hour also period of the drive.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, I'm the only one in Kenya today, but down in South Africa, whether the gentleman would like to say hello to all of you. Indeed you are down with us here in South Africa, and it's a beautiful afternoon. It's not too hot; it's a little bit kind of partly cloudy and perfect conditions for our afternoon game drives.

So hopefully, it's going to be a very good drive, and we hopefully are going to see a lot this afternoon because I've had a few quiet drives, and I think today is the day that we change things around. What do you think, Sebastian? Exactly! And that's a clue as to who I'm with this afternoon is that Sebastian is on camera. For those of you who don't know who I am, my name is Justin, like David mentioned.

Now it's been quiet the last couple of days from many perspectives. Actually, it seems like the elys have kind of dissipated a little bit—not nearly as many of them—or so not too many of our leopards have been seen in the last few days. So I'm hoping that after kind of two days of fairly dry, when we were having too much rain, that maybe we'll start to see some signs of them this afternoon coming out.

So that's going to be kind of good, and for all of you, as much as you know, seeing animals is entertaining with all the most special sightings of them all is this afternoon in the form of a very special member of our team is back on the driver's seat. So I'm sure everyone's going to be super excited to see that individual rather than even the animals at this stage, but hopefully, we'll have some animals to show all of you.

I also just bumped into Byron. For those of you who want to know how Byron is doing, he came to visit us quickly and she said that I must say hello to all of you and he's very well, and he's actually busy guarding some guests at Under Lazy at the moment. So he came to say hello. Good! Now, are saying we have a special person on the driver's seat who's back, and I'm sure many of you want to see his face and not my ugly mug. So without further ado, let's send you across to Mr. Henry.

Good afternoon, everybody, and welcome to this Sunday afternoon sunset safari. I have come as the third person to say that to you, but I nevertheless mean it as much as my other two colleagues. Hello! I'm back from leave; that's my name—Good! Excellent! And it's lovely to be back in the hot seat and lovely to be back in the bush. Those were two Egyptian geese that I showed you earlier, which of course was very nice of me to do, wasn't it? Actually, it wasn't me; it was, of course, Craig who is on camera.

Hello Craig, have you shown us your fast thumb? Could you do that? Thank you very much; it was Craig's fast thumb! And we're also going to show you, if you couldn't believe our beneficence, some Impala! Now they are thinking about having a drink. Talk to us, of course, there's always using the hashtag Safari Live on Twitter, otherwise, you can use the chat stream on YouTube and we will do our level best to find you something worth looking at during the course of the afternoon.

It's great, I must say, to be back on drive with Tristan and David. Very nice to be driving with them. Apparently, some of you are overjoyed to have me back, which means that you obviously overindulged heavily on your Sunday lunch, which I thoroughly recommend, so well done to all of you!

I planned this afternoon as to head off towards In Ghana. Now of course I actually don’t know where he is, but we had some alarm calling around for those Hookdam this morning. And so we'll go over there and see if we can't pick him up lying in the shade or next to the water and perhaps investigating one or two things.

Now I must just tell you that this is my very favorite time of the year in this particular part of the world. I'll probably say that a few times during the year, but this, this is the one I'm always reminded of most. And that's because the edge of the summer has kind of fallen off, so it’s cooler; there's not quite as so much rain, which of course is normally fairly fortunate, but it just makes for these long warm pleasant days without the violent heat of the summer.

And it's just a lovely time in the year to be out here. And in fact, it's a lovely time of the year to be anywhere in the country. The wind tends to stop blowing a little bit on the coast, and the weather’s pretty much stable for the next two months or so. Very nice! Anyway, I'm hoping for a Sunday afternoon of, well, if not great action, greater beauty.

Paul apparently you say I'm your fearless leader. Well Paula, I wasn't aware that I was leading you, but I'm very pleased to be leading you! I'm not sure where I'm leading you—hopefully not astray. Here are the impalas having a drink. Now, interestingly of course we have a dam here which is of course supposed to store water, and while it looks like there's quite a lot of water here, it really hasn't filled up to the extent that it might have, and that's because we've had lower than average rainfall, as has been the norm for the last three or four years now.

And so I suspect that we're probably going to have another fairly difficult dry season come September and October this year, much as we did last year and the year before that. But for now, this water, the grass is tall and thick, the spiders are out, there are lots of butterflies, and some of the weavers are even having a second go at breeding, which is quite interesting.

So it's just a lovely time of the year to be up here. Like there's some butterflies just ahead of us, Craig, there are some grass stalks just kind of over the top of the front and left-hand side there, you see them? There's some African Jokers! And that's it! You got him! African Jokers—beautiful spitting on, I think that some parottas, patents, and grass cat tails might be asset areas to be. Isn’t that lovely?

Alrighty! We're going to leave these butterflies, head off towards Beaver Soak waterhole in the northeast corner of the reserve, while you go back to David in the Masai Mara.

Yes, James! A very warm welcome, and I hope you enjoyed your holiday, and now you’re ready to get all the little parts out of Juma that have been hiding for the last few weeks. Well, not sure leopards and giraffes are elated when we look at their last names. I only took of Camilla poodles, and Camilla, I'm talking about giraffes having the shape of a camel and produce coming from the leopard.

But we got Maasai giraffe, and this is my very first animal for this afternoon. How are you, madam? I'm guessing your account the way you look at me or the way I'm looking at your ossicones; you definitely look like a good-looking Maasai gal. Well, hon, I'm sorry girl, but I'm sorry, Ralph cow. And we all know that giraffes browse, and my guess is he's feeding on a cusper bush.

People would at times confuse giraffes and call them browsers because I've seen them bending like that and reaching long tongues, as you can see there. Do you see that? She just spots some grass! So what is she speaking? The Kasbah bush twigs and leaves? She also picked some grass with him and what she did there is to get the leaves and the twigs of that particular bushes eating, and he's putt the grass out. Look at that! And very good camera out there by Bungay!

Still pretty warm, and we'll be out the whole day. Devin, how are you today? And it's good to see a live giraffe! Well, David, always a pleasure to hear your noise now. David, I see who you are coming from because my other friend, oh my, like part, had been having a giraffe that has been dead for the last two days. I was like, what is David talking about? Where did you see a not living giraffe? True? Correct! Correct! Character, David.

Thank you very much for that! I guess this one is surviving, and not sure how far the dead giraffe Pat had with the winner pride, but this tells you, David, we got loads of giraffes in the Mara Triangle! A lot of choice! He got was he—he has a lot of grass, a lot of red oats grass! But if you look carefully she is not interested.

Paula, how are you today? And you wonder whether David has a shoe count. Bungay, look at leave the camera, don't look at me. The eyes, because I want to talk to Paula. Paula, jumbo! And how are you today? Waiting for the right temperatures? I'm shaking my temperatures. You're doing over 90 degrees for a high turnout! You are—whether you use the empiricist Impala or use the metric system and over 30 degrees Celsius—that's too hot! But my greens sukha always—and always—I'll have it handy just in case the temperature goes down as they have been before we finish the drive!

That's a very good question, and you're asking whether giraffes can break the ossicones? Yes! And especially the males! As much as we know the ossicones that you see there are kind of an extension growth from the scar. It's very invented; it's very difficult—very difficult to break! I said yes! Unless when maybe they would have a huge fight and bump each other, but it's normally very difficult because they are bended to this cow.

I like Sager; you know horns of buffaloes or what odd, you know buffaloes? What else has another good example? Maybe antelopes? But the ones for the giraffes tend to extend as like an extension of the growth of skull. Should you see a skull of a giraffe without the skin, you'll notice that ideally there's no joint between the hase con and the skull.

I would say it's more—it's very, very difficult to see it broken. What we've seen in the mayors is to see them being roughed up or being shot, or you know, being flattened at the very tips because of the fights that they'll have, you know, once in a while.

And definitely, as much as I looked on the belly of this particular that's fitting here, you know, looking also at the end of the ossicones, the females can always tell they have lost extensions of hair or fur on top of the ossicones. Very good giraffe! Definitely you can tell he looks a little big; she has really enjoyed that bush. And I imagine the particular mirrors of vitamins she is getting from that bush.

Well, I'll move on, and my plans today is to look for lions that are different from my favorite pride, the sausage pride. I hope everybody will be happy with that. But in the meantime, we'll go back to the leopard whisperer and get an update!

Well, hopefully, David finds his lions, and hopefully those lions won't be naughty and grab another giraffe because I think that would be traumatic for many of you, by the sounds of things. You're all happy to see a giraffe that was alive and not lying on its side being eaten by the Avuca pride! Anyway, not much has changed on our side of things, we're still just bumbling about ever so slowly trying to kind of have a look at sort of any of the pans just checking if there isn't any sign of anything moving around.

What we have found that was moving around was Herbie and Jamie from this morning, so he's checking made tracks and tracks for a female leopard that was going up and down, and Jamie said to me she wasn't sure where they kind of went; she couldn't tell, and neither could Herbie. And so we're just doing sort of loops and just checking the little water points in case said leopard has decided to just lie up in some shade somewhere close to a little wallow.

But so far, nothing that we can see. And so what we're probably going to do is we're going to head sort of more to the western side of the reserve, and we're going to try and sort of scratch around there—the lights are familiar tracks around, that's for sure—and we're going to just kind of scratch, and then we'll come to these areas again a little bit later and see if there's anything in these mud wallows.

Because for now, the mud wallows closest to where those tracks are is no sign at all, and I suspect that it's four-ton diamond Tania's been so elusive of late, but it's been read tricky to actually kind of find out! She hasn't been lying at water points or anything like that; she's obviously up to something!

She seems to be kind of keeping herself as hidden as possible and then just sort of appearing here and there in small sort of doses, keeping the mystery around her strong. She's almost taken after her sister’s namesake and become a shadow cat in many respects. But I'm sure she'll pop out at some point, and you'll get a nice sighting, okay? It's always nice when we get long sightings of Tandy because of how difficult she can be to find!

Wild alien, any news of lions? So, no, not here on Juma, I believe. I think the in coomers hold on. I did get an update; I can't remember if it was yesterday or today. I'll tell you now, give me two seconds just trying to see if it was today. Yes, at 7:45, I got an update that they are lions south of this location, which is on the inside of London Lazy, and I think it was the in corners that were there.

They didn't say which ones, but knowing that the Inkomas were in the West, that thing might be them. Or it could be the sticks because the sticks also in for a long walk to the West the other day they were seen all the way down near Savannah in the western sector. So it could be either one of those, but nothing on Juma. The Torchwood’s and the telemetry’s have both been seen on Torchwood and before, soaked respectively.

And so you know, they were around, just everyone seems to be avoiding this particular section at the moment. And the Avoca males also in before sook and Mannion 8C they kind of bouncing between there, but mostly being seen on their own or as - I haven't heard of all threes being seen together for quite some time. And to be honest, so no real lion activity at this stage, but you never know! You know we're just starting to get out and just starting to move about, so maybe we'll get lucky and we'll find some tracks somewhere along the line.

Right, we're going to keep going while you're hitting off towards tree house! So let's see what's happening on that side. In the meantime, they are back up to David. See how he's getting on with his lion search. Yes, that's right, Tristan, and I decided to leave the drafts, and before we went very far, I heard like some ellies trumpeting.

I asked Bungay what was that? He engaged; it can only be one animal—it must be an elephant, right? One day and boom! Day was right because I had not seen it from a distance, because the grass is quite high, and the road was a bit low where we were. And just look at that! Beautiful! God Funny because the first animals who deal in the giraffe was a female, and now I've got a second animal, which is an Ellie.

And my guess is she is a female! How cool is this? The only thing that made me come close to her is hottest for a female. I think she got very long tasks. In general, mirrors we have are pretty heavy, and you know larger, longer tasks and females. But I'm trying to imagine it; it's very difficult to age her. But I'm thinking how the female those tasks are quite long now, unlike the giraffe that was fitting on the Kasbah bush or the leaves and the twigs.

Now this one is fitting both on smaller plants, as you can see in her mouth, and grass at the same time! So if you look, what she watches the mouth now is a combination of crowns grass and—all of them will just go through! I like the giraffe that we saw earlier that would separate the grass and the plants that, you know, she was speaking here! Anything is going to her mouth now.

I got a feeling, you know, Ellie’s got a little softer or other sensitive skin compared to the giraffe, because about half a kilometer apart from the giraffe that is to be formed and it's Ellie! But you see, the giraffes do not have as large ears as the elephants in terms of cooling off! But this one, every few seconds, she goes thumb, thumb! Open, close, close, open! Ideally to try to cool off because the temporal ground there looks a bit streaming.

Not sure for what reason, and there are always a combination of theories—excitement, you know, sometimes stress—it could be anything to see the flop there, Bunga. Very good! I agree with you! That’s tomorrow! Ellie’s have been showing off! I would want to ask Lauren, but any one day, any one driver, they have come out and not seen a minimum of 50 elephants and they'll be shocked!

And two, three days ago, I think you were discussing it as a Bunga! Bunga is the camera approaching me this afternoon, and what we're saying is, we're thinking all the migration is in surrogates now. Serengeti is a National Park in Tanzania, and Ellie’s they don't get very, you know, along very well with their will because, of course, they become—they retain them!

So anyway, agrees, Bunga, most likely 80% of the Ellie’s found between the Mara Triangle and the Serengeti National Park could be here because either yesterday or the day before, we had an average of 300 elephants—Bunga! 300 in four groups! One group we guess was about 70 elephants together!

Hot keep flapping—that's the only way you're gonna keep your temperatures down! And they like how tusks have crossed a little bit. We also see the same in males, but more in females! And my guess is because males will wander how I fight, not Shell-we. I know what I'm talking about, but I've imagined because females do not fight a lot.

The deformity, the form—a T of the attacks will go in whatever direction! But maybe the ones for the male are a little bit adjusted, because they keep either fighting or poking trees, you know, once in a while. Brenda, good question! And you're asking how do these Ellie’s get their little holes in the ears?

There are a number of reasons, Brenda. Issuing a squall of that one—it could either be genetic, or too when young maybe, and you know, elephants are both browsers and grazers. They'll be out in the grass—they'll be out bushes in the forest—they might accidentally get in a very sharp phone or a broken stick, and then maybe pierces through the ear, and then maybe it doesn't heal very well. Brenda, that is my guess!

Or if the hole is too big, it is—and then an opening remains there! Another theory may be Brenda if they go for each other! You see how sharp the tasks are! That would happen! These are the African elephants! And our thoughts—most of them would be under trees, but I think they're still coping and managing in the heat of the Mara Triangle.

But then the muscles of your ears have to keep flapping in and out as the temperatures maybe the next one hour will be cooling down. Fantastic! No giraffe or the one giraffe made me happy! These two gals of Ellie’s have made me happy, but it's time to remind James that he's back on duty, and I'm gonna give him an assignment and make sure he gets us King Ghana before the end of the drive!

Good luck, James Roddy! Well, here we are at Beaver's Hook waterhole! Hey, well, we say, fairly pea-green coloured body of water. And we are looking at a very interesting multi-class vertebrates gathering there on the little island of a blacksmith lapwing from the class Aves, oh! Birds! And the terrapins from the class Reptilia.

Reptila! I seem to be getting on very well indicating that animals, very, very distantly related indeed, can still be friends! Ought to see! Well done! Example to us all! Now, we've come here, of course, in the hopes of finding Ting Ghana, na na na na!

Now I'm looking under all the bushes and in all the little patches of shade to see if I might spot his belly resting! I'm afraid as yet, I have spotted nothing! This is not that surprising, it is very, very thick at the moment, making it very difficult to spot anything at all. Oddly enough, the hippopotami Squuba Steve and his girlfriend Snorkel Sarah seem to have absconded.

Now, I suspect that Steve has gone in search of Sarah because she wasn't around this morning. He was here looking lonely and miserable; he was a fairly miserable mind, but he looked even more miserable today because he was on his own!

So that's what's going on here at Beaver's Hook waterhole! What I would like to do now is have a moment of ambient appreciation! You will just heard that there are in fact some would include—what was one of them? A couple of ox pickers going tufts on those rattling piglet ox bows. That's wise. All a rather peaceful place to tea some tea!

What some butterflies there! You Craig! Well done! Oh yes! Another African Joker! Look at that! It's very cool! Castrato! You say this is damn Cam style! Well, yes, possibly with a little bit more speed given that the camera operator is not sitting, you know, with a delayed internet feed somewhere around the world making it very difficult to operate!

Nezumi, in this case, is Craig, who’s actually live with me! There are those African Jokers you can see! There, I think Bob, they got the name Joker's because they are in fact very amusing! They are known as the pranksters of the butterfly world! I actually have no idea about how they got the name jerker! I'll see if I can find out for you, but I'm not really sure!

I suspect that somebody will know! Believe it or not, normally if I don't know it, one of you does! Now the trick is to find out, is that a spotted or an African Joker? It's difficult to tell from here! I'm just reading quickly in my app—no, it doesn't say here! And so I can give you its latin name: biblia and Vitara actual area—fantastic!

There he says! Because they mimic at the butterflies! Possible that ridden orange and black coloration is a possum mattock indicating that they are toxic! But whether or not that is in fact the case, I'm not sure!

I really don't know where they get their name from! Okay, I cannot find In Ghana over here! So we are going to press on forward and to see if we can find him! Some ones we could, of course, be lying centimeters from us in the long grass given the denseness of the bush and his propensity to lie very flat in it in all but the coolest of weather. Alright, Tristan? Same idea as I have—I think he's checking out another waterhole!

Let's find out if there's an animal living! We do ever say my ideas, James! Well just on the opposite side of the property at this stage! James is up in the north and I'm down in the south, and we're just checking for two points in case there's some ILI's around or, lo and behold, maybe even a buffalo, which would probably be the first buffalo I've seen this year at Juma! But no sign of a buffalo! In fact, there’s anything that has got a heartbeat is the impalas who you I must say are looking as good as one could ever imagine an impala to look at!

Look how much it’s shining! It’s amazing how a bit of rain and some growth of grass and vegetation can make these guys look as healthy as they do! You know, you kind of see them at the end of the long winters in sort of November, they were looking rather ragged and not very good, and then you see them now! And you see them kind of healthy and fit in the coat, sort of shining in the sun! And it's amazing kind of transformation that takes place with these guys!

But you can see by their relaxed demeanor at the moment, they really aren't too fussed by being at turndown! So I would imagine that there's not too much around where you've kind of been scanning all the long grass areas and little shady spots in case, but unless, no sign of any sort of predator for these guys!

What's interesting though is watching them feed obviously we know that that’s impalas are sort of mixed feeders in that they'll browse and graze, but I’ve been intrigued to watch the impalas of late. Mostly what they eating is actually not grass. So even when they bending down like that, they are feeding off a lot of the little forbs that are growing!

So small little trees that are coming through and little sort of annual plants that are growing, which is quite interesting! You find that they’re not nibbling too much on the grass, and I think they would have nibbled on the grass when it was a bit shorter, but now that the grass is kind of seeded and a lot longer, they’re trying to eat all the little bits in between while they can!

Oh! Making to eat the grass that’s quite low down to the ground that hasn’t quite popped up, I suppose. We’ve had a bit of rain recently, so there’ll be some new shoots that they’ll also go after! But other than that, well, very, very quiet on the side of the world!

It’s what's much going on! Really can’t even see our monitor lizard at turndown! Let alone any water birds, which is quite—just quite sort of sad in many respects! Roberts, what is my take on the electric safari vehicles? Romans, you know, obviously, whenever there is anything new, there’s going to be a great debate about it!

I mean, I like it from a few points of views! I think it’s will be a great tool in terms of finding animals! Your ability to hear the natural wilderness around you is hugely increased, which means that you'll be able to hear alarm calls, you'll be able to hear bird calls, you'll be able to kind of pick up things that you might not have picked up in a noisier vehicle! So that’s one aspect of it!

The other aspect, I mean from a filming point of view if we had to have electric vehicles at wild earth, it’s much better as there’s almost no vibration when the vehicle starts and moves around and so for the cat mops it would be a lot easier or so much quiet!

So when we would be driving around and we can talk to you guys and wouldn't have to kind of be drowned out by these diesel engines! Particularly in the Mara dam! That cause you are not too bad! So from that point of view, be really nice!

Obviously, it's meant to be a cleaner resource or cleaner energy that we're using in order to propel them around, but I just still wonder what the longevity of those vehicles are! What happens to batteries and things like that once they, you know, no longer charge correctly?

And we’re so the reaction of animals! I mean we've obviously been seeing a few kind of electric vehicles in our area and approaching certain animals and it seems as though some of the animals almost get a fright that the vehicle comes in!

Now, you must understand, when we approach something like a lion or a leopard or an elephant, that animal knows we're coming from miles away and their hearing is incredibly good! So they hear this little diesel engine or a petrol engine coming from a long, long, long, long way away and they, you know, make this decision to either to stay lying me or they believe or whatever the case may be!

With this electric vehicle, it almost seems like those animals are being surprised by the fact they don't hear anything! And all of a sudden, there’s this big object near them! And so I'm not sure how those animals are gonna overcome that. Are they gonna get used to it, and are they gonna eventually relax?

Or is it going to be a constant thing where they get surprised, and it makes them feel a little bit uncomfortable? So, yeah, I don't know how, and it’s an interesting one! I haven't seen them around enough, and I don't think they've been around for long enough to really make any proper judgments on them! So I'm neither for or against at this stage, can I be like that?

Can I be a fence sitter? So I think I'm gonna be a fence-sitter on this one for now then! Did you say good point? I— which point are you specifically referring to? I suppose the animals would be the one that you’re referring to! At the end of the day, you know—the thing is, is you want animals to be able to have the decision to be able to move themselves and to be able to react and have the ability to make that decision and if they don’t have that ability and skill, are they being surprised?

How long until one of those animals is aggressive towards that vehicle? So never too late! They most definitely are powerful enough for Frode! I was chatting to Brent; I saw him the last week! This last week, what are we doing? Now what day? We all went Sunday?

No, this week I saw Brent on Tuesday, and I was chatting to him, and he actually test drove one recently, and he was telling me that he reckons it’s got more power than Rusty, which I don’t believe! Rusty is the most powerful car in the whole world! Just taking him now, he said to me that they are very powerful and no problem with off-roading, and you said that the car had more than enough to go everywhere where he tried to take it!

So that's good news! And the range on those particular ones that he tried is about 200 kilometers, which is a big range that they have before it needs charging, and the amounts of charging that needs to take place is obviously dependent on how much you use, and she can charge anywhere from, we need to be charging away from an hour to some seven hours!

But you said to me that they're more than powerful enough! I think some of the other earlier models had huge issues with range! But yeah, honestly, I'm not too sure how I feel about them at this stage! Anyway, good let's carry on!

Let's we're gonna jump into Marazzi go and check what's happening! And there gets say about the Sun because it seems like he’s hot behind me here! I mean halides, you that’s apparently sending you to either David or James! I have missed the name because I was too busy talking about electric vehicles! But either way, they'll get their opinion and what they think of electric cars!

Well, I would agree with you, sorry, Tristan, on that feel about electric vehicles! Well, number one personally I'd say they are great, and his concern of electric vehicles to be the same as mine but only challenge is we have found out here in the bushes if you have a technical issue, it's very easy to get help from another vehicle from a friend or from any other person.

But I'm saying with an electric vehicle if you do not have as many of those vehicles, they're gonna be a challenge to get out! But I would say they'll be very ideal now, the Mara, unlike Juma! It rains a lot and the salt chemistry of these two places is very different! We get stuck a lot more here than in Douma!

I mean, I kept driving through Juma, and I do not even remember either twisting or James or any of the other gates having been stuck there because of their different soils that we get! So I do not know how well an electrical vehicle would perform in the Mara that kind of anger out!

I highly doubt they would fit here! Anyway, we got to fast, try them in Douma, and they, they can spread out this way! But I think Mara needs more of mechanical vehicles! Well, you need to shift the gears back and forth, and vehicles that she'll use diesel, because when you're stuck and you have nobody to come and give you a hand, you have to use all your energy, and you need a very strong vehicle!

I think an electric vehicle needs smooth roads, not big load, not going descending on high heels and not very steep desert! I mean, that’s my take on electric vehicles! We'll see! Maybe we'll end up trying them in Douma! Maybe before coming to the power!

Well, I haven't seen anything else since I saw the elephants—the two girls—and I've decided to go today to the marsh area and find out what could be happening there in the Mara! We got so many prides of lions! Very many, very many! And every time I'm here, like recently before I went home, I was dealing with the sausages throughout, and any other pride or collision of lions would get in the way, out just ignore them!

But in the Mara Triangle, having over ten prides of lions, I feel also once in a while I should look for the others! Just say Jumbo Gem! How are you doing? And look at the dynamics! Look at the changes that we've had since I last saw them! So around who I am, we have two prides—we got the marsh prides, and we also got another pride that is called the Mara River Pride!

So those are the two prides you have to tell! And there's one that you call a my river pride that you have always thought they are very shy when it comes to hunting! They never have the confidence and the talents! We have always seen them having made very good strategy—this starts stalking! And we think they have put everything in place, and they're gonna catch the prey, but then the hunter boots for no good reason!

Unlike, say, the sausages that I would say a nine out of ten times, once they focus and they make a decision to hunt, nine out of ten times they always winning! Well, let's see for the RV! Lucky to see! I love those! And I think I must have missed something!

They are very—I'll be happy if you take it again for me! How lovely this air it is! Very, very good! So I'll be heading to the marsh area! But I think I had requested Ally James to get us a spotted cat by the name of King Ghana, but he's trying to look for some bugs in the air.

Well, what we have been lucky with here, awesome oil toss! Now, wall chests of course don't normally congregated in vast numbers unless they have spotted something dead—well, the hope is they've spotted something that is dead as a result of being in contact with King Ghana's teeth and claws, alternatively some other predator!

I'm pretty sure that that's what's happened because there was much alarm calling around here this morning, and there were no vultures this morning, which means that something has attracted the attention of these anomalies or birds here.

Now while you look at them, I must just weigh in on the electric vehicle debate frankly! I think it is the way of the future! And those naysayers are similar to those people who thought that the horse would never be replaced by the internal combustion engine!

And I say that because if you have ever been in a sighting, why me, many of you have been in sightings with those electric vehicles! There is no question that although the technology is not quite there yet in so much as the vehicles can't travel very far yet—so for example, they would be hopeless in the Mara right now because they can't go far enough!

Yet I can own you about a hundred kilometers I think at a time before they have to be recharged, which you might get away with a short game drive in the Mara down to the bottom of the hill! A bit of a turn around towards basically the route that David's doing today and then back up again, but you wouldn't get down to the sausage tree pride and back certainly not with any speed!

And you'd often find yourself stuck at the bottom of the hill before you got home! But that is just a function of the fact that the technology is not quite there yet! That is definitely where we are going! The days of the great big V8 4.2 Land Cruiser and its unconscionably irritatingly loud starter motor are hopefully numbered!

As are the days of vehicles like the one I'm sitting in, which although much quieter, belch out any number of foul-smelling fumes into the air! And there is no question in my mind that as much as we do our level best not to affect the animals here with our vehicles, there is no question that we do affect their movements, largely due to the sound that we make with these cars!

And often that’s the stick that we’re breaking! But the ribbing of the engine makes a big difference! So there is no doubt with me that this is going to be the way that we go and that everyone else goes once the technology's there! And kudos to those who are trying at the moment!

Okay, we’re going to snuffle around here and see what these workers are looking at while you go back to David and the will themes chisel beaks to ground hornbill!

Well, that’s not very good with look at it James! About combustion engines and electric vehicles! And I’m sure I will see what the future will hold because they say change is a fact of life! Well, from vultures to other bigger BOTS, maybe more or less the same sensitive water, so little bigger!

But now this one’s are on the ground! But there’s something interesting going on here! We have what we call the thousand ground handles! And you got the black-headed heron! But look in the mid-east and tell me what you see!

The goats and other animals there, some other small carnivores, and I'm wondering what kind of a party they would be having with these ground handles and the herons! My guess is loose! Who are the banded mongoose? But now just look at that! Initially, I was wondering what types of birds are this?

Are these chicks or ground hornbills? Are they chicks? All the herons, or are they—what am I talking about? I initially—the drama cops or some kind of, you know, I bounce in the grass! But looking at them carefully, they were up and down, and there were more than twenty!

And there’s no way I’m going to see so many Hummer cops together! Or so many irises together! Or, you know, so many buds! A lot of different species, from the two that I see there, and just found out there were mongoose of the monkeys!

He’s one of the special settings of heart! Now we all know that the ground hornbills are very endangered at the moment! And looking at the eye, you see and listing—they have been listed as very vulnerable! Have been losing their habitat!

Now definitely the mongooses are here because of food! There’s no other reason for them to be together! But look at the relationship between the mongoose and hornbills! And there's a buffalo in the background there, Bungay!

Yeah! Is it a buffalo there? That’s so good! Have this one frame, Bungay, of the southern ground hornbills, heron, and the mongoose! It looks a bit at Fisher when you see all that together! And you can see there’s some kind of either swallows or sift that have just passed through your screen and disappeared!

And definitely, they'll be feeding on snails, the ground hornbills basically! And we know herons will be feeding on invertebrates! See there, Tommy over right, that’s juvenile! You ask, juvenile one! And that one is the one at the very back!

But Tom, we know males have very bright counties! What was in huge waters than females? And the females right at the base was in their waters, Tom! They got a team or bit of yellowish or publish! And I think that could be one of them!

And there’s one major difference between males and females! Now when they are young, they do not have very developed waters that are bright red, so always a bit duck! Now when one of the reasons why these birds get quite vulnerable is because they take so long to mature!

So it takes about three years for the youngsters to be thrown out of the group by the adults! And for that reason, if they keep losing their habitat, I'm talking about for them to hatch, for them to breed, they normally prefer very huge trees!

Look at the mongoose there! This meant smear the meerkats! So they order to be up and down very quickly, look for the safety and realize this is nothing to worry and then back to feeding! Dr. Fall, you say it's a beautiful view indeed! I agree with your a percent no doctor, you know, for a doctor here, we say that!

Terry Daktari! Look at that green part there, and this is part of the marsh area of the Mara Triangle! Notice the difference, or the killer, in terms of color of that and the grass outside the marsh area! This is pristine and very dark green, of course, because of the amount of water in this particular area, which I'd say really dries around there!

We have always said water is life! Change, you asked! Are there meerkats in the Mara? And I would say no! We do not have meerkats in Mara! And that’s a pretty good question! Our equivalent of the meerkats in the Mara would be the mongooses or you just saw there, which I guess they are the banded mongoose!

We just have the drafting goose and we also have the marsh mongoose! So we do not have meerkats here, and I'm trying to think! Jane, you need to move further down south to be able to see them!

So the herons have very good hunters! So they keep moving! And even notice they are all moving in the same direction for the mongoose, herons, and the hound wheels! All of them go in the same direction! So I think they’re all keeping pushing their prey in the same direction!

And they know exactly what to be looking for! Either the mongoose will pick up all they want and leave what they don’t want for the birds! I'm trying to imagine this is the feeding strategy of the three different species that are not related in any way but very funny!

I haven't seen this! I would say this is the first time I have seen herons, hornbills, and mongooses together! Feeding! As always, a first in life! And as a guide, I did not rebuke how have you seen this before? Don’t get doesn’t think so!

Suzanne, this is black-headed heron, and that’s a very good question! The green box here incisions are much smaller in size! They are much smaller in size! And apparently I'm just trying to open my bag there than what I'm doing! Apparently you get them in release swampy areas or places that will hold lots of water!

Here you see is the black-headed heron or the grey herons! But the black—the green box herons a lot smaller! Very small! This is a Bahama cop, and we see them differently! Well, trying to get to my herons here!

Susan, hopefully, you don't go very far, and what I want to show you is how a green box heron looks! I’m sure you know green box heron and the super number trough. Thank you, Bungay, for trying to catch up with that one, and that’s the youngster!

And you can see doesn’t have the red white! And as the others look very good! Now, I think Bungay, if you go to number six and then, thank you very much! Scientists, honest of that one there!

Susan, this is the green back heron! Looks little bit like a squawk OH or a bitten, but you can see very short neck! So that’s the green back heron, and you can tell definitely let’s shorten next! The juvenile doesn’t have very green! The 6B or the one on top there that is juvenile!

And now let’s see where they are gonna see those herons! We have been talking about! Now this is lovely! Now look at number two, Susan! I hope you’re still there! This would have been watching you! The urban guy! Thank you very much! Come give, go to number six!

And then, thank you very much! Scientists of that one! There’s the green box heron! Looks a little bit like a squawk OH or a bitten, but you can see a very short neck!

So that’s the green back heron! And you can tell definitely let's shorten next! The juvenile doesn’t have very green! The 6B or the one on top there that is juvenile! And now let’s see where they are gonna see those herons!

We have been talking about! Now this is lovely! Now look at number two, Susan! I hope you’re still there! This would have been watching you! The urban guy! Thank you very much! Come give, go to number six! And then, thank you very much! Scientists of that one!

Susan, this is the green box heron! Looks little bit like a squawk OH or a bitten, but you can see a very short neck! So that’s the green back heron! And you can tell definitely let's shorten next!

The juvenile doesn’t have very green! The 6B or the one on top there that is juvenile! And now let’s see where they are gonna see those herons!

And then, thank you very much! Scientists of that one!

There’s the green back heron! Looks a little bit like a squawk OH or a bitten, but you can see a very short neck! So that’s the green back heron! And you can tell definitely let's shorten next!

The juvenile doesn’t have very green! The 6B or the one on top there that is juvenile! And now let’s see where they are gonna see those herons!

And then, thank you very much! Scientists of that one! There’s the green back heron! Looks a little bit like a squawk OH or a bitten, but you can see a very short neck!

And then, thank you very much! Scientists of that one! There’s the green back heron! Looks little bit like a squawk OH or a bitten, but you can see a very short neck!

Safari Live - Day 329 | National Geographic

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