Safari Live - Day 186 | National Geographic

You you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you this program features live coverage of an African safari and may include animal kills and caucuses. Viewer discretion is advised. This is why the inclement ride is such a firm favorite. [Music] It just looks ready for a fight. This is still her territory. [Music] How insane was that? Good afternoon! What a way to start the twelfth episode of Safari Lives! That there is Kochava, the female leopard. We'll tell you a little bit about the contraption she had, like that Sebastian, they want her home. She had this morning with her mother, is it? Was with her mother and with her consort Sebastian. Jambe is on camera, that's what I was talking to, in case you thought I was talking to no one in particular. Please talk to us over the course of this next highlights package show, two hours of action-packed highlights from the Masai Mara in Kenya and of course of the Sabi Sands here in South Africa. And of course, also some live action. What we have over there, like I said, is Kochava, the female leopard. She, who is afraid, apparently, is what it means. We're going to go around to the other side at some stage and enjoy her. You'll enjoy her face rather than just the back of her head. Like I said, please talk to us using hashtags Safari Live on Twitter. Otherwise, you can talk to us using the chat stream on YouTube. Any of your questions or comments would be hugely appreciated.

Tristan is going to unpack what happened around this area this morning. Quite an astonishing thing. There, basically all of our cat characters of Juma were set underneath the same tree in the same sighting, so that was very special. We'll get some updates from Amara. As I said, we've had the lions, obviously they've been knocking about the place, cheetah as well, and the inimitable North Clan of hyena also over here. The main feature, of course, has been Tingana, the male leopard. We've seen him, I think, just about every single day this week, so there's lots to have a look at over the course of the next two hours. It's wonderful to have you with us here.

It began for me with Tingana in the morning light. The Duke has had a busy week in the eastern section of his territory. His forays have been an exercise in forensic foraging, who might say scavenging. But this word has a negative connotation implying the brutish theft of another predator's meals. Tingana's efforts were a severe test of leopard olfactory skills. His sharp nose twice led him to kills made by a pack of two female wild dogs, in this case, the remains of an impala, which he stashed in a picturesque tamboti grove. So that was the first part of Tingana’s busy week.

Here we are a little bit closer now to Kochava. We haven't gone quite dry on the other side. We will do so in due course. But she's not magnificent. This is the quintessential African leopard shot. Let's keep going a little bit. Patrick, you say you love Kochava. I think we all do, and I think we all would rather spend a lot more time with her than we manage at the moment. The only reason we don't spend more time with her is because she spends the bulk of her time to the south and east of where we are, that's south and east of Juma. Patrick, we don't know where the cub is, but the cub is old enough not to be in any danger. In other words, she'll be stashed away safely somewhere. And it's not unusual for this leopard to be spending a little bit of time away from her cub.

Let's just move into this little spot here, and you'll get an amazing view. Oh, now naturally, she's turned her head the other way. There we go. Please don't look that way, my dear. I mean that probably is the best way for the light, but I chose to do that. Now, possibly, I should have stayed exactly where we were. We're going to try and convince her to turn her head this way. In the meantime, Tristan has been unable to cope with all of the action here this morning. And so he has taken to sitting on the floor. Indeed, James, this morning was just too much, and so I've decided that I can't mobilize either on my feet or in a vehicle, and I decided to sit on the floor and to just enjoy the afternoon and take it very, very easy. No, we're not on the floor for that reason. We're on the floor because we have a situation where we are trying to find little Colombo from this morning.

So we were here early this morning. We managed to find him and have a really good sighting of her. But we're trying now just to see if we can find some tracks and just try to see exactly where she's gone. We found one little track, and it's really tough here because her foot is very, very small, and so if I put my hands next to it, you might not even be able to see this track. But at the back here, we've got this kind of little three-lobed pad and in these tiny little toes that are over there. So it is very, very, very minute on this sort of hardest ground. It's quite difficult to actually see where she's walked. So we've come to where I had her last, and this was the track that she went to before she laid down and kind of curled up into a little ball when we left her.

So this is kind of our starting point, and this is where we'll try and see if we can find little Amber this afternoon. Now the thing is with her is that she was a little bit skinny this morning, and she was kind of hoping to find some food and hoping for mom to come back and hopefully bring her something. So she's going to be probably still somewhere in this area unless Tandy did return. In which case, we'll hopefully find Tandy's tracks. But while we search and we try and see if we can find our little character that is moving about up in the Mara, Jamie's been having a lot more of a good time than what we have. Last week, we were witness to the somewhat distressing scene of the Happy Zebra hyena clan catching and killing a baby buffalo from this exact herd, something that they have become specialists in in the valleys around the salt lick.

Before they could finish their hard-earned meal, the Sausage Tree pride of lions came in and stole it from them. Now that seems to be something that would be considered quite unusual. Nobody really expects lions to steal from hyenas, but that is what they do very regularly particularly if their male lions are involved. Unfortunately for the Awino pride, they didn't have any males with them when they called their buffalo meal of the week. A new day dawned bright and clear in the Maasai Mara, and the Awino pride were finally successful in their quest for a meal. The hunting skill of the formidable females ensured that all bellies were filled to bursting point as Mike fell. The smell of the buffalo attracted unwanted attention, and eerie rallying cries turned the meal into a battleground between two forces of nature. [Laughter] [Music] [Music]

The Awino pride's second attempt to reclaim lost ground was made by the impenetrable defense of the mine of teeth. [Music] I’m numbered and at risk of serious injury, the lions were forced to surrender and within minutes the hysterical cackles calmed, and the victorious hyena made short work of the spoils of war. An unlucky night for the Awino pride, but perhaps not as unlucky as the poor hapless buffalo that was devoured. The interesting thing about that particular sighting was it was around about 300 or 400 meters from the North Clan den site. That's actually why Tristan and myself sat out there, because it was very much a teamwork-based sighting. Tristan was there the entire day. We joined him a little bit later.

The reason that we did that was because we assumed that North Clan would come in and be the ones to steal from the Awino. However, when I went back and looked through the footage later, I realized the error of that assumption because it was not North Clan; it was the Happy Zebra clan that happened. What they were doing there, probably close on 25 kilometers away from the center of their territory, I have absolutely no idea. Could it be that the Happy Zebra clan have tired of hunting this herd of buffalo and are in search of greener pastures?

Well, wasn't that just absolutely amazing?! Jamie had an incredible sighting, and actually, funny enough, I was in that same sighting with her when I was up in the Mara in the beginning of the week, and it was really quite something to watch the sort of Awino pride and the sort of hyenas coming in and trying to chase these lions off the kill. Not trying; they successfully tried to do it and did it and took the meal. It was really quite something to watch. The interesting thing about it is we sat there for the whole day, so we were there about, I would say probably about 16 hours when before the hyenas arrived. And when we got there, you know, there was nothing really happening, and late into the night, we still hadn't seen much.

One hyena tried to be brave and came in early in the sort of afternoon. It was very quickly sort of vanquished by the lions, and then, you know, we were about to actually leave the sighting, and as I drove out onto the road, all of these eyes just appeared down the road. It was about sort of a tie inners, and we thought, well, this is going to be the start of it. The hyenas wind towards the carcass, and he actually three broke off towards the carcass. And then what we had was the most incredible thing is all of a sudden, one vocalization, and there were twenty hyenas! Where they came from, we have no idea. We could not see them at all prior to that. They all kind of just stood out over the grass and then rushed in and kind of chased off the Awino pride.

Now, scenic, you were saying you don't know much about the Awino pride and where they come from, and do we know anything about them? Well, the Awino pride is basically what we used to call the little Sausage Tree pride, so there is a break-off from the Sausage Tree pride and are sort of part of that. But what we think is that when they had their cubs, which some of you may remember from last year, it was the set of cubs that had their very pale individual in there. They might have had their cubs with different males than what the Sausage big Sausage Tree pride has had. And so, therefore, it has meant that the females have kind of split off and had to go off on their own to take their cubs to keep them safe. We also know that Kinky Tail was part of attacking those little babies at one point, and so maybe the females just thought, well, we're going to be threatened by this big pride, we're gonna break off from our own. So, two females left with their three offspring, and that's what the Awino pride has become.

Now, the reason they are called the Awino pride and not the little Sausages is that it gets very confusing when you start to have a situation where you've got Sausage Tree pride, little Sausage Tree pride, and no one really knows what's going on. They spend a lot of their time in an area that's called the Awino Tree plain, and so basically it's right up against the escarpment, and it kind of goes towards this road that we call the escarpment road, and it runs from south of N'gamma all the way down throughout the 50-kilometer sign. They spend most of their time there, and they like to actually often climb in Awino trees, and so it seems like an appropriate name for them. It kind of works out in the way that you just sort of know where they are and what the sort of pride composition is.

So that's a little bit of this sort of backstory. They're an incredible group of lionesses. For me, they're one of the prides that I've really enjoyed spending time with, and I'll tell you why. It's because two of them bring down big adult buffalo like they do. It's absolutely insane for me. It's an amazing thing to see two lionesses bringing down a buffalo. We know it's a very difficult thing, and the reason why they're able to do it is because both of those females are large individuals. The one is seriously muscular, and the other one is built a bit like a male. She's very, very big; she's much bigger than any of the other lions while I was in the Mara.

So they're an interesting kind of pride, and they certainly have found themselves in a great place to be able to find buffalo and all kinds of other things, and they certainly are going to be a big part of the next few years. Hopefully, around the Taina den will the North Clan, there's going to be a lot of sort of interaction there because of where they are. Good! We're going to carry on, we're going to try and track Colombo, who tracks head off in this direction. While we do that, we're going to send you across to Big Biceps Byron so he can say good afternoon to all of you.

Good afternoon! You're all having a wonderful day so far. My name is Byron, and when camera with me this afternoon is Craig. Now, it's amazing James has been very fortunate. He's found that female leopard. Now we are in search of some other animals in this area, and I think I have just seen a paw in the grass. Give us a second. Stay with us. This is really exciting! Let's have a look. Let's have a look now! The grass, if you have a look and scan, that's very, very thick. And what I caught a glimpse of, I can actually see it there now. Watch out, Craig, of these branches! Can you get that? Have a look at that! You can just see a rather large paw. Look at that! I'm gonna move a bit closer. Let's get a better view and see exactly what it is. I have got a feeling it's a male lion.

Now, it's quite thick through here, a little bit of a drainage line. Oh, this is going to be difficult! Hold on, this is the tough parts of getting closer to these animals. But don't worry, we've got a good vehicle, I think. So let's see! Hold on! Wow! That's a male lion. There's at least two, I think three! These are the Avoca males! Wonderful, wonderful! I have not seen them before. This is the first time I get to see these male lions. That's great! I will definitely try to get better views of them. But for now, you can see they're lying down there out in the open. Fortunately, they're not right at the base of a thicket or under a tree now. They seem open, but the grass is fairly long around them.

How wonderful is that? That's great fun! That's awesome! I'm so glad we found them. Alright, I'm going to try getting to a better position to view these lions. But while I do that, let's quickly go back to the dark-maned male, Tristan.

Well, Byron, I feel like you and your sort of heritage will have a much darker mane than I would, although mine is quite dark. I feel like there's a lot of gray hairs creeping in at this phase, and so that's not ideal at all. But anyway, besides that, thanks for carrying on the tracks. We're still trying to kind of work out what's going on. We actually did find a track to sow it. It looks like maybe their technique actually came back at some point during the day and might have fetched Colombo. So, we're gonna just check it out and make 100% sure.

Try to find a little bit more of an open area. You can see here there's quite a lot of grass cover which makes it very, very difficult, and it makes it hard to find. So we'll just try and find a bare patch, which we call that kind of a track trap, and see if we can find those tracks over there. Now, this morning when we were trying to kind of be art, and we were testing the drone, we were trying to sort of find any sign of any animal whatsoever, and we were lucky enough to hear some impalas. Impalas actually led us to the very cat that we're trying to find now, beautiful Colombo.

It's posing atop a small termite mound, her piercing gaze watching her every move. Soon she grows bored of us and begins to move off. She should be free! Time is a small broken love, and stares into the distance. She has spotted something, and suddenly moves forward, carefully placing each foot in front of the other. To our surprise, a big grey giant appears from the thickets, its short trunk in her herd. They begin feeding as they pass by. Colombo, you are completely disinterested, finds herself a cozy patch, and you know it's erased for the rest of the day.

Well, this is the exact spot that we managed to find her this morning, so she was sitting atop this mound kind of being as cute as could be. She really is an amazing little leopard. I've thoroughly enjoyed seeing her this morning. I was absolutely blown away at just how big she's gotten. The last time I saw her, she must have been at least half the size of what she is now. Now she's starting to look like a real leopard and not this sort of cubby kind of character that we were seeing a few months ago. She's also full-doubt at all that she's no longer as wiry.

I find leopard cubs, when they swim, hit that sort of an 8-month phase. They often, their legs are quite long; they are quite narrow. They don't really have that sort of bulky leopard feel to them that an adult has got. So she's pulled out a lot more. She's starting to look a lot more like a proper leopard now, and I'm sure she's going to provide us with many, many sightings to come.

Now, what I was saying earlier today that I'm pretty sure she will be in this area unless Tandy comes back to feature. Now this morning, Tandy was out and about. She had an absolutely insane morning and she managed to bump into Tandy. And I'm pretty sure if Tandy's come back, we know the reason why. An alert Tandy sits motionless in the long grass, her gaze focused in ears, twitching. Just spotted something that all different fears most: lions. It's the apocalypse! And they've seen her!

Twenty-two freezes the time stands still, each cat weighing up its next move. Move! Tandy's the first one to break, and she runs. Thankfully though, the Avoca seem disinterested and fall out on you to slink away into the thick bush. One male, however, keeps an eye out and after a few sniffs of the breeze is up, dragging his coalition members with him as he follows his nose in the direction of where Tandy disappeared.

[Music]

Well, as you can see, Tandy was incredibly lucky, and I am absolutely surprised after watching some of the footage that those lions did not move. I would have thought if those three males had been close to Tandy, they were definitely going to try and chase her. I know many other lions that are in this area, including the Birmingham boys and the Nkuyuma pride, most definitely would have had they got that close to Tandy. She got away likely. This morning, she was really very, very fortunate in that those boys just didn't seem to be interested.

So I wonder why. I mean, I know we know the boys walked quite far yesterday, and I know that because somebody actually saw them in Manya later yesterday morning and actually watched them then cross back into Manya later yesterday afternoon from Buffalo. And then they came all the way back down to the southern parts of Juma, so they walked quite a long way yesterday. But normally with lions, when they come across another leopard — they find a situation where they all sort of — not another leopard, leopard — they’ll chase it. It's this sort of competition that they have with other cats that they try to kind of get rid of them and sort of chase them away.

So it's very surprising that she was able to kind of get out of this. I'm sure she breathed a sigh of relief, albeit a very momentarily sort of moment. She would have gotten herself into a little bit of a tangle a little bit later. Now I believe James Henry is sitting with, well, not the offspring that we're looking for, but one of Tandy's others.

Well, yes, one of Kachava's offspring indeed. There we have Kachava, still sitting on her bow. We've gone around the tree 386 times because she keeps moving her head from side to side. As soon as she realizes there's a lens on her, she turns her head the other way. So we've quite cunningly positioned a whole vehicle full of guests the other side of the tree, and so she now has no choice but to look into a lens wherever she is.

I, of course, joking. I don't think she notices where the vessel lens is faced her way or not. She does keep looking down towards the western side, and we're wondering perhaps one of those other leopards aren't around. No, it's never too late! Let me assure you that this cat would not be in the tree if she thought she'd fall out of it when she fell asleep. They definitely do sleep soundly in trees, especially with their legs either side of the bow like that, but often they just doze.

So I don't think she's been in a particularly deep sleep while we've been here. I think she has been dozing for most of the time. Even if she does fall asleep, she'd wake up before she kind of fell out; otherwise, they wouldn't have developed this ability or this sort of desire to be in trees. And the reason she's up there, of course, is because she's safe. Now, she's safe from the lions, which are not far from here at all. Byron, I think, has just found them. He may be just still trying to get into a position, but they're not far from here.

Tandi and Tingana must be around here somewhere as well. She keeps looking down to the west. I wonder if she's looking at the lions or she's looking at Tandi and Tingana. But really, there has been the most utterly astounding day today, and let's go across to Tristan now so that he can unpack what happened.

Indeed we do need to unpack what happened! But before we do that, we have a little crime scene that we've managed to stumble across. It's an interesting one because I was talking about this morning with Colombo and the fact that she'll often hunt little birds at her age and will try and kind of go after birds to find small meals. And this sort of feather pattern that we see here, that's all kind of distributed art, could very well have been a kill that she might have made.

The thing is about this is when you have sorts of feathers that are tightly packed the way that these are, you can see all the feathers are in a very, very close proximity to them, to where the sort of kill must have happened. They haven't drifted away, and that means that whatever ate it ate sitting on the ground. If this had been something like a bird of prey that had been in a tree, you would have found, as it plucks the feathers— feathers obviously being very light and designed to catch wind— they spread over a big distance.

And so you have a situation where you'll find feathers kind of scattered all around where we are now. These are all confined to a very small space. So, I wonder if maybe Colombo didn't have a little sort of kill at some point in the last few days and it was a dove or something that was killed in this particular area. It's pretty interesting to see, and these are the kind of signs that you look for when you're tracking through thicker grass areas. You can't always see their footprints, but you can sometimes find little signs like this to indicate where they've gone and where they've been.

Now James is saying that we had an insane morning, stuck as we finished our drive this morning. We were on our way home before absolute pandemonium broke out down in the south. As if Tandy's morning could not get any worse after running into the Avoca boys. There is now an intruder in her kingdom. They move swiftly side by side through the thickets, they break cover. We can see a sketch of Tandy's first daughter. She tries to run from her mother, but Tandy is not in the mood and is out to prove that her daughter is no longer welcome in her territory.

Tandy lunges at Kochava, a small scuffle ensues. Both then start to try to size each other up. Suddenly, they both unleash a turn of speed and begin to run. The reason becomes obvious: it's the boys! Into the fray once again, each other wastes no time in a sense to hide, and not falling for safety, but unbelievably, there's a twist in this tale!

Once again, Tingana, the Duke, arrives on the scene, very in search of the leopards causing the stir in his area and tests. They pick up the female's scent before sitting down to rest. His rest is short-lived as once again the Avoca boys arrive and show you. This is the real king of the whooping cats! Each other safety pushing the tree, watching is wasted on entanglement in a narrow escape.

Well, how incredible is that sighting? And how lucky have all of our cats been to actually be able to get out of that? I think Tandy, Tingana, and Kochava can count themselves very, very fortunate that they didn't get themselves into a massive brawl that resulted in them not paying attention and not seeing those lions. I think they were very lucky that they kind of had a little scuffle and kind of broke apart and were able to see the lions coming.

But absolutely insane! Three leopards and three male lions in the same sighting is unheard of! And Sydney, who was actually in the sighting, must have had the most ridiculous morning because, you know, he's arrived in the Sabi Sands, taken a game drive, bumped into a leopard, which bumped into lions, then stayed with the lions, went back to another leopard, and then there were three—well, two other leopards arrived. They had a big scuffle and male lions arrived.

This is just a fairy tale kind of start! A tough time sort of following that up, but what was really interesting to me in that whole sighting was the way Tandy reacted to Kochava. You could clearly see, when they were running, Kochava was the individual that was closest to the camera, and Tandy was in the background. You can see a squinch chef, who kind of peels away and starts to try and get away from Tandy.

She comes flying from this direction, and she's the one that's actually the aggressor that jumps at Kochava, and they scuffle and then roll on the ground. She's actually trying to hurt them. It's pretty clear to me that Tandy, even though she's sort of a slight female and she's not the biggest, packs a serious punch. It's the second time I've seen it fight. It’s sort of a similar time last year, but a month away from when she sort of fought with some Gila, and it's the same situation is that she was not afraid in any way whatsoever to dive in there and go after whatever female she deemed was a threat to her territory and to her cubs.

And it's a reason why she's been such a good mother and why she's been able to keep Kolamba safe from all these marauding males as well as even females that have come into this area. The interesting part about it was Tingana's response. He kind of came into the area but once he figured out there were two females, he settled right down. You could see he started to relax, he started to lie down. He was just watching those two females, just trying to see exactly what they were doing, and he wasn't too fussed once he realized that.

I think initially, you would have found he probably heard fighting of leopards and to him it must have been maybe these males around. He needed to go check this out, and he moved away from the dam this morning and kind of ran that way. You could see he was actually panting at one point, trying to catch his breath from being sort of moving so fast trying to catch up with everything.

So it was really an insane sighting. Now, Alia, it was amazing to have all of this in one morning; it was just incredible! If you think, in total, we had four different leopards, three male lions, herds of elephants; it was just absolutely insane! Everything was kind of happening, and everything was interacting with each other.

That's one amazing thing about Juma is that the interaction between species, as well as between the characters that we follow, is really quite something. Probably the Sabi Sands is one of the best places for interaction like this and to be able to see interspecies relationships and those kind of things. So it was an insane morning and one that I doubt any one of us will forget!

And the best thing about it is that because it was so insane, if we had met, nobody got hurt. It made it just that much better. So the fact is nobody is injured, and nobody has sort of lost their life, and for us then, you know, that's the sort of best scenario that could have played out from a very difficult scene. Good! Well, we're going to keep trying to track down. Save the grace of Lady in the form of Tandy and Kolamba, and see where they've gotten.

In the meantime though, we're going to send you, I think, across to Byron and see what he's been up to and whether he's had any success this afternoon. Yep, we've just repositioned, and we are still sitting with these beautiful male lions. There's a little bit of movement, but they still seem quite relaxed and resting. Now, it is a cooler afternoon, so I wouldn't be surprised if these males decide to get up and start moving a lot earlier than usual because of the cooler temperatures. So that's what I'm hoping for. I'm going to be very, very patient and sit with him.

I would love to see these males get up and move around, but this is awesome! And exactly as Tristan was saying, what an exciting morning! All this action-packed morning - Kali, you are very happy to see the focus now. It's always wonderful having male lions moving about! So it is great to see these males. The last coalition of three, but interesting that behavior of the leopards - a quick little fight, and then obviously these lions coming through and the leopards getting out of there as soon as possible, up into trees and just running away. I mean, they do not want to be surprised by these males. These males would kill a leopard if they did come across it purely because it's competition.

Now these lines are the ones that are responsible for chasing that leopard, that female leopard Kochava, up into the tree that James has got. Let's go find out if it's still up there. Well, it is still here, of course, but I think it was probably also its mother that put her up in the tree like this. Certainly, she's had a day to remember, and I suspect she will slink off to the South sometime this evening, hopefully back to her safe cub.

We heard that the cub is safe. No reason she shouldn't be, well, he shouldn't be as a little male, and she's probably just going to wait for the cover of darkness before she disappears. It looks pretty well-fed, so I think she's particularly in need of a meal. I think that these female leopards who are in each other's territories or, you know, when they come across a territorial boundary like happened this morning, what's happened between Tandy and Kochava, I think they all find that there is a relative aggression, but because they know each other, they're not actually hugely aggressive with each other.

And I really don't think that Kochava would necessarily set upon Kolamba should there be a meeting between the two. I think Kolamba would run and really make an effort to get away very quickly, and I don't think that Kochava would make the effort to push through on that sort of an attack. So that's from, I'm sorry, I'm missing this name here. Bros Cooper is what I can hear? Is that correct? No, Scooper? No, Scooper, well, that's a very interesting name!

No, Scooper! So, in short, I do not believe that Kochava would cause Kolamba any harm, especially if Tandy was around. This whole incident this morning is kind of a, I think a random, not a random, but a whole lot of serendipity, if you like. I think Kochava and Tandy happened upon the southern boundary of Tandy's territory, and the western boundary of Kochava's territory. They happened to be there at the same time. The noise that they made, growling at each other and in fact having physical contact, which I say is quite unusual and probably not unsurprisingly initiated by Tandy, it seems that would have attracted the lions to come and see what was going on. It would have done exactly the same for Tingana.

So, I think that the noise that these two ladies made is what attracted Tingana into the area and definitely what attracted the lions. I don't think they were particularly interested. Obviously, they would kill these leopards if they could get hold of them, but they certainly don’t make an enormous effort. I've seen lions climb trees after leopards before, so you know, while they're nowhere near as adept as leopards in trees, the leopards would almost certainly have escaped if the lions had truly wanted to push home some kind of attack, they would easily have climbed up a tree in order to certainly harass them a little bit further.

So that's what's happening over here. Everything seems fairly calm. Tingana's down possibly towards Twin Dams, possibly where this leopard is looking, but I'm not really sure. Well, Sky, I think if you're a human being, and your mother started to hiss and growl at you, it'd be deeply confusing and unsettling. But of course, this is normal with leopards! It's what they do, and it's how they operate; it's how they've always operated. So as much as it might seem unpleasant that Tandy is hissing and snarling at her daughter, their daughter doesn’t want to be around her mother either.

So Kochava is not, it's not like a child was trying to come into this area and say hi to mum. "Well, come home" in some way. She's marking her territory. She's trying to perhaps push her Northwest boundary out slightly, and that's got her into trouble today. Now the only leopard we haven't, well, we haven't managed to find a number of leopards today by ourselves. They've certainly arrived in our sightings, but Tingana has been the main feature of the week, as I said, and his second great incident occurred the afternoon after his impala thieving.

With the carcass stashed safely in the shade, Tingana's afternoon began well enough as he ages. So he likes to spend extended periods resting his eyelids in the winter sun. But the original owners of the impala arrived as dusk fell, most likely on the hunt for something fresh. But as everyone knows, nothing quite gets up the nose of a dog like the smell of a cat. The old duke's senses have not dulled.

And once in the ball's tea tree, he casts disdainful glances at the droning, g-rated, so that was just a very sort of, I think almost nonchalant approach to the whole experience biting. Tingana, he's such a wily old fellow, he heard those things coming from a long way off. He judged the distance between himself, the tree, and the dogs to perfection, just trotted up into the bow of the tree, knew they couldn't get there, put his head down. He didn't growl at them once; he didn't hiss at them once. He just kind of lay there and glared at them while they hopped up and down below the tree in a state of deep anguish.

It was very funny, and I don't know if you could hear them making the noise in that clip, but they made the most amusing sort of angry, irritated howling bark, and Tingana cared not one jot at all. So that was very special. Now finally, Ralph Kirsten, who's in his first Safari Lives for the last little while, has developed some signal and he'd like to say hello.

Well, thank you, James, and hello, everybody, and welcome here to the Juma—excuse me—the Chitwa waterhole just in front of Chitwa Chitwa Lodge. And you can see actually, just from those hippos there, they're all sitting out of the water because it's rather cold, and well, they've all escaped out of that cold onto the bank, trying to get themselves a little bit warmer. And well, they're all being rather noisy, and some of them are all sitting with those oxpeckers. We can actually hear them quite nicely now, and every now and then they all fly up and make a lot of chattering noise. And we can hear the hippos here once again.

You can see actually by the poo that is on those hippos that they've been out of the water for a large period of the day already, and that just shows that this cold front that has moved in has meant rather uncomfortable for them in the water. But at least we get to see those hippos out of the water. And thank you all the viewers for saying welcome back. It has been a wonderful vacation that I had down in the Eastern Cape, where I am from, but I'm really enjoying being back. This morning was my first little walk, and now being here on Chitwa, I'm really loving to be in the presence of these big animals once more.

But well, it seems like the weather has followed me because it came up from Cape Town and it hit us in the Eastern Cape and then came all the way up with us here. Now, our Laura, were you saying that's quite a cuddle of hippos? Well, I would definitely not be very comfortable going and cuddling one of them, but they do look very cuddly, don't they? And look at that little youngster being a little bit naughty! I'm sure as youngsters are. I've got two little boys of my own, and I know that they're always looking to be up to nonsense, but it's always good.

And look at that little baby! He's grown quite a bit actually. Now the cold does bother the hippos a little, but as you can see here, it does drive them to move accordingly. That's half the reason why they do go into the water because they're not very good at regulating their own temperature. They sort of need the water for that thermoregulation. And it's normally too hot for them out of the water in the hot sun. But when it's cold like this, obviously the water is also very cold, and so, they then come out of the water to get a bit of warmth, I would say. Because normally, they only exit the water to go out and feed, and they spend most of the day in the water frolicking and snoozing, actually, because they're pretty much nocturnal when it's very hot.

And they come out at night to graze. It looks like these two are braving the cold now. All about cold because I do a lot of surfing myself, but I do do it with a wetsuit on. I'm not privileged enough to live near warm waters like these guys at the moment. I'm sure they would quite like to have a wetsuit too, a neoprene bodysuit, because that would really help them in this kind of weather. And so, it's wonderful to sit in the presence of these big animals, as I've said.

And it seems like it's been an absolutely amazing week with all the big cats, but well, it's not just been an amazing week. It's an amazing day, which is an amazing day, but for the light, which has failed us now completely. When we arrived here, she was bathed in perfection. Now it's really got a little grim above her still. We're sitting with the latest—how could we complain? El, we simply could not! And it's a leopardus that we do not see very often at all. She is most often south and often east of us, so it's very, very pleasant to have her here with us.

It would be very nice if her little male cub was in the same place that we won't be fussy, especially after what we saw this morning. So if you are a new viewer, let's just quickly unpack the little hierarchy on a hierarchy family tree of leopards that we have been showing you in those tribes. Basically, we've got Tandi, who is the new queen of Juma, a nyala, a 13-year-old leopard who's coming to the twilight of their years, if you like. She's got a cub called Kolamba, who's now 8 months old. This is her daughter, Kochava, who, if I'm not mistaken, is not much more than 4—I don't think. I keep forgetting the ages of these animals!

And Kochava has a young cub as well, that we think is probably about 6 months old at that stage. I think she was born here about 6 months old. He's a little male, so that's the females of our particular patch. Then we have Tingana, the aging duke of Juma. He is now 13 years old as well, and he looks after the territory that they reside in. He's been pushed to the limits of life by a chap called Hukimura. He's an intimidating short but very stocky leopard who's come in from—we don't know where. He's been spotted all over parts of the southern Kruger on his way up to setting a territory now to the west of where Tingana calls himself home.

Into his territory has come another female after the demise of Tandi's sister, Shadow. Her name is Shudulu, which is a tremendously wonderfully romantic name. It means termite mound. She is also a very appealing-looking leopard, and if you were to see them together, the slipper dancer, Shudulu, you would immediately notice the different senses. Again, of course, if you are a new viewer, most regular viewers can spot these leopards and identify them from about, you know, possibly one spot.

And Shudulu is muscling in on the western side of Tandi's territory, so those are the main leopard characters that we are looking at at the moment. And there's a little bit of conflict, I suppose, but things are settling down quite nicely now. But from time to time, as happened this morning, the conflict will brew up again and attract the attentions of a whole lot of other predators.

Alright, Lee, let's go back and have a look now at what Tingana got up to as the morning after his Impala for two mornings after the great Impala investigation. The same two female dogs made another large kill that they were unable to finish, satiated they left the carcass of the adult bushbuck ram and disappeared. There was much debate over which scavenger would grab the one afternoon. Bizarrely, and with a large audience waiting next to the now disemboweled bushbuck, Tingana lost the scent and lay down to rest.

I even tried to point out to him as he paid no—I’m not sure if you could see what I was trying to do there, but the reason the aerial is in the shot, metal, there's poles and things, was because we were parked in front of that carcass waiting for him to walk up to it. Because up until about 10 meters before he got there, he was on a beeline straight forth—and suddenly he turned to the left and there were three vehicles waiting for him to snatch up the carcass and drag it into a tree. Unfortunately, he lost the wound somehow. I was trying desperately to point it out to him, but he paid no heed, and eventually, after 20 minutes or so, we had to leave him.

Eventually, however, he did find it—eventually, Tingana must have found the bushbuck and dragged it into a picturesque bush willow tree overlooking a dry riverbed. The scraggly and spiky branches were clearly not particularly comfortable, and he had to try endless positions before settling in for a snooze with a ready-made meal to last him the rest of the day.

The old coot was satisfied with the week's work well done. So that was his experience with the bushbuck, and it was very nice that he managed to find it, and he then fed on that kill for two and a half days. It really is quite impressive that he managed to eke out sort of not a living, but he eats out meals from that half-eaten bushbuck for that length of time. The hyenas came in. They spent a lot of time waiting for him.

Here we go, leopard coming—Tandi’s in! Oh my goodness gracious me! That's the mother! That's Tandi! This is unbelievable stuff, everybody! Let's see if she goes up! She's marking her territory now. I don't think she's gonna try and get up that tree. But she might! Let's just wait and see what happens here. This is unbelievable stuff! We've wondered where she was; we've said she was possibly off towards the west, but here she is now!

So that, alright, on a territorial boundary! As I say, of course, they won't tolerate each other like I say, but I don't think it will be really as violent as it might be were they not related. He said he saw Tandi, Shadow, and Karuna, who were mother and daughter interacting a few times together on their territorial boundary—they used to blow spit bubbles at each other. It was just for funny! Miss Magic Dragon was it? Absolutely!

Here we go, girl! Affection, and all. She's doing now, is marking her territory, making very sure that she does not show you. Let's go! Kochava knows who has passed! A lot of hissing and growling going on here, but we don't want to do. We also want to get caught up in some kind of, or what they call, not misplaced aggression. What's it called? Deferred aggression? I'm using the wrong word.

So things do get really quite heavy with Tandi, who is known not to like her vehicles too much. You might just back off slightly. Nadine, Tandi, in my opinion, is the least funny leopard in all of the Sabi Sands. She is no comedian at all! I don't wish to have her as close to me. Is it nice and still, Sebastian? We're just gonna sit very quietly here. Paul, I don't know if Tandi knows that it's her daughter. I'm 90% sure she does. But, she has seen his arrival now—she's not seen as a daughter! So nice and slow, she is in front of us.

She is all of this is marking territory. She's got an angry face; she always has had. Not a fringe, a kitty, woah! That was quite exciting! Now, I've learned leopards in my time who I would never react like that around. You can see them on foot—they don't mind at all. This cat is not friendly! And as Tristan describes, he says she's an angry cat, and he wasn't in the least bit surprised when he saw her initiating the aggression this morning.

Now, unfortunately, we might have to leave the sighting at some stage because, unfortunately, there are lots of people trying to get into the sighting. Safari hard, those ears tipped down mean precisely what they would in a house cat: they mean, "I'm not happy; I'm going to scratch and bite anything that makes me cross!" Now she'll probably mark territory all the way around Kochava. Kochava doesn't look particularly panicked by the whole affair, and then I suspect what she'll do is she might come charging back in there. She came running up!

I don't believe that Tandi didn't know who Kochava was. I mean, she's sitting in the most obvious tree for miles, but maybe she just woke up, stepped out of a drainage line, and saw her up here and then thought, "Oh, I'll show her." And it's that kind of noise that would have brought the lions in! And that kind of noise that would have bought Tingana. I'm just gonna get on the radio quickly; I just have to find out how many people are trying to get here. How many stations on standby for the sighting of Kochava? Because I fear that we are going to have to vacate.

Any stations on standby for the sighting of Kochava? But if no one answers their radios, because they're not listening, that's really not my fault! Sorry, orbs! Say that again please? Sorry about this, everybody! Just enjoy the leopard. Andrew, what's your position?

Okay, we don't have to move just yet, because there is still a way away, okay? Thanks, Andrew! I'll move out as soon as you get you, he's still away, away. So, we don't have to leave just yet, that's correct.

News again, if you are a new viewer, this is a game drive radio, so there are lots and lots of people around here, and so we just need to be very sensitive to their needs. And I'm using a radio to talk to all these people. Sorry, Julie! I'm gonna have to ask your question again; the radio is in media.

Yeah, I think the chances, Julie, are absolutely that she could be more aggressive to non-related females, Shudulu, for example, who is an unrelated female. I think would cop probably slightly more of a warning than maybe even more of a beating than Kochava got meted out—or that she meted out to each other today. That said, I mean, you know, for Tandi to have made the physical contact that she did, is not common for leopards! Bite on another leopard—it would be difficult to see how it could have been that much more aggressive!

Whoo! Great excitement here in the Sabi Sands! So I see, we're gonna take a moment to have a bit of a breather, and let's go just down the road, and that's amazing—I still have a lot of activity around here! Not with the lions, unfortunately—they have not moved. I have heard one or two snores coming from the lions. For a second, I thought Tristan was nearby. The lions are just still resting, and how far they moved during the course of the night, and then early this morning, but yeah, they are not interested in moving at this stage.

But I still think because it is cooler, there is a possibility that they may get up and start moving around, so I'm gonna be very, very patient and sit with these resting lions. But it's unbelievable to think that maybe 200 meters to the east of where I am now, all those two leopards are busy having a bit of a standoff. I mean, it is amazing! Kochava and Tandi and literally 200 meters!

Yes, okay, Deaton, I think that links up to your question. Yeah, about 200 meters also, I think within that vicinity, so not fine. If they—if those leopards start growling and making noise, then potentially maybe these lions may get up and go and investigate and see what the commotion is about at this stage. We haven't heard anything. I can hear the vehicles that are moving now and then with those leopards, but I haven't heard a leopard sound or growl or anything like that.

These lions certainly have not heard anything, but if they do hear it, then possibly maybe they may get up and go and investigate. Raising us all, they're fortunate, actually, to find them initially because now with them lying so flat, we wouldn't have seen them in the long grass, but we saw that leg up in the air and that large paw, which just stood out for us to be able to spot the lions lying in the grass.

Alright, as I said, I'm gonna stay with these lions, even though they're all resting. But let's go find out if there's any further activity with the leopards. No more activity said, did have a brief view of Tandi just a little bit further east of where we are now!

So, basically, to the front to the car, Tandi walked off, and then she came, peered around a bush from malevolently, and then laid down. But she's in the long grass! And I said, I said, we would like to go for a walk around there. Now would you? He said, no—not very much! You can see she is completely or less aseptic. It could easily have been going on for hours, you know. She could have been running in and out of the sighting, Tandi that is, and shouting at Kochava for hours.

Byron says their lions have turned meters away, which means I suspect Tandi's probably been looking at Kochava for a long time. Tingana has probably decided that hell hath no fury, like the proverbial scorned, therefore this. And so he's probably very wisely keeping a distance from lions and squabbling leopardesses! If I were him, I'd be as far away from here as possible!

Peter, I don't know necessarily if a cub makes a leopard more aggressive, certainly if she feels the cubs under threat, then yes, absolutely. But, you know, would she feel that her cub was under threat from Kochava? There are possibly, so—possibly that is if Tandy didn't have a young cub in the area, perhaps she would react with slightly less irritation.

She certainly wouldn't be particularly friendly about it, though! But it is possible that she would be slightly less aggressive. See the claws just sheathed over there. No, I don't actually have to leave just yet, because over here she's decided she's going to leave! So we can stay here for a little bit longer, see if we can see where Tandi's come, but it would be very interested, of course, to get the leopard expert’s testimony on what's happening here.

Well, James, it seems as though it's just complete chaos! Something that we'll just have to wait and see exactly what happens. Now, you might be wondering what is going on, but because I was trying to prove a point—that's here it is! Not very easy to find these leopards in the grass. Particularly leopards the size of Kolamba! If they lie down, it becomes very, very, very difficult to find them.

It's also the same situation up in Kenya, and one person who's had to deal with that a lot is Scotty Dyson. Well, everyone, I'm sure a lot of you are very, very happy to see this cheetah in Kenya. And she's got lucky; she's busy snacking on something! We'll tell you a little bit about that later. But more importantly, we also got lucky! And yesterday, we stumbled upon her about 20 kilometers away from where she was last seen about eight days ago.

We stumbled upon this cheetah very close to the Tanzanian border, and I initially wasn't sure who it was. I was really hoping it would be Kenya. The last time she was seen, only one of her five cubs appeared to still be alive! Once in position, we could sell for certain that it was her. And once that was established, we took a closer look at her nipples to see if there was any sign of cubs still nursing. Sadly, it wasn't the case, confirming to us that she has, in fact, lost all of them.

Now, as exciting as it is that we found her, it's obviously very sad that it seems like she's lost all five of her cubs. Anyway, it's one of those things in nature, and at least she's got lucky—she's got herself this meal! After knowing where she was yesterday in the evening, we came back here first thing in the morning and got to witness this! We got off to an easy start, finding her perched up on a termite mound, surveying the plains for food.

It didn't take her long, and she descended with intent. She used the long grass as cover and slowly crept forward before launching her attack. The Tommy tried its best to avoid her, dodging and weaving, but she was simply too fast, and after a short whistle, she subdued her victim. Then she wisely made sure no other predators had seen the hunt, ensuring both her and her meal were safe. Once content with threats nearby, she dragged the killer a short distance before settling in for a feast!

Well, that poor Tommy had absolutely no idea Kenya was coming! And a great example of how stealthy a cheetah can be when the grass is long. They don't always have to do very long chases at high speeds. I mean, very happy that she has managed to keep the skill to herself because she hasn't managed to drag it under a bush. And I was concerned that vultures were gonna give away her position to some hyena that would steal the skill from her. But so far, she's been lucky!

And let's just hope that the next few hours she continues to snack on this! We certainly aren't going anywhere in case any sneaky hyenas start to prowl about, and we don't want to miss a thing! Now, it's very sad to think that Kenya has unfortunately lost her little ones. I was there trying to find them for the eight days that she was missing, and we drove up and down and round and round and round and round, and I think one day I did close to 200 kilometers just around that sort of area trying to find her and spend time trying to see her.

An unfortunate problem was that she just had so many predators around there! The one day we went, we found three different prides all unheard in sights and around. Although, in fact, she had a real struggle with that. I know there was an elephant that even went into the insides a few weeks ago, and so, you know, for a cheetah in the Mara Triangle, particularly, it is incredibly difficult! She's got very few places to hide.

She's got long grass in the particular area that she was in which meant that there are not very many prey animals, so she had to go very far for food and come back again. Which means even if those cubs are exposed, and even if she was there, and lions arrived, she's just not equipped to defend herself and her cubs from lions! She's quite quick! Alice Andre, you're gonna go into the tree! She's quite quick, and she can run away, obviously!

But the cubs are still helpless and defenseless at such a young age, and so, if they get discovered in the den like that, the chances are unfortunately that they are not going to be able to survive, which is a very, very big shame. But hopefully, you know, she'll bounce back and she'll be able to find some way to, to dine! That's, you know, after the migration, when things get a little bit tighter, the gaskets with shorter, maybe a little more food that's all around! It's been a drama-filled week, that's for sure!

And today is just kind of the capping on top, and you know, we're kind of talking about all these things that have been happening! Today is sort of a per to me, of how difficult it can be for our cats now. In Louie's Kenya moons early morning, and then in Swahili, oh my actually, which is the local language in the Mara Triangle, and so that's what it means and how she got that name I'm not 100% sure to be honest with you, but I'll have to maybe try and ask the cheetah man of Africa, Scotty Dyson himself, and see what he thinks about it at some point.

So I'll try and get holler and see if there was a reason that she got named it. Anyway, we're going to carry on, we're gonna try and start having seen having to head out of this area because it's getting dark quite creepy now! And so while we kind of pace ourselves and try and start getting a bit closer to home, it sends you back across to Ralph, who I think is full on Chitra, and I wonder if maybe somebody else is lurking on that side of the eight-hour area.

Well, it's still a very, very beautiful scene unfolding here at Chitwa waterhole. Some of the Egyptian geese making a bit of a racket, but well, the hippos are still doing what they do best. Most of them sleeping, a little bit of movement, especially from the little youngsters, maybe getting a little bit hungry. And then you can see just in between them, there's a couple of the blacksmith lapwings and the three-banded plovers here just on the water's edge!

There's also the odd wagtail. Oh, that's a nice big mouth opening there, that youngster as well! I'm sure they're gonna be getting a little bit irritated with all the adults that are just snoozing away, as youngsters do, and they want them to get up and go moving and go feeding, I would imagine!

Tony, I'm not quite sure if I've seen or if any of the guides have actually seen any of these crocodiles catching any fish or any of the prey here next to the banks. I know that there's at least two big crocodiles here! I'm not seeing them today. We did see a monitor lizard a little bit earlier, but he disappeared down into a little burrow, and it's not the best of days to see reptiles because it's rather chilly, relatively speaking, for us out here as I say.

The reptiles, they don't really enjoy this cold weather, being ectothermic, but I'm not quite sure, I don't know if James or Tristan or anybody else has seen them eating any of that. Now, well, there's a little bit of action here with these baby hippos, but it seems like there's a whole lot more action happening just on over on Juma. Well, not right now, but yes, a lot more action has happened on Juma!

I have seen those crocodiles eating! We saw them eating the skin of what I think—of an nyala or a bushbuck at one stage. What happened to the rest of the animal? I think it's pretty self-explanatory from the last bits of skin that they were in the water, so those crocodiles definitely do catch the odd thing that comes down to drink.

I think mainly they're eating fish, though, piscivores! Crocodiles, which are not fazed by the incursions of her mother—very angry mother! Fowl Mould to the cheetah has disappeared! We haven't seen her again! We haven't tried to go and look at her!

Look firm under, wait and see what happens over here! Andy, yes, we have named Kochava's male cub. His name is Dennis! It's a beautiful leopard name, and we'll be using it from today. I have meant to make that announcement earlier that the Kochava cub's name is Dennis! The internet has now exploded! No, don't worry, everybody—we have not called the cub anything! He does not have a name yet!

We don't see him regularly enough! If we saw him again, if we spent more time with him, definitely we would name him! But at this stage now, we have not named him! We've only seen him once! Would one kill? I think we may have seen him once more as a little fellow, but we haven't seen him since the kill that we had on Torchwood, which was about 6 weeks ago. I think he's probably got quite a lot bigger!

So, Dennis, who we will not call Dennis, has not been seen for some time. But I do ask that if and when we name him, I ask very profoundly that we don’t choose a name as gormless as Shudulu the termite mound, nor Hawker Marie the chicken myths. Both of those two names and the two most ridiculous leopard names I've ever heard in my life.

Why you'd call the most beautiful cat in Africa "Termite Mound" and "Chicken Medicine" is quite beyond me! Our violin, of course, loves naming animals! It's his very favorite thing in all the world! He loves giving names, not only names but also titles to animals, and he's going to do that now for you with your voges, James!

Yes, well, we've got full Will and Thomas over here, near three of our males! For Woollen Thomas, no James, James knows I do not enjoy naming animals! Well, you know, for the purpose of the show, it's fantastic! It's great to have these characters and get to follow them, and understand the movements! I just think there's a fine line that we need to be careful of.

Anyway, but I'm so glad that there's been so much leopard activity the last few days, and also the lions! We've had these males have come through, but you have had some other lions around. A few days ago we had—actually had another pride come through—no surprising me! Out of nowhere, which was really, really interesting a few days ago, we were treated with another lion sighting. At first, we were unsure of which pride it was.

After close inspection, we could make—this was the Talamarche pride that you just saw that did arrive on Juma the other day, and they passed through quite briefly. Well, they spent the day here, which was nice, so we got to find them very early in the morning and follow them. And again, it was a nice, cool morning, actually quite cold, so they were very active during the morning moving around!

They were, they clearly were hungry—they were looking for food. They saw a number of different antelope in the drainage lines and tried to stalk, but just unfortunately didn't have any luck. They did chase some impala and one or two nyalas at one stage, but they weren't very lucky in the morning and they did end up settling down. However, we caught up with them again in the afternoon.

It was an overcast and cool start to the sunset safari! We managed to find the Talamarche pride in the same area we left them that morning. They were very affectionate towards each other and soon began to get active and move, scanning the dense drainage line. They were clearly on the hunt again; unfortunately, we were too exposed in the keyrings, and the ever-alert impala moved off very swiftly. There you could see we did unfortunately find them again there that afternoon and spent some time with them again!

Moving through the drainage lines, those thicker areas, trying to look for some potential food. But then went out onto the clearings, and that just was almost impossible. It's too open; it was still light. All the impalas could see them, and as one or two of the younger lionesses ran off to them, the impala just took off, so the lions had no chance of hunting.

But I do believe later that evening they did cross out of Juma. I mean, they walked right past camp, which was amazing! But they crossed out of Juma onto Buffelsook, and they did get something to eat that evening. I'm not sure what it was—I think it was a small kill, possibly an impala, but I'm not too sure. But they did apparently get something that evening later that evening, much later!

So, wonderful to see the Salamati pride come through—the five lionesses and the two young males! I've been quite fortunate this last week seeing two different groups of lions that I have not seen before—the Talamarche pride and then the Avoca’s, who are still resting now! I wonder if the other dark-maned male, Juma, is having a good afternoon! Let's go find out!

Well, I'm having a wonderful afternoon! Thoroughly enjoying being on foot again! It's one thing that I really missed was actually being on foot and walking in the bush; that's good for the soul! And in the Mara, you can't do it, so really, really nice to kind of be out and exploring again and looking at tracks and all these kind of things. It's been a bit tough one in terms of we didn't see too many tracks, and it was kind of round and round in circles and then find too much, but you know, sort of gave it a bash. I'm on our way home, and you never know if maybe something pops out in front of us.

So, we'll just keep going and trying to see what there is. Okay, so Zandra has managed to plant himself firmly inside of a tree, which took a bit of dancing! Those are very good to step you did there! Fred Astaire would be very, very impressed! In fact, I wonder if you've been taking lessons from Byron because Byron loves little dancing!

This afternoon he was dancing! Wasn't easy, Andre was all over the place doing his little two steps and singing him. Maybe he would like to sync all of you because he was very vocal this afternoon! When we left camp, Byron was good enough to give us a little sake closer to a—the tracks wave!

Anyway, we need to kind of keep going through this thicket, but while we do that, and obviously we're still looking out for traction, it's getting a little bit dark, and so the nocturnal animals are gonna be starting to come out. And that person was hoping in the Mara to find some of the animals that were moving at night when the rains had fallen!

We're in the area searching for the Sausage Tree pride, and believe it or not, those scrapes in the mud actually really care clues as to where they might be. Yesterday evening, Scott was here with the Sausage Tree pride until a massive thunderstorm sent him scurrying back to camp! We've returned to see what they got up to.

And it looks as though they've been very busy during the course of the night! So we have the tracks of them slipping into the mud! But it's not just that; there are some other tracks as well! So we can clearly see if we have a look that there are lion tracks that are not skidded or obscured. They are over there, and we can just see them as the mud starts to dry.

But what's more interesting—in the reason for them slipping and sliding all over the place—is off to the left a little bit over there! Those are the tracks of a massive buffalo bull, and he clearly was in the wrong place at the wrong time! As the Sausage Tree pride took advantage of the chaos of the storm to hunt him down and try and catch him. Now the question is, where do these tracks lead? And will we find the sausages on a fresh buffalo kill?

Back, we find ourselves over here not having to work nearly as hard as Jamie Patterson there in the Masai Mara. We've had to work, in fact, pretty unhard this morning! Can one work unhard? I haven't had to work very hard! Easy day at the office! Harsh would be on a Sunday afternoon! Now, we've had no update on where Kochava's cubby is! In fact, I haven't heard of a sighting of the little male for some time! But she does spend a lot of time on the reserve to the east of us, where they don't do much walking.

And certainly in fact until this weekend, it's been pretty sort of bereft of much vehicle activity! So, you know, quite possibly stashed away very safely in a drainage line over there. My goodness, it's not only cats out here tonight! Now, this is an absolutely beautiful scene! We've got the sun going down there with a lot of clouds around, making for beautiful colors and a lovely young bull elephant just standing in front of us now!

I think that elephants for me are one of the most amazing animals, one of the large animals, I must say, because I have actually spent probably the most time with elephants out of all the big game, you know, out of my years of following them in the Namib Desert. And I do really enjoy being back here in their presence, and this being the first for me since I've been away! Lovely to watch this young bull!

It seems he was just feeding on a red bush willow, which is no mean feat because it's very, very hard wood indeed! And I wouldn't like to be chewing on that—it would definitely break my teeth very quickly. So luckily that he's very well adapted to grinding down hard wood like the complete him a pickle autumn!

Look at him! He's very relaxed, and as I always say, probably the best elephant to watch is a bull elephant that's not in must! Only a very happy-go-lucky, relaxed, and also quite inquisitive! Very often approaching you on foot, but not in any menacing way! Only just to come and see what you're all about!

Putting his ears out there a little bit—that's definitely not to cool himself down! Waving his tail around; there's not many flies around either! And that's just probably, it would be wafting the tail to keep the flies away and wafting the ears to keep themselves cool! But well, the temperature is cool today and there are no flies around, so he's just probably doing it from the force of habit and putting the ears out!

But then also just to be making himself look quite big, and well, look at those eyes—it almost looks like he's a little bit sleepy, doesn't it? And well, he's not the only sleepy animal out here! It's been a very busy week! If you wanna do—apologize! I'm also sleepy!

Let's get back! Oh yeah! That's me pretending to be a play actor! Sometimes I wish I was a play actor, everybody! And I'm sorry that you all have to sort of live that dream curiously with me! Well, not for curiously; you have to witness it!

No progression of any movement here. We might take a little turn around and see if we can't find Tandi! After this, while we do that, it has to go and take a look at what a male leopard does after he's eaten himself into a balloon! After a week of scavenging off his mortal enemies, the wild dogs—Tingana is very fertile! Bursting return to southern Juma on patrol! His absence while feeding has been prolonged, and he was fearful he established his presence lest some interloper arrived!

And the Serengeti youth! Timbers in need of another deep! Astoundingly, for a leopard this age, his condition seems to be improving rather than declining, and I'm not sure he's ever looked heavier. His sawing echoed well into the darkness, and in fact, workers were laughing camp the tail! I'm just trying to save everybody!

We have found Tandi again! There she is! And that's all vicious! The tail tip of her started to go as we got close, so I stopped. And now we're looking at her endless spotty face through the thorn bushes, which are about as prickly as her personality! Staring straight at the back end of her daughter!

Well! Much as it must pain him with us sitting here with our two leopards, Tristan has managed to find, well, something fairly common, really!

Well, this is about as common as it gets, James! And you know when you're scratching around trying to find something—at least it's better than nothing! But it's still nice to be on foot and just see, you know, impalas all around you! It's actually Jan that’s gonna come out fairly shortly for us and kind of just expose itself on this sort of crossing the road.

Now there—and Jan is! It's gonna go across this also beautiful patch of sky! Let's just look at the lit up with the sunset! So we're trying to kind of head closer to home because it's just starting to get very dark! And using your landing parlors, they're actually very relaxed! They haven't moved very much at all, and they've allowed us to get very close!

And you know, obviously, if we were appearing to like something like a leopard or lions, they would have been shutting a long time ago! And so it just goes to show that they've learned that some people walking around here are no longer a threat to them! You know, it would be interesting a few years ago, you know, hunting was probably in this area a lot more than it is now!

Whether or not these guys would have had a situation where they would have sort of alarm called and ran, or if they would've just sat still like they are doing right now because they've really fully aware that we are here at the moment! Right, so we're going to try and walk past them and try and kind of get out of here and get a little bit closer to home before it gets far too dark! It's a situation where we've got the light fading very, very quickly, so we're gonna have to do a little bit of a hassle to get there!

But we were talking a little bit earlier about tracking and the rewards that tracking can bring, and how important it is to be able to recognize tracks! And Jamie found out just how important it is to be able to see them and follow up on them!

We found them! We found them! We tracked them down and we found