Safari Live - Day 15 | National Geographic

Watching, maybe they will be the only things that stick around; but if the wind picks up, they may also blow. Hey, my name is Taylor, and on camera with me today is Sebastian. Well, hopefully, our drive is going to be filled with a couple more animals than there were this morning. We really had a turtledove to start off with, so that’s a good sign. I can also hear a woodpecker pecking in the distance, but this is live. This is interactive. It's happening right now.

I'm not sure if the Morrow team is going to be joining us today, perhaps a little bit later. Otherwise, my self-interest in art. So if you'd like to ask us any questions, you're more than welcome to hashtag Safari Live on Twitter, or you can have a chat with us on the YouTube chat to see if we can find this woodpecker. Where is this woodpecker? I've been listening to a dick pic picking away, and now I've just got to see if we can find it.

It's definitely on the marula tree, and now I know you're so funny. Did you see where it landed on that marula? You see that big marula over there in the fork to the left? Then the main sort of fork, you'll see you go into the middle of the tree. No, you'll see it straight away. Are you going good? And then up, yeah, to the right a little bit. No, if you go straight in, there it is. Ha ha! Woodpecker! You've got it!

It's just up there if you look on the monitor. Just drop down. So it's quite as… no, it's gone! It's flown! I don't know what woodpecker that was, but it was woodpecker. The only way I was able to identify that it was a woodpecker was because it had some green on it, turned to see a couple of white speckles, and I heard it pecking. The pecking has stopped. I've put two and two together; it makes sense that it was fun. Maybe the birds will be around at some point, just not right now though.

However, I'm not sure what I'm going to be looking for. I think I would like to find some elephants today, a whole herd of them. That would be nice! Maybe some giraffe? I know there was a giraffe on the dam cam earlier today. That was quite cool, because I actually said that I really wanted to see a giraffe. Then maybe we'll go past Chitra and do some exploring around. They seemed as though the wind has died down, and it'd be nice to test the signal on a good day.

But like I said, Tristan's also bumbling about. Let's go across to him and see if he's going to give liquid searching another bash. Good afternoon, everybody! Welcome to our sunset Safari. As Taylor mentioned, my name is Tristan. On camera today, I have got a sense.

Now we are going to try and see if we can just drive around a little bit in the Gallagher area to see if we can't find the son of a Lipid that Taylor so very briefly saw this morning. That's going to be the plan at least. If you do see anything on the dam cam, hashtag Safari Live, or you can let us know in the YouTube chat because I would imagine that this cat that was around will at some stage start moving, and maybe it'll head towards the dam side.

But you can also ask any questions and just get hold of us and say hello on the same forums. Now I'm in the same areas where the drama unfolded last night. So we have the tree just above me here; that's where poor little Jean Gilla was left when we departed the scene last night. She was perched high in those branches. Tandy and Husana are over there, and Tamba is somewhere in this area as well.

Now, I wanted to come here just for two reasons. One is, but like I say, because Taylor saw a Lipid here this morning, and well, it just feels like a good place to start and maybe see if there isn’t any sign. But the other reason I wanted to come here is I actually wanted to just have a little look around the tree and see what signs they were and what went on last night.

Whether or not Shangela came down and was able to move off without a scuffle, because there should be signs of a scuffle if they did have one again after she came out of the tree. Verso, I wanted to come and check. I haven't had a chance yet to walk around, but I can see these tracks. Oh, hug marks! Whether they be hyenas or Lipids, all over the place. Yes, I don't know if they're hyenas also got involved here last night; that certainly remains to be seen.

But the good thing is, there’s no sign of any injured leopards still around this area. Taylor searched quite extensively around, and there was no sign of any animal that was in distress, walking badly, or in any way hurt. So that’s a good thing; the fact that there are tracks moving in all different directions. This morning we had such a sort of difficult time in trying to decode where all these footprints went, is a very, very positive silence.

It means that at least the Lipids all managed to get out of here, and we won’t have too many dramas, hopefully, from what happened last night. But what I'm going to do is I just want to quickly check, so those are mostly hyena tracks that are around; I was hoping to see if there were maybe signs of both the females coming down into this area. But I see there are so many impalas at Walker that I think the tracks unfortunately have been walked all over.

Right, so I think what we're going to do is then let’s carry on. Since there's nothing at Gallagher pan right now, I’m going to head towards the Enid in and just park a bit, and if I hear then any alarm calls, given the amount of prey animals that I've seen in this area, there are lots of bushbuck, lots of yalla, impalas all around Gallagher pan. So if they see a Leopard, they're certainly going to let us know, much like what happened yesterday with Dundee.

So we'll just go sit nearby, which is the den. It's not too far from here, and hopefully that will be active, and from there, we'll be able to hear any signs of these Lipids being there, prisons being given away by alarm calls. So that's going to be the plan. I think for Teeth and Senzo. Good plan, good plan! Since this is, good plan. But it is at least starting to warm up again. It's still not quite what it was last week. Last week was beautiful weather; it was warm and very pleasant.

And now it’s at least the wind is dropping, which is the big thing. We had such bad wind the past two days, and the wind has really made it difficult. Hopefully, with the dying down of the wind will mean things like elephants will start to come out a little bit, and even the cats themselves will start to move around.

The good news is that the InKuma pride is at least making its way slowly back this way. They were far now, just come out of the manual, lying on before Hook, sleeping at this stage. But at least they've started their southward journey, which hopefully means that tomorrow morning we shall have some of them around as well.

It'll be nice if the InKumas come back for a little bit of time; it was really good to see quite a bit of them last week with that Buffalo kill. So I'm hoping that will be the case once again. The good thing also is that there's no tracks coming out here at all.

We are where? Do you want to know how often do we see snakes around the park? Well, not that often. You'll be surprised; there are lots of snakes here, and they are everywhere. It's just that snakes are very perceptive creatures, and they know that often, big sounds and vibrations—which is what this car is causing as we’re driving—is a danger, and they'll then try and slither off.

Once the snake gets into grass like this, or even into the trees, they become very difficult to spot. But now is the time of the year that we should start to see the snakes. So as we come out of this winter period, then we're going to see two spring, which is September and October. You'll find that the trees still don't have many leaves, but because it's warmer, the snakes are fairly active, and then you find them sitting in the trees.

Particularly at night, if you've got a spotlight arch, you can shine into the trees, and you'll be able to get these little glistening scales, and it alerts you to their presence. So we don't see them that often, but there are a lot more than you would think. They are all kinds of different species of snakes that we see in this area.

So I'm gonna cut in; have your wits about you when you're moving around, and certainly when you're walking, you've got to pay attention to where you're placing your feet, because the Adders are a nasty species, particularly the puff adder. It's a species that doesn't actually move too much when you walk, and you tend to stand on them quite a bit, so you do have to be a bit careful in that regard. But like I say, they are masters of camouflage and masters of hiding in plain sight.

So even though we don't see many of them, there are a lot here. A little squirrel dashed across the road. Unfortunately, that squirrel will be long gone. Sherry, you want to know another saga in the leopard drama that has been the last, I would say, two weeks, I suppose, not even ten days. You want to know whether or not there's updates on Shadow's injury. Sherry, unfortunately, no. We have not seen any more signs of her driven in that areas, and Taylor was there this morning to check with the guys on the other side in Arethusa and some Amelie, and they haven't found any sign of her as yet.

It's not anything to stress about at the moment because, as we know, Shadow, well as the name suggests, she spends a lot of time well hidden. So we sometimes go weeks and weeks and weeks and even months without seeing Shadow. So it’s not uncommon for us not to see them. Even the guys on the Arethusa side sometimes, I remember, when I was at Summer meeting, we used to go three, four, five weeks sometimes longer without seeing Shadow. So it's not too much of a stretch just yet, but we certainly are still trying to keep an ear out and trying to ask around as much as possible to find out what she’s up to and whether or not she's starting to come right.

So if that injury is still bad, I can tell you that we haven't had any fresh signs since about three days after we saw her, which is maybe a positive thing; maybe she's ended up getting her foot sorted and is now able to move around a lot better.

Right, now, let's see if we have anybody home by uh, uniden. I'm hoping so. It seems as though it’s been a little quiet at the dinner. I know Taylor was here this morning, and there was no sign of anybody home. Let's quickly check this side first. They generally, at the moments in the afternoons, are on the other side where it's a bit shady. We'll check this side first just in case there's a stump.

Let’s drag it over. Hmm, doesn’t look like anybody's home at this stage. There’s a nice big bone that's been brought here, though that’s a fairly new addition to the entrance to the den; you can see it just over there; that’s the bone that we're talking about. So they would have been playing with that. Jerry, you’re wondering who’s the most successful predator here? Well, Jerry that was a difficult answer. I think they all open and flow, and all of them have different sort of levels of success.

I would say the hyenas are probably one of the most successful in terms of the predators, particularly to the west of us. We’ve got big plans of hyenas that are surviving there, and they seem to be able to thrive in these areas. This particular clan, not so much. They haven’t thrived because of the presence of the infamous last year, which limited their numbers in the growth quite a bit.

But they still probably are the most successful. Leopards also in the Sabi sands are very successful. We have a very high density of Lipids; even though we've had a tragic last couple months with them, the number of the adults being killed by lions and all kinds of other things, and so it's been a bit tough for them.

But I would say probably hyenas are number one and in our lipids. The Lions, funnily enough, have not been very successful in the Sabi sands at all over the last few years, and that is because we've had a number of coalitions come through; that means a lot of the Cubs get killed before they reach adulthood, and so the prides are just stagnating. They're not growing in any way whatsoever.

Right, I'm going to just do a little loop around the den just to check if there isn't any sign of our hyenas on the other side of the den, and while I do that, I believe Taylor has been fighting with gremlins, and she's back and ready to chat to all of you. So let’s see where she’s been and what she’s been up to.

We had some cable gremlins that were attacking the camera. We have found some walls. Don’t run! What is wait for us? They're crossing the road just very slowly up ahead, so I’m just gonna see if I can slowly cruise on and maybe we’ll get a decent view of them. Where are we going?

So now the wind is starting to pick up. They've also gone from a run to a walk, so we stand a chance now. Don’t go behind that African waffle, because then we’d most certainly not going to be able to see you. They were just feeding out in the open; then obviously heard us. Let me know that most of the time the water tanks actually keep moving when they see us, but they’re going there. So, still maybe we have a chance.

I know everyone, don’t run! It’s just us! There we go, that’s better! I don’t mind when they walk away from us very slowly. That’s okay, and it’s never nice leaving a sighting of an animal darting away from you. But again, because of all the one that we have good around, it’s it’s better that the animals are slightly on the cautious side because if you’re too complacent in this one, you could miss something and end up being, well, a meal for a predator.

And they’ve done exactly what I didn’t want them to do, is to go behind that massive African waffle. Okay, we’ll carry on! So we’ll pass Treehouse down; we dropped off a camera. They took some pictures quickly for Sebastian; we’re doing Change of Seasons as a truth. So seasonal time lapses have a look at what’s going on. So that’s what that’s all about.

Why are we stopping at the various sort of dams? It’s, you know, let’s do a fire break. Dry, I don’t like to drive on Gauri Main; it’s too bumpy. So we’ll go good on this way; this is gonna bring us out of Treehouse dam eventually, and we’ll have a quick squeeze around there. And then I’m gonna check sort of around Leadwood, Lumbo and some of these roads, hoping to find some elephants there spending a lot of time around. Maybe even Battle Erode and search about would be nice to find a big herd of elephants or chitra now.

And a better, you’re wondering what is my favorite animal on a safari and why? Well, it’s the animals that we’re searching for at the moment; it’s the elephants. And the reason why I enjoy them so much is they’ve got very sort of human-like qualities. Now, it’s difficult when you’re watching on screen, but when you’re surrounded by the largest mammal on land and they’re enormous and they come around your car and you have the little ones you know playing about or an adult sniffing right near your feet, that type of thing, it's a very sort of humbling experience to know that the largest animal on land could quite easily, if they wanted to, turn us upside down.

They don’t; we have this amazing respect for one another, and obviously, that's just taken a lot of time eventually to get like that. And it’s just so much fun to watch them; they’re always doing something! And now we've got a giraffe’s in the car here, so I just want to join the signage session with a giraffe.

Can I join these Koby? Thanks, Ralph! Wonderful! So we can go ahead, it's just roll on ahead, no other cars. So even for an even though it’s just a giraffe, we, of course, will still make sure that there’s not too many cards because we don’t want to sort of pressure the animals at all. So once I get over this little bump, I’m actually going to such a call for making a free-will into the sighting.

Fine, be as quiet as possible, although the wind should be much not; that they really mind the sound of the cars, but I don’t want to disturb the sighting for the guests. Ralph, what I’ll do, say there’s our trap; pull off over here, the car in the shop. Sun's in the eye; you don’t know how to be quiet.

Being an old bull, we’ve seen this trailer, I think a couple of times, in fact, and just because of that bay patch of skin on his neck, which we’ll have a look at in a moment, it is an old fellow—this one. But this is the southern giraffe, so it’s not the drop species that you’re seeing in Kenya, the Masai Giraffe; and they’re not quite as big as the Masai Giraffe. The southern drop, they’re pretty big though! I’m just feeding on some glories, yeah.

Deal watcher, you exclaimed, “Yage giraffe!” That’s how I felt because I was so surprised to see that there was one on the dam cam earlier today. I could say because I was the one animal and said I’d really like to have a look at its haven’t seen a giraffe. I did see them while I was on holiday; she had lots and lots of drafts. It was quite interesting, though.

So when I was, it was just very briefly visiting them I can go to a national park and found lots of drafts, and there’s plenty of them there; there’s not a lot of cats in that area; and this is, of course, a male giraffe. You can see that the first thing is just because I darken his coaches, and then he’s also got no hair on the top of his Aussie cones. There’s little horn-like protrusions from his skull, but the giraffe and my band Goodway, unlike the giraffe of all the beasts' horns are all made of hair!

We’re right on the edge of the migration, and they are funny-looking beasts, aren’t they; the vulva beasts saga? News in this particular case, the white-bearded knew. Now they have all spread out the heads, and compared to when I was out on Saturday morning, they were far more condensed. But they’re making short work of this grass upon the ridges around Serena.

Now remember, this is 100% live from the Maasai Mara in Kenya and Juma in South Africa. And of course, for those of you who don’t know, my name is Brent Claire Smith, and I am going to be your guide while we travel through the marvelous Mara. If you want to ask us any questions, remember the hashtag, Safari Live, is the best way to get hold of us, and you can do that on Twitter.

Now, we’re in search of the Egyptian goose pride of lions, which tend to frequent this area. I spent some wonderful time with them over the last couple of weeks as we have been following them alive through the migration. I actually last Saturday morning, and we spent time with them. It was just over the ridge a little bit to the right of where Manu is showing you now. Yes, Manu is on camera with me, and it looks like there are some striped donkeys there in the background.

Micra is wondering if serval beasts and canoes are the same. Indeed, they are the same! It just depends on what part of Africa you're from. Wildebeest is traditionally from—well actually, the way they first get their name is from a Dutch. When the first Dutch sailors stopped in the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa, I think one of the first animals they encountered was a Wildebeest.

My theory, it's not a fact, but I haven't found any better theory; the first animal they encountered was wildebeest, and basically translated from Dutch; wilde is wild, beast is beast – a wild cow could be wild fierce beast versus a cow wildebeest, and it's slowly been changed over the years. So that's probably where the name comes from, and the new name that they have in large parts of East Africa, of course.

These ones are being rather silent because I want them to go new from the sound they make. Oh dear! I’m causing a bit of a traffic jam here! Now we’re going to go back to Taylor, so she can finish telling you about Gerald, the giraffe's hairless ossicones.

Alright, everyone, sorry that we disappeared so quickly before. Now we’re just trying to catch that giraffe a frame! The game seems to be a couple of gremlins on board today! We’ll get him again. Now, I just need to take the scenic route; I’m just on the fire break, and then we’re gonna pop out onto Gauri Main, and I think we might actually… Anyway, and see if we—it’s the bumpier!

Hopefully, we’ll be able to find certain elephants around that way! But let’s have a quick look at our friend again. He’s coming this way; we might catch him. Let’s go through… Your? No, JC just says you’d make our way back to the straw. You’re wondering if they find to over territories.

So it’s quite interesting; the giraffe don’t actually hold territories; they don’t mark and defend them like we see with lions and leopards and a variety of other animals. They sort of their home ranges. So typically what a home range is, it’s sort of an area that they occupy, but it can change. It depends, of course, on where the food is and where the water is. So they constantly will move around, and then even with the cows that the females, they hang together, but they don’t necessarily stay together for their whole lives—they’ll come and go, join different herds; it’s a very sort of a loose social structure.

And the big bulls like this fella over here, because he’s a mature man, he will actually move from a herd of females to females testing all over cars to see if any of them own easter’s: obviously, if two big bulls of equal size, sometimes it’s not always an equal battle, they’ll come together.

And end up sort of bumping heads quite literally in order to claim the stake and to be able to mate with the females that are in each herd. But he’s not worried about that at the moment; he's taken some time to himself, and it’s quite common to see giraffe bulls on their own like this. I mean, sometimes you’ll even see a female with the youngster off on their own and the thicket, but as fuzzy theoretical goes, not alone; he’s got oxpeckers in his ears.

Had a long tongue really stretching up, using that tongue and bringing in some leaves. Also just very carefully looking around. Now Olivia, a question from you this afternoon; you’re wondering if the Lions take down giraffes in the Sabi Sabi Sands. Not necessarily, I know the Charleston males, which are two beautiful males, and one is quite famous because he’s got one of his canines dangling from his lower jaw.

And that injury is actually suspected from a giraffe that they took down. There’s many different stories, but that’s the one that I’ve heard time and time again, and that happened while I was down there guiding in the South too. So they do, occasionally— I’ve heard of some prides around Sangeeta, the really large super prides of lions—you can imagine when you’ve got more than 20 lions, and a pride, one buffalo is not going to go very far. So you have to take the next step and start going for things like giraffe, but it takes a lot of practice.

It’s not a particularly easy animal to hunt and I feel like they need a lot of sort of training. And there’s obviously certain techniques that need to be used, and if it’s your first time hunting a giraffe. We see them cool men showing interest in these tall creatures all the time, but we have yet to see them take one down. They often chase them around, but it’s very dangerous for lions.

But if you go up to Namibia, their lions are specialists. Their gains above where they specialize in hunting not only giraffe but also young elephant bulls. I’m sure that similar things happen all over Africa, in fact. But not in this particular area, but it’s not impossible either. They’ll definitely take the chance if they can. Remember, with lions they want to catch something; they want to catch the biggest animal that they physically can so they don’t have to hunt straight away if it means they can feel off it for a week, they will be.

So excited about that, but I think this job is probably you had a few encounters with lions in his life. Remember, they don’t they won’t use that long neck, of course, to try and chase the lions away—that’s what they’re using when they’re fighting their swing there, their heads at each other and if you go all the way down to the bottom, where they use those powerful legs and they can chop off their front feet—it’s actually it’s quite intimidating when you see an angry giraffe having a go at lions.

And then, of course, have powerful hindquarters and they can kick back, and that could quite easily kill the lion if they’re connected in the wrong spot. Now this is a beautiful feather, fairly often hangs around the vertebrae Atilla dam. None Lauria wondering if the giraffe is some giraffe, so have that light color at the top of their heads for a specific reason or if it’s sort of just the genetic variation.

I reckon it’s specific; I mean you can actually see it with most of the giraffe, typically around the ears and then the top of the head it’s quite light. I’m not sure why; if it has a specific reason, it’s quite interesting. In fact, you don’t normally see it too much with it with the females.

The females are typically larger in color, but we have seen on a number of different occasions an occasional dark car that will sort of make you second-guess yourself when it comes to trying to sex it from a distance. But I don’t think there’s any particular reason for it; I don’t think I’ve ever really read about there being a significance for the lighter parts around their heads.

Maybe it’s helping with camouflage because you can see in between their legs as well it’s quite light; perhaps that helps break up the figure. We know that different colors and different patterns definitely do help disruptive markings when it comes to camouflaging themselves, and even a giraffe, to an extent, needs to be camouflage.

There you go; you can see those light—those lighter patches. So I’m not sure if it's just a coincidence, but this is a particularly sort of pretty boy when I turn in terms of its color. One of their calls—shame this fella hasn’t got the straightest velocity cones, has he? I was sort of pointing in all sorts of directions; he’s just enjoying some leaves for the moment.

Oxpeckers also slot around on him, but one has just flown off, so I wonder if the other two are going to follow and head elsewhere. I wonder what determines the length of stay of oxpeckers on particular animals' backs? Always wondered that.

And sometimes, you know, you'll see them sitting on an animal for the whole day. Other times, they’re jumping from mammal to mammal within a herd. Sometimes they land on the back of one. I suppose if they get a SWAT and connect with the tail, beak or whatever, they’re not going to hang around there for too long. They’ll probably move off, but I love watching that.

It sort of reminds me of, I don’t know why, you know, old-fashioned typewriters—and as you type, I don’t, I don’t even know what the correct words are but you know the thing with the ink. Maybe you said you can help me; it’s sort of shuffles to the side. I apologize! I’m just showing my aims!

Yeah, say balsa, no, he also doesn’t know what it’s called. But when they do that with their bush, that’s all I just hear that. I don’t know why I hear that; I one of the coolest birds, Archer. Now Zurich, you’re wondering if giraffes are relatively intelligent.

Well, I think all animals have to have some form of intelligence to be able to survive in this harsh world, Archer, because it’s not the easiest living conditions; it’s quite stressful, constantly watching over your shoulder, especially if you’re a prey species. And then again, if you’re a predator, looking out for other predators, whether they’re the same species or others.

A lot of these animals do show problem-solving ability, so I reckon they’re fairly intelligent. I don’t think they have the intelligence level however of an elephant. But maybe, maybe, you know, I think they’re alright. But their communication is very different, of course; they use body language to communicate most of the time from long distances, and then, of course, we recently discovered that they hum, which is interesting! Isn’t that cool?

Now Tesla, who is only seven years old, one of our younger viewers, is wondering how fast can a giraffe run? Well, it depends. If it’s running downhill and it’s got the wind behind it, then you’d be surprised how quick they can actually go. But one thing that I wanted to chat about quickly about is that if you've ever been fortunate enough to drive next to a draught while it’s walking, you know if you look down at your speedometer you’ll notice that you’re going well... unfortunately, the gremlins, as we know, arounds turned their Amazon milliwatts have overrun Taylor, and so you’re back with me now!

Most I'm having to apply it in. We did do a loop around; there was nothing there. I've now come along on Boo-boo Road just to check if anything walked here. Nothing on this side either, so it’s been a little quiet. We haven't found too much at all, nothing in the way of birds either.

So hopefully our luck will start to change as we hit a little bit. I’ve just been informed that there are tracks for a young male Leopard on Philemon’s Stub. Now I would be interested to know whether they're on top of all the vehicles, because I think Taylor went there this afternoon to drive in that direction, which means that those checks are on top or as bad as fresh as fresh could be.

So that would be quite nice! So we’re gonna head to that area and try to see if we can’t track down our little spotted cats' friends and see which young male has decided to walk there. I would imagine, given the route that it’s walking, my idea would be Husana. That’s who I think it would be. But you never know; Tamba could also easily walk that way.

They are all over the place at the moment, these youngsters. So, it’s difficult to say who is where. It’s interesting, though, that I must be the same cat that was at the damn camera around 5 o’clock this morning, because that cat did not go further south. We could not find any tracks further south going down in the drainage.

Must have cut across towards Inga’s and then across quarantine and down that way—that’s the route it must have taken, because there’s most certainly was no sign in the drainage. I walked all over the place there trying to look; there was all tracks but nothing from this morning.

Now there’s one of us, don’t fly away! It’s going to be one of those afternoons; every time I try to stop for a bird they fly away this afternoon! Say maybe birding is not for me this afternoon; who knows? We shall persevere though; we won’t let them get the better of us!

Why are you laughing at me? Miska, you're wondering if Sela left behind any Cubs. No, sir! Gianni is completely independent now. Sela just mated with Anderson about three weeks ago, four weeks ago I think; so potentially she could have been pregnant, but she should be right in the early phases if she was.

But no, she doesn’t have current Cubs at the moment which is at least some sort of semblance of good, out of the bad situation of her dying. We haven’t heard anything about necropsy and I doubt that we will, and it's at the end of the day; it's been weakened. And it will also take a bit of time for a lot of the blood work to be tested and for the results to come back.

It's not going to be an instant process where all of a sudden you're going to just have a result straight away, unless it's a very obvious thing. If it’s something to do with blood work, that's going to take a little bit of time. So as soon as we get an update, we will let you know you can see that is the damn Gari dam, which is drying at a rate that is really unbelievable.

It’s amazing how much smaller it is than it was a few weeks ago! It’s crazy! Too... I remember having an elephant sighting here, and the water stretched way on the other side. And even around this side here, you couldn't drive anywhere near the dam wall to get around, and now there’s a lot of mud—you could easily navigate that to get around.

So I don’t know if this dam is actually going to last all the way into the Sun. I feel we may just see Gari dam drying up before the Sun is out before summer gets here. Certainly if we have a lot of hot temperatures like we had last week and winds, we’re gonna get a lot of evaporation that’s going to take that all away!

James, you're wondering about updates and the lipids and whether or not there have been any updates on Gula. Now? Not at the stage, James, I haven’t heard anything. The last time I heard an update on Gula was where we now are, now on Sunday afternoon.

So it would have been, it was Tuesday or Wednesday somewhere there he was seen on the West, so around Arethusa, Summer, we decide—and then he crossed our side. I can't remember what day that was. One of the days where I was with Tumba; he crossed this way, and then his trunk went up towards before looking that night they saw him at about 10 o'clock at night.

So Wednesday or Thursday maybe, somewhere there, he is around. Taylor said to me this morning she saw tracks of a male leopard on the fire break close to Gallagher’s shortcut, which could be in Ghana. But that is a very commonplace formula to walk, so I wouldn’t be surprised if Gula went that way.

It really is a route that he often takes, and she said that the tracks went down towards Obis and in West Woods. So maybe he’s crossed back into Arethusa; he seems to take that path. He seems to come down Obie’s, overweighted access power lines and then westward from there into Arethusa and Sobili.

But quiet at the dam! I thought they would maybe see a few more birds—it's not even an Egyptian goose or a Hardy doll, which is quite strange! Generally, we find in those areas lots of both that are around the water maybe something disturbed everybody during the day today.

I don’t know if there was anything at the dam. I saw some giraffe tracks there, which would... I think there was a giraffe around, so maybe that’s what spooked everybody. But I doubt it's a giraffe; it’s not exactly a ferocious beast that is going to go in and pick off Egyptian geese one by one.

Cody, are you wondering how I expect the animals to act to the river eclipse? Well, I would imagine that they won't care in the slightest really. It’s so short a period for them that they don’t really worry about it, and I think you’ll find that everybody will just kind of take a bit of notice and then not worry about it for that much longer.

You might find the odd predator trying to do something in the more dingy lights, but I doubt they would be really too much; it goes and it's not exactly like it goes completely dark and almost night light; it's just, you know, it becomes a little darker.

So I don’t think it’ll really affect too much of what goes on. Certainly, I haven’t seen anything in the eclipses that have been around in the past; I haven’t seen too much in the way of it affecting behavior.

Like I said, it just doesn’t go for long enough to really affect behavior in any way. If you had a total blackout and everything went completely dark all of a sudden, yes, then I would think that you would find our animals utilizing it, particularly the predators, but I don’t think in any way that we would see a situation that it changes just for an eclipse.

Now I just want to secretly know—I thought they might be tracks there, but it was just tracks for a velvet monkey. Right now, it sounds like Taylor's had her wish this afternoon; she's found everything that she wants to find. She's headed a giraffe and now apparently she's got the colossal gray beasts making their way towards Chitra Dam.

We were lots and lots of elephants, but I need to just watch them. So, Megan, I do apologize! I may actually have to do some maneuvering as some of the cars on this hood seem to be slightly stressed, and I don't know what’s got them so worried! Hey big girls!

Some big, very, very big elephant ears here can actually just point out the one that I think is as big as—is this old bird back here? She’s just, I don’t know if you can see! I know you won't see! Anna! Hello, guys! Were you off to? What’s wrong? What have you heard?

Walking right past the car in front behind. Hello big girl! There’s the old car I was telling you about! I suspected this is the matriarch! Oh, via had a girl! Hello! It's okay, just having a smell! Yeah, just relax! Relax! Relax!

Something has got them slightly worried there; that guy passed us. He's a young bull and showing us a slash agitation, but I'm really not worried about him. He could be one of the reasons, in fact, why this herd is on the annoyed side.

And he’s not particularly young; he isn’t the biggest ivory, but he's very tall; he’s got long legs like a runway model! And maybe what he’s been doing is, he’s been going about checking all the females, maybe pushing and shoving some of the youngsters around. Because you can see they’ve all moved away from him completely, and they keep dodging his direction.

But the cows will not stand for that, especially that matriarch at the back there; she is huge! She is the size; she’s actually even bigger than that bull. No, no, this one here.

That one! That’s a big one! There’s two really big ones, but I think that girl there—she’s just walking again! She actually still smelling all the vehicles around him; it’s not really stopping just at the moment. They’ve obviously been given the command, "Go, go, go!"

Oh that’s so beautiful look at that! It’s hard because they're on the move, so we’re going to have to keep moving to another lovely scene. So yes, I’m exceptionally happy after this morning’s very quiet Drive within the first hour of the show, managed to find all the animals that I wanted to find! Should we go? Round! Sit!

We’re gonna try and I think I signal should be a rock because we’re up top, go! We’re not going down towards the dam, so we can give it a bash and hopefully the gremlins don’t get us! In fact, they're starting to settle down now just a little bit! You know most of the time the elephants are so relaxed and so calm, it’s alright to have a day like today, you know where you're slightly agitated! It’s not a problem!

We all have our bad days; this morning I was horribly grumpy because a hyena kept me awake and then I had a nap this afternoon like a little kid, and I feel better! That was very funny this morning, those lipids! Very, very rude to us! I’m not looking for lipids today, so I'm just trying to think what our base spot's gonna be!

I might have to go around the game now! Jacqueline! You said you can't imagine how cool it would be to be in a vehicle with me and being surrounded by all these elephants! Well, maybe not being with me; but being with the elephants is amazing! So cool!

They’re kicking up the dust—look at their! That’s so nice! So normally in one of the ways that we spot the big buffalo herds when they’ve moved into the areas, most we would just follow the dust clouds and that seems today we can do the same thing with the elephants.

Now, I don’t know if this is maybe the same herd of elephants or one family. Sorry, if it’s perhaps two or three different families that have joined up together, because that’s not uncommon to see in these dry seasons. Often, the animals come together, and they’ll move through and sort of graze and browse a particular area till there’s not much left, and then they move on again and look for something else.

Surely just as they do in Kenya with the big migrations, we normally only see this in the winter months in this area. No, they're going again! They're going straight back towards Gauri Main, and we might actually have to go all the way around! Can you believe it? And go and wait for them then because they're really moving through at quite a pace!

But this isn't the most relaxed hood, you know! I love it when they come around the vehicle and they're spending time feeding! Excuse me, then it’s really quite nice! And you can't always get what you want, and like I said, if an elephant druid is having a bad day, that's fine! That doesn't happen very often; she’s got long tasks,

That girl though, sort of very needle-like tusks that would be very good for digging, and her youngster just standing by! They're not stopping for a swim, literally going down, having a couple of trunk falls of water, and then that's it! It hasn't been very hot, so you know they don’t need to drink as much water from that! On the days that they’re not very hot, they will be getting some of the moisture from the vegetation that they’re feeding on.

I wonder where they're going to go next! Maybe we'll find another hood that’s slightly more relaxed though! But you see how they’re getting left behind now, one thing that is very, very dangerous are these satellite parties. The ones that, you know, stop just sort of feed—the rest of the hood has now moved on completely, and you'll come across something like this? Well, you think that it is just mom and calf, and they know other elephants around, and you get in between them and the main herd, you can find yourself in a lot of trouble, so try and avoid that!

Especially if you’re on foot; in the car, it’s slightly different; they’re not too worried about baddest and the vehicles, but on foot you’ll get you will get a big fright! But we’ll see if we can relocate on the hood and we’ll go towards Gauri Mean! I’m gonna send you across to Brent now, who seems to be sitting at a river. Well, not only a river, the river, the murderous Mara looking actually quite still and tranquil for once!

And we have a grey heron basking in the sun, and it bottomed us playing hide and goes hide-and-seek behind that fallen tree. Is that— I think it looks like a fallen… hmm, it is indeed a fallen ebony, a little diospyros. But this part of the Mara River, far more sort of sedate than the crossing points, and one of the reasons the Volta beast don’t like crossing here is due to the forest on the other side. So all sorts of terrible things could wait for them in the forest on the other side!

So the Volta bucks tend to try and cross where it’s more open on both sides. Now speaking of evil, the Beast Beatty is wondering when does the migration end? Well, that changes every single year, Betty, depending on local rainfall. But it normally moves out of the Mara sometime in September and starts heading south for enter Tanzania, and their Lin stop again for a while around the southern plains of the Serengeti for the birthing season, and that’s where most of those will be the cars are birth.

Then they head drew into the Western Corridor around the Grumeti River! Here’s some Egyptian geese grazing on the grass on the riverbank, and then they’ll start heading back north up towards the Mara again. Now strangely enough, seeing that Egyptian goose, when I was looking for the Egyptian goose pride of lions, they had caused some murderous mayhem around a waterhole, and there were a lot of carcasses.

And we actually saw three or four Egyptian geese feeding on the undigested grasses that live all the beasts from the volu-be stomach, so that shows you that absolutely nothing goes to waste. Even though the lions might kill more than they can eat and leave it, even the undigested grass, it’s gonna get eaten by something or Egyptian geese are great grazers.

But of course, there we also saw all sorts of insects too—harvester, termites, and they’ll also take advantage of that undigested gas that comes out of the stomach of a slain wildebeest or zebra! Now I was hoping we might see… I can hear… where are you?

I was hoping we might get a few little wading bird species about here and alas, just the waddling Egyptian geese and the Boston grey heron. Now if we look on—there’s a GREAT! But if we look on the mud bank, then there we go! That is a grey heron! And then, it's wandering! But if we look... yeah, you can see the rivers dropped a little bit over the last few days. We had quite a bit of rain.

But if we look onto this mud flat next to us, yeah! I’ve got a question for all of you! Hahahahaha! So let’s zoom in on the mud flat! Right, the mud flat presses to us, there we go! That’s it! Zoom in! Now there’s lots of little tracks!

Now the majority of those tracks are made by one animal, and I wonder if anyone can tell me what animal it is! If you know which animal has made those footprints, use the hashtag Safari Live on Twitter to let us know! Shh! There’s a tree! That is very beautiful here in the Mara.

I’m just going to try and move back a tiny bit, and it is so! Any staff again, that’s obviously due to the minerals and whatnot in Southern Africa. That’s generally got a far, far paler bark, much sort of more yellowy-green.

And I’m not just… yeah, they’re often much darker green! Yeah, and there’s a fever tree! Well, rush knee close but no cigar! Those footprints are not made by a stalk! And so there we go! You've got... oh, looks like the heart York spot on! It is a date Egyptian used! But now, one of the interesting things is you noticed with this fever tree, which is very different from Southern Africa, is that there’s not a lot of salinity in the areas that grow in this part of East Africa, but in Southern Africa, there often is! So they’ll sacrifice a branch and pump all the salts and not nice minerals into that branch, and then they will sacrifice that branch and it’ll fall off.

Fourth is a bird! You see it running! A little dark-capped boobie come out in the fever tree! I just can’t come out while it’s on the far left-hand side on the dangling branches! So there we go; zoom, zoom! You’re there! A little bit up! Here we go! See, there we go! Is he gone? No! They’re still there!

In the zoom! Slightly to the right! And you see the movement! There he is! Oh, look like a dark-capped boo boo! And he’s very well camouflaged! Ah, and you notice in that foreground there’s a little creeper, and it’s really different leaves from the rest of the tree!

Now that is a rhesus vine, one of the Bushman's grapes. I can just tell that by the shape of the leaves! Now some of the resistors vines can be very important if you’re ever stuck out in the African bush because the bigger species of rhesus are the water vines that you can chop open with your machete and drink crystal water straight out of.

Fortunately, I've got my water bottles; I won't be needing to suck on the tiny resistors vine straw! And in the dark-capped booby, he’s waiting for some insects to appear! But while we wait patiently to see what else comes along here in the magnificent Mara, let's go to Tristan with the most numerous antelope in Africa south of the Sahara!

Well, we've managed to find our most common antelope if not anything else! At least you found these guys, which is a bit as it sort of starts in the day. Then what we had this morning, and I don’t think we even saw an Impala this money—or maybe one or two of them, but not many!

Now the tracks said we have four horses! A young male if it! Like I said, I think it’s Hassan but it could be Tumba, they go off right where these impalas are, just behind me. They cut off in a southeasterly direction as though they’re heading towards Pangolin Trackside. So they’re following this drainage that runs along.

Now, unfortunately, I can’t track much further because of some large great beasts that are inside here! So I’m going to try and see if I can’t get round in some way and see if the tracks don’t come out on the other side! But it looks like they got into the drainage, and I wonder if maybe just maybe these lipids are hearing vehicles after yesterday’s drama, a little bit on the shy side today.

They’re just trying to lay low, and that’s why they keep kind of moving off the road and why Taylor struggled this morning to keep up with that lipid and how it lost her so quickly. So, well, so it could be the reason; the part of themselves don’t look too fazed by what’s going on.

They’re certainly not too worried about the liquid tracks at this stage. Maybe the snippet went through long ago, and it’s not too much of a threat! I can’t see if they were on top of Taylor's tracks or not because there's been two other vehicles that drove there, so it seems they came out, and they feel you fresh but it’s anyone’s guess, given that a number of vehicles have been up and down, they certainly have been driven over at least once, but they look good!

So maybe we’ll be in luck this afternoon; we’ll find one of the cats somewhere close by! I want to just check; there’s that mud wallow or Pangolin check that we often find. Well used to find Chungee and then Husana moving towards. So I’ll only go just quickly check.

They’re obviously Chitra Pants and Dam Street House. Even though Taylor checked them, you never know! Maybe they’re still on route to one of us, and we end up catching up with it at some point. The other thing, of course, is it could be lying right here and watching these impala and we just can’t see it!

Wouldn’t surprise me either if that was the case. There are quite a few males in this herd. As also, even though we might have had a second rut recently, that would be probably coming to an end, starting to get very late in the season for any rutting or mating behavior!

So the males will be far more tolerant of one another and that's why you'll find them moving around in amongst the herd and being quite tolerant of each other. Both of those males are also quite young males, so you would have found that in the beginning and the first rut, right, the beginning of the mating season, those are two individuals that probably wouldn't have gotten a look in just given the fact that they're a little bit smaller than some of the other impalas that we get here, and they might have been pushed.

Right, let's go around and see if we can’t find any sign of the snippet coming out. I have a sneaky suspicion it's just lying somewhere in this drainage section, which is always what we say when it comes to leopards, but it’s true! They do like drainage lines! We saw yesterday even with all of those leopards that we saw, it was all revolving around eroded drainage sections and a lot of them were hidden in that sand.

It was difficult to negotiate sand, so it’s the perfect place for an ambush predator to move around on the banks of those rivers. Hmm, I wonder though, because like I said this morning, I’m just trying to think if I drove here this morning. I did the other road; I didn’t take Pangolin Track, which means that suppose they could have been here this morning and that these tracks are not as precious as one would want them to be.

I don't see anything coming out on the side so far. It’s obvious you know, none of me here tracks coming out! It's been a leopard mission today! There’ve just been tracks everywhere and between Taylor and myself, we’ve covered pretty much every road on Juma, and 90% of them, I think, has had a leopard track on them from last night or today!

So it’s been a tough challenge, that’s for sure! And like I wonder, as I was saying earlier, if they’re not just a little bit shy and they hear the cars coming, and they just slink off into thickets, and that’s why we’re battling to find them a little bit. It could be that that is the case after yesterday’s chaos and the cars moving around, and they just now know that cause brings attention to them.

For a few days, they just want to lie low! It's very possible! Ahava, you say it seems as though the lipids have become ghosts after the last two encounters! So I presume you’re talking about the Tom, Burton, Ganic encounter, and in the lipids last night in cancer. Well, it's not uncommon; you're talking about young lipids! So Tambo, Sangeeta, Husana, these are all individuals that are not dominant, and they’re not big enough to stand up for themselves just yet!

And so confrontation like this is difficult for them; they don’t know what’s going on. They’re confused; they don’t want to get hurt. They’re just trying to find a balance and try to stay low and trying to stay out of the way, and so it’s not uncommon in that situation for them just to try and get out of the way, try not to attract attention to themselves, and try to stay as quiet as possible and move around without being detected.

So it’s not surprised to me in any way if big males or big females are a little bit different. I wouldn't expect them to be too shy about moving around! But certain Ghana... I doubt that he’s being shy after your last night or even after the Tamba situation.

He just roams! So far, that's why we haven't found him, and as for Tandi, well done, she’s elusive at base! So she’s not like a lipid that we find daily and easily; she’s one that we require quite a bit of work, and we tend to bump into at random times in random places, so it’s not uncommon to see young girl If it's behave in this particular fashion!

Hmm, alright! So no checks that I can see; let’s go across to you, Taylor McKown, who used to lecture to them, and I’m sure there’s lots going on me and far more than what I’ve had this afternoon. It’s actually fairly quiet!

Nonsense; the elephants have left! We’re looking at a giant Kingfisher, and I've also just spotted a crocodile; but we’ll get the crocodile in a minute, don’t worry! You might have to reposition but it’s swimming the length of Chitra Dam. But here’s a bird that we don’t get to see every single day!

And while the best spot to actually find the giant Kingfisher is here at Chitwa Dam, we normally see pied as well, and I’m surprised we haven’t seen any Malak heights and, of course, brown and striped and gray-headed, there will be around! But this is the largest one that we get to see.

So all of you who just started your bird lists add it on! Let us know hashtag Safari Live with what number bird this is for you! But it's busy at the moment, not bothered by us sitting across the way. It's got its eyes focused into the water hoping that a little tilapia, or perhaps a barbel, will come to the surface of the water; just deep-fish!

They’ll also eat crab, but I’m sure that there are some freshwater crabs around here. They’ll go for little invertebrates, so lizards—you know! If there’s a baby water monitor or something along the edge, I don’t think that they would say no to a tasty snack like that!

But there are a couple of other birds; I’ll keep an eye on it to see if it does dive down. If you go down to the right, on that little sort of thing, there are lots of water-thick knees; they're just basking in the warm light, that reflection from the water on them!

Me too; close your eyes! That can’t be too good for your eyes! And they’ve got large, beady eyes too, but they’re predominantly nocturnal, so they’re not really too active during the day! I suspect they probably just came out of the shadows now, and just to warm up, and then as soon as dusk falls upon the Earth, they’ll start moving around looking for things to eat!

And that’s not all that’s... yeah, we might as well do all the birds! Just walking past the car is a little pied net wing there! Nice species—not eleven the pied left wing, come on, our tail at wagtail! And then I can also hear lots of commotion from the hippos!

That will try and get there in a moment! They’re very pretty birds; they’ve got striking colors, but I'm not saying a lot around for too long—just a quick sort of hello!

Yeah, and that seems to be all for the birds! Now I can't see any cutthroat finches now. We're in an awkward spot because I can clearly hear and see some ripples of the water in here; lots of special splashing when he goes over there!

Okay, let’s look into this! Lots of little tweets when the Egyptian geese are making a huge racket; you can actually hear it now, that very whistle light call—that's not from a Kingfisher or from the Egyptian goose! That’s the beautiful call of the water pick me—the bird that we had a look at just a moment ago!

There’s quite a few of them! Now we're ruffling their feathers; it's slightly unusual to hear them calling! Oh wow, look at this! So you see I don’t know what’s going on here; there’s a greeting display of some sort with these water thick knees!

Oh yeah, just noticed that now! Very interesting! Nobody gets to spend time with these birds and see if they’re gonna do any game, I guess. So they’re not normally so active during the day, but anything is possible!

But they were sort of calling, and then two approached each other, and they opened up their feathers; they found their tails, arched, and opened their wings! It didn't seem to be very threatening, though, because then they sort of came quite close together, and sort of their beaks clattered together! So that would mean that's not very aggressive; they're quite social birds, though!

They’re gregarious; we do see them in large groups! But I’m sure they’re monogamous, though! Actually, let me check up on the back! That one! You have a look at them! It’s cookie good to thick knees, and you got tea!

I know I heard; she don’t know what their breeding cycle and wet—it’s good water signe! Oh, it was quick and easy! Okay, well, that’s quite cool, so that’s obvious here! Pay over there, so maybe it was a pair that I saw, and they have a nest around there. Most of these birds that live near the water’s edge—particularly the ones that live on the ground—they will make sort of shallow scrapes just like the clovers do, just like the blacksmith lapwings do.

So it’ll be a very sort of basic nest; obviously, you don’t want to draw too much attention to your nest if it is on the ground. You don’t want it to be a beacon like what a hammock up sort of makes! You know they use them for territorial purposes too! It’s a complete opposite; they want to try and keep nests hidden from all sorts of different animals, potentially the Predators, the ones that would be feeding on their eggs or their young chicks!

But they’re quite beautiful birds! Now scenic, you’re wondering how many different types of thick knees do you get? Well, the most common ones we see—wait, you guys, green-backed heron—are you gonna land on an even better perch? Fantastic!

We, we see the spots of thick knees and the water thick knees—the two most common. Don't have, I haven't actually ever seen any other thick knees before! I think that could be the only ones, in fact. They are the only ones that we see in Southern Africa!

Well, that’s a very cool bird! When I saw Dylan, Brent’s brother earlier, and I said, “What you looking for?” and I said I’m gonna look for a green-backed heron today and watch it fish! And here we go! So we asked for the giraffe!

We saw the elephants and now we have got our heron, too! I love these birds! They’re really fun to watch! I think you’ve got to have a lot of patience with them, though, because you can sit for ages and then really not do anything. I love this perch and such! Yet every now and then we see it monster; it’s taken obviously refuge under the tree!

The hippos pulled over, but it likes this spot too! And I was quite close to the water, so it’s not using the technique of actually wading through the water! I've noticed with the green-backed herons, they prefer to sort of sit on a perch and hunt like this! And they’re able to stretch their necks and see if they’ve got something and stabbed the water.

Now, Sherry, a question about herons; and not the one that we’re looking at, but about a grey heron. It’s about ah! The grey herons related to the great blue heron in America? Um, I don’t know; you might find there would be in the same genus, but whether they’re in the same family or not, I’m not 100% sure!

I haven’t actually ever—well, I’ve heard of the great blue herons! I’ve actually seen a great blue heron! I thought I grabbed an ounce! That’s one in the distance, but I haven’t done much research about them! So I’m unsure! But if anybody does know you’re welcome to share, you know, #SafariLive! Let me know— it’ll be interesting to learn or tag me in it, and I can have a little read about it later!

Are you catching little insects? I'm not actually really seeing what it’s going for, but it's not particularly big! It's not every day that you can be successful and catch a large fish; sometimes you have to just opt for the smaller things! You know, catch a hundred smaller things than one large thing! It may be you’re gonna use a bit more energy, but as long as you get food in your belly at the end of the day, that is the most important thing, really!

I love that stance, though; legs are sort of spread wide open! And I think that’s a good tactic to have, holding on nice and tight! So that you don’t lose your balance, obviously! If you had your feet right next to each other, you would have very limited movement!

I suppose it's exactly how a sportsman—a hockey player, for example—you never stand with your feet together! And I don't think rugby players do the same or soccer players! You're always ready to run into a gap, or, well, you know, to run after a ball of some sort!

What are you catching? What do you think it is? Said little insects on the surface of the water! So obviously going for the same sorts of things that the blacksmith lapwing and the three-banded clever would be going for! Just these little insects!

Whatever they are on the water; some of them may even be little grasshoppers! But of course, if a little fish swims by, and I think that's what this heron is hoping swims by and tries to go for one of those insects on the surface of the water, it’s going to go for the fish instead!

I mean with these smaller species of herons, they’re quite shy, but I think this one has seen enough vehicles and also heard a lot of noise around the lodges, which is quite cool! So it’s actually become quite relaxed! But it’s not uncommon for these smaller species of herons to actually sort of go fishing—and not, I mean not just by sitting on a stick like this and using the weight technique, but by actually…

It’s a fantastic video where there’s a heron putting bread out trying to do the fishing! And I think that's so funny and so fantastic they’re able to do something like that! But I think it would be very rewarding, of course if this one were to catch a fish for us! We didn’t see the giant Kingfisher catch anything, I think.

We’re being patient enough, so it would, of course, be nice if that bird would make a lucky strike! See now I don’t want to go anywhere, because I have a feeling it’s hit the surface of the water a few times and not come up with any tumors or not too much!

Well, maybe if we wait, we will catch something! Now, you better, you were wondering how often do green-backed herons lay eggs—shall we have a look? Because I'm not sure on that one, so I don’t want to tell you stories! Let’s see.

Breeding… let’s see how often! Okay, so they’re solitary nesters; firstly, they’re monogamous! Hmm, the female builds nests, this is what I’m just reading, because I’m 100% sure about all the—obviously, the breeding habits of the 850-odd bird species that we get here.

Hmm, it’s good! How often? I’m sure it’s only once a year that they would lay eggs—that see what time of the year! They've definitely got that normally! Now in fact, September, October, November, actually right through till June. But peak seems to be sort of around November, December time!

And they build their nests fairly quickly, so they won’t need too much time! Yeah, the incubation period is very, very similar to most of the birds such as between 21 and 27 days! That’s actually quite typical for a lot of birds, Archer! So, Sherry, and I haven’t quite confidence, so that doesn’t really say if they lay eggs every year, but with such a short period, I’d say at least once a year!

And then it's quite cool! I’d like to find the green-backed heron, this! Perhaps we’ll have to start going round and round the dam, searching very carefully! But I also would like to find a water-thickness because that’s the nest I haven’t found!

You know, Laurie's wondering if herons nest on the ground or in trees? Well, the grey heron and the black-headed heron; they make these beautiful platform nests, and so they nest typically up in trees! There’s another one—there’s another green back heron, and you see that’s why it's focused? It’s drawn, and you hear that?

That was from the other heron, and it’s actually sitting in the sun! That’s coming to the edge, cific on the edge of the island! So Sherry, I’ll get your question now! Bless you!

If you go, yeah, there we go! That’s sitting just! Go up a little bit higher! No, straight up! Omni's up! You can see it actually fluttering in the light, if you zoom in! There we go! So there’s another one! This must be a pair then, the two of them!

And that’s very cool, just in the sunlight! I wonder if it’s going to go and join its partner on…! [Music] Manky, actually! Maybe we're gonna find a nest!

Sherry, here you go, because they do the green right herons behind; he also makes their nests in trees, etc. They won’t be obviously as massive as that of the, the grey heron and the black-headed heron; and they’re much larger. You’re just watching it now! Just having a cream!

But again, they’ll make just a smaller version of a platform nest! I’m just thinking if I wanted to have a look here because I thought maybe they’re gonna need us to a nest! We have seen a lot of the other birds starting to prepare to lay eggs and seem to have a lot of courtship displays, so it wouldn’t surprise me if there are a few!

When the conditions are good and the weather is warm to lay out your eggs a little bit earlier! Let's see where you're going to go! You’re going to dive down, into the thicket! There’ll be a good spot! Lots of sort of horizontal branches, and that’s what you need when you want to make a platform nest!

I don’t think we’ve seen or I have not seen two of the green-back herons together, so that’s nice to know they do have a mate and they’re around! Yeah, and they’ve moved to the island now! They used to live in the most eastern corner of the dam, and we need to see them often, and now they’ve changed spots!

That's the fishing down that end! Got over bad, all! They’re just the same sustainable fisherman! And they don’t want to exhaust all their resources in one go, and they move on, and they’ll come back there in a few weeks!

Done, oh I’d like to think that! So we’ll go with that then! Now, the wind again has changed direction; it’s ruffling this bird’s feathers! Now, still hasn’t caught anything big! Even though we’re looking at that other one up in the tree, I was having a closer look down below, but no, no luck!

There are lots of, oh, we've got our friend again! The blacksmith laughs when chasing all the water-thick knees around! What is wrong with you? Just leave them! You know what that reminds me of?

The way that they sort of dropped their head down and arched their back. It’s a sort of, I don’t know what you would call them, but I’m not a very nice person in an alley! You know, putting throwing a hood over its head and walking down as if it were going to rob you! They’re very intimidating!

No, carry! You're wondering if the herons are protected species in South Africa like they are in America? Yes, there are some of the herons; I'm not sure if it's all of the herons, but I know the grey heron if I’m not mistaken, and the black-headed heron— although protected down in the Eastern Cape!

I’m not sure if it's for all the areas! I haven’t actually done too much research about that! But a lot of the bird species aren’t— even Hardy divers is actually a protected species! And— and you would think, my goodness! They’re in abundance and they are labeled as one of the most annoying Birds in South Africa! But they are indeed protected!

If you shoot one of them, you get a huge fine! So I’m sure that the herons would be, especially, we have so many wetland areas around in South Africa, and we know that herons love frequenting those spots, and so I would imagine so that they unfortunately would!

I think the end of threat from sort of the pocket us as humans—our population—wanting just to destroy everything! But a very nice bird! And while speaking of the Hardy Ibis, we’ve actually got one here, so we might as well show you just feeding in front of the car! We’ll watch that here and see if it catches something delicious for us!

But there’s just one lonely Hardy doll—where’s your friends? That also, again, just like the water-thick knees—normally you’ll see them in large flocks and they’ll be around together, but not really bothered! I don’t know if this Hardy doll would stand for that blacksmith lapwing chasing it around!

But they are brave bald birds! Those leopards! I think they would chase something much larger than it! There's a good spot to probe; you can see it’s sort of hanging around a sort of stump of some sort, and it looks like it’s fairly rotten!

So I think probing around there, I think you’ll get a lot of— especially boring beetles, and maybe some termites and ants and living around that bit of wood, then that’s a good spot! Circulating all the way around, making sure!

Even growing and done in the middle now! No, couldn't stick its beak through the wood, so it’s moving away now! Very interesting to watch these birds! So we sit at we attend a dam and we see the Hardy does, they’re wading through the water, sort of utilizing the area that the African sacred Ibis is with the black and white Hardy does, essentially!

And we don’t see them waiting here at Chitwa! I haven’t seen that behavior here quite amazing how it sits area-specific! I know you see it on the Pete’s pond camera as well, the dam cam in Botswana! That happens there too!

You see those Hardy does, but isn’t how heron ganas move? Dorphner, there’s the hippos again! They’re just relaxing a little bit, not really getting up too much just yet! I think it’s still a little bit early for them to be splashing about now!

I’ve lost our friend; the crocodile! I don't know where it swam to! I thought it was gonna maybe come up to the island and