Double the Lion Prides – Day 96 | Safari Live

We're down to sunny and warm South Africa, where a few of my friends are stars in the afternoon drive. I believe Mr. Scottie Dyson is already on drive and is ready to say good afternoon, driving in the Maasai Mara. He must be very, very excited. My name's Scott and I'm teamed up with Davi on camera. As you can see, we've got lucky and managed to relocate a portion of the Inca home, a pride of lions. Tristan did find them in the same spot this morning and well done to him for finding them because of very, very thick and tricky spots. He did a great job this morning.

It's not the entire pride. We've noticed that over at least the last week or so, we've been seeing them quite a bit again. There's three lionesses that are spending time away from the rest of the pride. Here it's built up of two adults, six sub-adults, and one tiny youngster—so nine lions in total are snoozing here. I did go out last night with some of the staff after dinner, and we managed to find actually both different sets of the pride. They were quite far from one another, but interestingly this portion definitely looked a bit hungrier than they do now. I'm guessing they may have had a small snack during the night.

I wonder what they would have caught, but their bellies do seem like they've at least got something in them. Late last night, they were looking very, very hungry when we found them at the puffles. Of course, oh there's a good example over there. Most of the individuals that we've been looking at now are the youngsters, the sub-adults, which there are six of them. I think it's just one boy and five girls. For me, it's just so incredible to see how much bigger this pride is compared to when I last left here.

It's definitely going to be a force to be reckoned with once these five young ladies come of age and also start having their own cubs. So exciting prospects for the future! Very soon, we could have a mega pride waltzing around Juma. You're wondering whether or not the lions down here in Juma may be slightly darker than the ones up in the Mara. I don't think so, but what you may find is that all the different colors, contrasts, and textures of the Mara create a kind of different canvas on which we see the lions that may appear a little bit more pale than the ones here.

But I certainly haven't noticed the ones here being any darker. But you have finer attention to detail, and maybe that's just the problem. Maybe I just haven't been paying enough attention, but I haven't really noticed major differences in color in general between lions. The dogs, actually, are not easy to see from where we are. But some of mom's milk—and I really hope that this cub's health takes a turn for the better—has been conditioned and got a little bit of a cough at the moment, or at least in the last few days that we've been seeing it.

If the pride continues to be successful, making lots of kills, then it'll definitely improve the chances of this cub getting rid of its illnesses. We're not entirely sure what could be wrong with it. It could have feline TB. A lot of lions in the Kruger National Park do have this wonderful stuff. Well, we're going to stay put with this pride in the hope that they make it up and take us for a walk. Who knows? Maybe something will stumble into them in this very thick area, and then they could get lucky with a meal coming to them. In the meantime, we're going to stay put and send you across to Noel to let you know what her plans are for the afternoon.

Afternoon, everyone! We have a very lovely overcast and cloudy day, which is keeping everything nice and cool. I am Noel, and on camera I would like to welcome back pilot Fergus. Hello, pilot Ferg! He's saluting. Actually, we're in a car; he was supposed to salute like this! Amazingly, we have a giraffe! Oh, and then of course they run away. I got so excited! We framed this beautiful shot, and then of course they moved. But we have giraffe! We don't get to see a lot of giraffe here, and they move around. I’ve counted three or four already but we've just got to this one that we can see nicely here.

So this is the southern giraffe. There’s the big one that we had framed up, and then she decided to meander off. I'm different from the giraffe you'll see up there in the Mara. There's Masai giraffe up there, and we have a couple of youngsters and this big beautiful female. There was another female that's probably lurking around the corner, so we have a journey, or a tower, or a kaleidoscope of giraffe, whichever collective noun you prefer.

Now, something I love about giraffe very much is their long, long lashes and also their long tongues, which you just saw her poking hers out there. Their tongue is probably over 20 centimeters long—was one I heard—and then up to 40 centimeters is another one that I've read. It's a sort of bluish-black color. I've always been told it so that it doesn't get sunburned. And then those long eyelashes help keep things away from their eyes when they're busy feeding.

I think I may just want to pull up a little bit so we can watch our journey progress on. We're also going to be able to see these beautiful storm clouds that we have forming in the back. So someone's getting rain! It's not us, but I do hope that it will be us at some point today. I believe there's rain forecasted for the whole week, and I'm hoping we get 300 mills—that will be my hope.

Tom, really good question: could those lions, the Inca Houmas, that are over there with Scotty D, hunt giraffe? Most definitely, Tom! They would love a big meal like giraffe! Those females would be very capable of taking down a giraffe of that size. Now, that female that's there on the right-hand side, she sort of walked into this tree, and that's helping her spot things that she can't reach. It also helps take some ticks off.

Beautiful, there we've got a lovely oxpecker on her neck, also helping to take ticks off, as many of you know. But many of you may not know, oxpeckers' main diet is blood, and so they land on prey species—giraffe, impala, rhino, buffalo, zebra—and take those ticks off. But if there's a wound on that animal, they'll also keep the wound open to keep the blood flowing.

I'm really loving that slate-grey sky and the colors of this giraffe in the background. It's making me happy along with the green foliage mixed in. Now, every giraffe, every subspecies of giraffe has a unique coat pattern. Then every individual within the species has an individual pattern like a fingerprint. So the females and the young will live in a herd, and then the males will sometimes be in little bachelor groups, little loose associative herds, and sometimes on their own.

Very similar to many other herd species—so for elephants, for instance, you’ll get females all together and then the males occasionally will separate. The adult males will sometimes be on their own, and then sometimes in little groups. Now, the females are also known to be in what's known as a loose associative herd, meaning they're not always very close together like you see now. Sometimes they’re very spread out, so if you see one female, there are probably more that you just aren't in the immediate vicinity but probably within a hundred meters of each other.

Their communications are on frequencies that we can't necessarily hear, so their distress call is a sound that’s very light. If they're being eaten by something like the Inca pride, they do make a sort of throttling noise when that happens. But the rest of the communications are on very low frequency. For a very long time, the assumption was that giraffes were mute. They are in fact not mute; it's just something that our ears do not register and pick up.

I would be interested to know if elephants can register giraffe communications because elephants have much more sensitive vocal abilities and are very receptive to things like the thunder and lightning that’s probably happening on the back end of that storm. Elephants here can recognize that, can feel that, can hear that. Very good question! Wow, we're looking at that beautiful landscape. I'm going to see if in my book I have any examples to show you.

Basically, the Masai giraffe pattern looks like a Canadian maple leaf like on the Canadian flag, and for ours we have more of this block look. There are other species that you'll find up in that area; you get reticulated giraffe. But the main giraffe species is Masai giraffe. Okay, I can show you a Thornicroft, which they've actually regulated as not a subspecies anymore. They've recently done a lot of DNA testing; that's changed how many subspecies around and how many species are around.

But here's our southern giraffe. Now, notice that the pattern comes most of the way down the legs, and then it's these sort of blocks, but they're blotchy blocks. It's not like a reticulated giraffe that are very, very square abstract blocks, as you will. And then the Thornicroft over here, the pattern stops this way, they're shorter and the pattern is even more mixed media inside of there. And if you can, I don't know if you can zoom in on this little one that's at the tip of my fingertip there. Oh, sorry! I'm sorry for my hand; that almost looks like the maple leaf you'd see on Masai giraffe.

So when I started guiding, they said that there was one species of giraffe and nine subspecies. Now they're saying that there are three species of giraffe and six subspecies, and they're still doing a little bit more research on that. Now I'm going to head up, I'm not going to head up... I'm actually going to stay here in Juma, but I'm going to send you all back to the Masai Mara to Steve.

Steve, I hope you're having an amazing time up there in Kenya! We miss you! Give Ralph a hug for me and Tayla and Jamie and everybody and say hi to Meg’s and good faith and everybody that's that side. I hope you have something interesting to show everybody whilst you're up there.

Thanks, Noel! I miss you guys too! And when I got you, I gave everybody a hug anyway. So I think there's already a close-knit sort of team going. But when I get back, I'll be sure to give more hugs again. What we do have here... What is a trip to the Mara River, folks, without spotting a hippopotamus? We have a pot of them here in the river, and we just missed one doing its ablutions as it was defecating. It's just off to the right there by the rocks.

It might pop up again, but it’s a very important ecological thing in the rivers here. There he goes—ears of the back, there's the hippo! They feed on grass; they take their grass material and bring most of it back down to the river, and a lot of it gets defecated in the river. Now what that does is it produces, I mean it’s grass, so it’s very similar digested to that of the vereto as well as the elephant, apart from the fact that elephants have bark and twigs and stuff in it.

That grass material, just semi-digested, it's fermenting—gets positive into the little dam, or the river, should I say—and that is a huge, huge proponent of the diet for the fish. Lots of—what's the word—vegetarian fish! I'm not getting my words right right now at the Mara River, but there's lots of fish that eat vegetation and eat all sorts of materials in the river, from algae to plant material to hippo dung. And so then that provides food for your herons, for the fish eagles, for the crocodile.

Mainly what most of the food crocodiles feed on here is in fact fish. We don't have zebra and wildebeest crossing by the thousand every day. They only cross at a certain time of the year, and it is not their prime source of food. But they feed on fish. Most places else in the country where we find crocodile, they don't feed on too much meat, but mainly fish. Having hippos in the pool provides the organic material, which feeds the fish, which then feeds a huge amount of trophic animals above them.

So very, very important! If any of you've ever been to the Okavango Delta or have seen the Okavango Delta, the entire delta itself is managed and kept open by hippo movement. They make these very big pathways through, and they keep the stream moving, keeping the sediment from depositing. Anyway, that allows movements of warts, and that allows the delta to perpetuate.

I reckon a place like the delta would be what it is because of animals like hippo. What is this hippo doing? It's moving with some intention towards the left. I'm not sure if it was a male or if he's just moving. There was another hippo in front of him there, or her—running—if he was moving across to do a little bit of a bit of a barge, which often happens in pods of hippo that do sort of assign themselves little territories.

There's the other one—assign themselves some territory—and you don't see hippos doing too much, and when they are doing something, it's got something to do with territory or reproduction or feeding. Other than that, they're pretty docile individuals. The one on the left looks like a female. Okay, that's what I was talking about—you see with the tail. It's busy defecating there; that's the vegetation splattering around in the river.

Take chaos! A question: do hippos use infrasound? I don't think so. I mean, I think there are animals that use infrasound—elephants, bats use a form of sonar, echolocation; dolphins use sonar! But I don't think hippos have the ability. I mean, they've got the reason why they have been put in the family of whales now, as because they communicate out loud. They're able to. Anyway, but that's through those large grunts and stuff.

I don't think there's any sort of low-frequency communication that hippos are using. But I could be wrong; I've just never heard of anything like that before. But they're definitely very loud grunts and snorts that they do. They spend most of the time in the water, and as I said, same families—hippos and whales—they give birth in water, they mate in water, they suckle in the water, they're communicating in water, and they spend most of their time in water, so why not call them a whale? And they're also vegetarians, of course.

It's definitely something going on between these two. I wonder if that one in the back is actually a young male. Well maybe these are two territorial bulls that have small little claims to this pond with very invisible lines that we are unaware of. It's often the case; the territorial boundaries are things we cannot perceive. A lot to do with smell and maybe some in this case here of some fecal content.

Here we go! It doesn't look like a very big hippo by those teeth—there might just be some youngsters! If you get one on the left, it doesn't look very big. So we're here with this dangerous animal that is responsible for many human deaths in the world, and we're going to be going down to South Africa to a good friend of mine who's got another very dangerous animal—well, not that dangerous, but rather dangerous.

It sounds like you're having a good time at the Mara River with Stephen and the hippos. We've just been sitting here patiently, kind of planning our attack for the afternoon, and we think it's probably in our best interest to head off for about 45 minutes to an hour or so. These guys are all looking quite comatose for the time being. So we'll probably do a bit of snooping about, see if we can't find any sign of Tandi, Lepidus, and a young cub we all desperately are trying to work out where they are.

So we'll do a kind of loop around the general area and see if we can't find any sign and come back here a little bit later once these guys seem to wake up—hopefully wake up a little bit later on! Like I said, I'm fairly convinced that they did catch something last night, and I was surprised that they were found in this area because from where we saw them at Buffalo Quarters last night, it’s a kilometer—half a mile from there to here.

I would have been surprised that they've moved such a short distance considering they were all quite hungry when we saw them. So I think they had a small snack—maybe an inyala or an impala or something that would have gotten at least something into all their bellies. There are, of course, quite a few lions here; that's why it's not too easy to notice that they've had a snack, but I'm confident they have.

Seeing as though they're not absolutely starving, I don't think they're going to get up anytime soon. Afternoon, it's by far the coolest afternoon we've had in quite some time, and I'm hoping this cool weather brings us a little bit of rain later on. We are desperate for some rain!

Kathy, you'd like to know if these youngsters are doing any hunting with the adults yet? Not that I'm aware of. They could well be getting to that kind of stage of their lives where they could contribute to the hunts, but I'm guessing they're not kind of fully involved for the time being. They could probably look at the outskirts and background and contribute if and when some of the fleeing animals run into them.

That's very often the case with lions because there are multiple members in the pride. When they ambush their prey and sometimes get lucky, I remember sitting with a pride of lions very similar to exactly what we're experiencing here. They were lying up in very thick bush. There was a similar amount of lions, and it was also just a couple of adult lionesses and quite a few youngsters just like we're seeing here.

Although those youngsters were considerably younger than these guys, there were probably only a year old. These guys, I'm guessing, are closer to two years of age now. I'm not actually sure how old they are, so if any of you could help us with that info, I'd really appreciate that.

What happened was the lionesses got up and started stalking—we weren't sure what, because it was very thick vegetation like this. We heard the ambush kind of take place, we heard hooves and bushes breaking; and all of a sudden, an impala came straight into all of the one-year-old cubs. They instinctively latched onto the impala and could subdue it long enough for the adults to return and dispatch it.

I guess that's an example of even young cubs may not have the skills required but could sometimes have some luck with helping the pride do some hunting. We've said, "Sure, haven't been lucky enough to see them hunting." Mr. Q-tip, you'd like to know how many lions are in this pride? Well, in this portion of the pride that we’re looking at now, there's one tiny youngster who's here.

We can see touching over there, I think it’s nursing? No, it's not—it's just sleeping. So there’s—that's the smallest one—and then it's got six slightly older cousins, which comprise of, I think it's five young girls and one young boy. Then there are two adult lionesses. So there's nine in total here, but there are also three adult lionesses that are fragmented from the pride that we saw not too far from here actually last night.

But we're not too sure where they ended up in the early hours of this morning, so in total there are twelve lions in the Inca home pride, but only four of which are adults. Sorry, five are adults—my abacus is a bit rusty, clearly. I'm still astounded at how Tristan found these guys in here this morning; he did an incredibly good job!

Well done to him for pulling that off, because it really is a tricky area. Wonderful stuff! Well, it's not just lions down here in the Sabi Sands of South Africa; it sounds like Jamie has got lucky up in the Mara. Lions in the Sabi Sands are lions in the Mara, and what else are Sundays for but for relaxing, lying back, and cat napping?

In this particular case, a cat napping on a very freshly dug pile of dirt—not why I am late this afternoon! I am late this afternoon because I had many problems, and that is not a personal confession; I literally had many problems to do with vehicles and broadcasting. But we’re back up, we're out and about, and we are with the Ooh-la-la-la pride—all fourteen of them that I've been able to count now.

But that doesn't mean that they're not present and accounted for. Just a quick introduction for those of you that have perhaps just discovered this live stream: my name is Jamie, and here this afternoon Manu is on camera with me for the first time in ages! Manu, it really has been a while!

I don't forget because this is a live safari; #SafariLive is how you can get hold of us to ask your burning questions on lions and other creatures of the African wilderness and other aspects of the African wilderness. I'm waiting patiently because every time that I have come to the spot, the nyala-all-alors have just been lying doing nothing.

But then every time that Wolf has come to the spot, he has had them climbing trees and doing acrobatics and hula hooping and balancing balls on their noses! I'm hoping that as it gets a little bit cooler, that's what they have in store for us this afternoon.

And just in case you're wondering about the freshly dug dirt, let me just mention it now. This is what's known as a borrow pit. You'll see that there are lots and lots of places where the earth has clearly been excavated. Lions don't have a feel necessarily for posing or picture-picking the most picturesque place to be; they go where it's comfortable, and this is very comfortable for them.

It has been artificially dug. It is what's known as a borrow pit for the roads, so for the repair and maintenance of the roads, dirt gets dug up, and that's where all the all-allors have decided to settle. You can imagine the dirt's still nice and damp, so on a hot Sunday afternoon when the sun is blazing down, it’s probably really comfortable for them.

It's all soft; it's not compact, unlike it is in other places, and that’s a really good snuggle position. It's all loose and comfy and nice and cool. You will notice at some point or another that there are other vehicles in the sighting. The Ooh-la-la-la are an extremely popular lion pride; they have been so reliable over the last few days.

This morning when we caught up with them on the sunrise safari briefly, they were being chased by the resident herd of what we termed Duggar boys—old buffalo bulls—and one random buffalo cow. Actually, they were chasing the lions round, and there was no real threat to the lions. The cubs are now all large enough to be able to escape and fend for themselves and have a little bit of common sense now.

They immediately snuck away and went to lie in the shade far enough that the buffalo couldn’t do anything about it. Just to taunt them and keep them on edge a little bit. Mary, you say that those lions look exactly how you feel! They look exactly how I feel as well, Mary.

After our series of complications this afternoon, that sense of relief that all is now working well. That's how I'm feeling! I'm almost at the point—if they weren't actually wild lions—that I'd be tempted to go and join them. Lovely to hear Scarlett's name again. Now, Scarlett's wondering about a question that we answered recently, actually, and something that we've discussed.

It might be worthwhile getting the other guides' opinions as well. Now Scarlett's wondering what the largest lion pride is that we've ever seen. No, I've never seen the famous super pride, and I've lived around the Lebombo Mountains in the Kruger Park.

Apparently, at one point, there were over 40 members strong, but they are very seldom seen all together. The largest pride that I have seen has been over 20. I never managed to successfully do a head count, but around about 20 to 25 lions possibly there have been times in my life where I've seen even more lions, but I can't think of any at this time.

I mean, 17 lions is quite a large pride; it's a relatively large pride. 13 of them are cubs, so there are no guarantees until they reach their first year, at which point their chances of survival increase dramatically. These cubs still have a long way to go; they're definitely out of the most risky time of their lives though. They're no longer small and delicate and hiding away, and their mothers don’t have to leave them hidden in potentially dangerous places.

They don’t look as though they’re feeling under threat at all. They couldn't look more comfortable if they tried! Now, I have to tell you that this morning, as Steve was in his absolute element when it came to the birds that we were seeing on his first drive off the Mara, it sounds like he is continuing his birding streak, and we are back with some beautiful birds! One of them is the sandpiper.

I'm not sure which one—apologies for leaving my app at home today! The other one is a snipe, but folks look how beautiful they are in contrast! What I really wanted to look at is look at the feeding depth that the snipe is able to achieve with that beak! Look how far into the mud it can probe—oh, look at that, a little bit of a dance! We’ll have the wag of the tail! Look at how much further it can dig its beak into the mud than the sandpiper can do.

I think it's a green sandpiper, but I'm not sure. Something spooked them—very, very beautiful! It’s nice to be able to see them in the open like this, and what I love about the birds and their beaks is the different feeding that they have—and whenever you look at a bird, you can often find five, ten, fifteen different types of species in and around an area, and they’re not competing because of the length of their legs or the length of their beak or the shape of the beak.

So, it enables them to compete for different food. The soonest birds are too similar, they compete with each other and displace each other. It's not often you find animals that will compete without displacing, and that’s why you find large predators and medium-sized predators. You don't find two species of lion anymore when you find one because the niche would only fit for one of that type.

So that’s what happens in birds. Whenever you see the length and the beak, it's very interesting. Yes, natural! The snipe has got beautiful coloring, and I believe that's a painted snipe. What's interesting about it is that when we look in the bird kingdom, normally in the bird kingdom, what do we see? We see that the female is more attractive than the male!

But when it comes to snaps, that is the way they roll. I just love how they are competing at various similar areas on the mudflats there for any sort of insects in the mud. The longer beak—you can see the sandpiper, the leaf—is just picking whatever it can off the surface. It's not really allowing it too much feeding depth, but then the legs are a bit longer, so it can probably wade more than the snipe could do.

A snipe has given up doing its activity—they call it needling, when they stick that beak in quite deep. You see it with hoopoes—the ground hoopoes—they walk around there; they’re not a normal common hoopoe—they’re jabbing their beak in, looking for any form of insects on the floor. Obviously, the snipe's beak is very straight.

And we're watching it go right up to its nasal passages, or up to the end of the beak in the mud. That's a really nice depth and also enables them to preen a little bit easier, as you can see. The long beak helps you just scratch further back!

As some birds fly by, I don’t know what that was! The picture and if you saw that, but the snipe got a bit of a fright! This is for me the first time I've seen a snipe just out in the open, just sort of hanging around! Normally they’re sort of concealed in quite bushy undergrowth on the side of the dam or river; they don't often spend too much time just out in the open.

So it's nice to be able to see them doing that! Very, very special! If we pan to the left, something that is what we first saw—you can see that wonderful tail over there—a little pan of water on the side of this river, we have got a Nile crocodile! Ladies and gentlemen, that is just taking life extremely easy. Initially thought it was a piece of a crocodile, but if you pan left, you will see that the rest of the body is kind of submerged with just the head and the nose sticking out.

That’s a really big crocodile; it's very hard to see because it’s quite submerged, and the hippo thought that was quite funny! Yes! I don't think that’s infrasound at all! That's just very loud, interesting behavior. I don't know what they're saying; I'd love to know what hippos think when they're watching us.

You can see that little pod of hippos, little family units. The water is a lot deeper here—we're just at the base of some rapids, and it seems like there's a little bit more water accumulated here. So a little bit more suitable habitat for a bull. And so, Bianca, hippos do make very cool sounds, and I wish I knew what they were saying, but it’s quite funny, and it’s quite interesting.

So what I was saying is that the hippos would have this small demarcated territory of one maybe two bulls. And having the water, the water is the territory—the water is the resource the females need to submerge themselves in! A female can get a really nice perennial pool that is wet all year round and can keep quite a number of females, which is a prime location.

Other areas that might dry up aren't ideal, and your weaker bulls would look after those areas, and then they don't obviously attract as many females. The females want access to food! On our way down to this crossing, there were huge amounts of hippo paths going in and out because they travel quite large distances every night to feed.

Or depending on how much food there is, but they've been known to do round trips of 60 kilometers—so that's just under 30 miles—in the source of searching for food in one evening before coming back to these shallows to keep themselves nice and cool from the hot sun.

Having these territories and these puddles is very, very important for the hippos' survival. Wonderful crocodile! They're a lot smaller than the other one. So can you come again with that, Faith? I didn't get your message. Okay, copied! So, beautiful crocodile! But we are going to be leaving this area shortly and navigating further down the stream.

While we do so, we're going to be going all the way back to South Africa to my good friend Noelle and see what she has for you. Whoa! All right, we’re over here in the big beautiful open areas that are just on the southern side of Chitwa Chitwa Lodge, and we have some impala males that are busy fighting!

I just want to come around the corner a little bit so we can get as unobstructed of view as possible so that we can watch that! Here we go! How's that, Ferg? Is that okay? Very good size males, two decent size males! I don’t think that they’re fighting to the death at the moment. I think it's more of testosterone-filled and lots of ladies around. Here they come again.

One of the reasons why I say I don't think it's to the death is because one keeps running away now. It's hard because we've got this tree in the way, so I kind of want to move forward, but I don't because I don't want to miss any of the action! Now, if this was rutting season, you would be seeing a much heavier smack—you would hear it a little bit more with their horns, and you would also see them really going at it! Because there we go, let’s see if we can hear again side there.

I hope you can hear this! It’s like if you take two sticks and hit them together! So elephant tusks hitting each other sound like two big broomsticks hitting each other, and then what this sounds like is two thin sticks that are very rigid. When you smack them together, that’s what it sounds like! Very cool!

So if this was rutting season, they would be trying to kill each other to a point, but they also, for dominance over these females, right now they’re just exercising and getting themselves ready for rutting season that will happen in, what month are we? Now, we’re almost in February! So in the next few months, and of course, the grin behind the tree—let me just roll forward.

You're saying it seems as if the Royal Rumble’s on today! I like that comment! That's a really great comment; I enjoyed that one! Eeek! There—this is a little bit of a better view now! I also just heard now a little bit of thunder rolling in the distance, which is making me happy. However, that being said, I feel like the clouds are not coming towards us. I feel like they’re going more towards Kruger and north to Thorny Bush and Timbavati. But hopefully tomorrow!

I also want you guys to know, here are the males here—if we go to the left, a lot of the females are over there, not paying any attention! They really don't care that these two males are fighting! So these males are not just fighting to condition themselves, but it's also for the ladies, saying, "Look at me! Look at me!"

They don’t care, and there are a couple of other males that are in there like, "Yeah, yeah, you two go at it!" A lot of beautiful wind and a few bird calls that are popping through, but the wind keeps carrying them away!

All right! So now, Impala are herd animals, similar to those giraffes that we saw earlier, and you'll get females in herds with lots of females and youngsters. And then you'll get bachelor herds of males. The collective noun for impala is a rank of impala, and then this time of year, you get lots of mixed herds—males mixed in with the females.

As we get closer to rutting season, you will start to see the defined bachelor herds and defined breeding herds. The breeding herds will have one male attached to him, but usually that only lasts for a few minutes during the middle of rutting season because all they do is fight and mate. They don't eat, they don't sleep. They just carry on!

We've got a vehicle that will be passing by us shortly, so sorry about the noise! Scarlet, you'd like to know if I've ever seen an impala injured while fighting. I have, Scarlet! There was a male impala on one of the properties I used to work at whose horn grew funny. It grew out sideways, and he used to take that horn and shove it into the rib cages and sides of the other male impalas and killed them!

So yeah, I have! I’ve seen that! This is great footage—notice how they look at each other when they're getting in there. They're also trying to sort of one-up each other, as well as not get their horns stuck.

But something like a kudu, that's got really, really curly horns, does more posturing. So more of a sort of chest-puffy, "Now look at me! I'm so big!" as opposed to actually trying to hit with the horns because they can get stuck. And if those curly horns get stuck, then they can die like that. I have never found impala horns stuck together, but I have seen males fighting like this.

And once they are like that, I had a leopard come and kill them, and then the one that the leopard killed—the horns got stuck into the other one, and the other one couldn't get away. She also killed that one as well! Amazingly enough! I really aren't giving you all a very good show now. These two males are in very good nick.

I know we’ve all been worried about the lack of rain—the side, and myself, and Scot, and Tristan, and I'm sure everyone else as well has been chatting about it quite a bit. Something that’s important to remember about impalas is they are mixed feeders. Impala eat leaves and grass, and right now the conditions are really only affecting the grass instead of the trees.

And right now, where we are in Chitwa, they had a lot more rain during that big storm than we did—we just got a little sprinkling, and they got some proper rain! All right, these two seem to be taking a little bit of a break! And as I say that, of course, here they go again!

But Scott has a tiny little mammal that he would like to show you, so I think let’s head on over to him! Thanks, Noel! We've got a wonderful scene here. This is an animal that we very, very seldom see other than a fleeting glimpse. They're usually quite shy, but the slender mongoose has got a good reason why it's hanging around here.

We got alerted to its presence by some starlings, of which you can hear them all alarming now. That's them showing their disapproval of the slender mongoose. As you can see, there's a dead scrub hare, and we can only guess that the slender mongoose has been feeding on the scrub hare.

It looks like it's hardly been fed on. It looks like it's almost very fresh. I haven't had a good look at it yet! Reed literally stopped the vehicle as soon as we saw both the scrub hare and the slender mongoose. It's keeping its distance, and the mongoose—there it goes!

It's a black mamba that killed the scrub hare! And the black mamba is going up the tree, and the mongoose is attacking it! This is absolutely ridiculous! Up above, Davey! There we go! Look at this! A ginormous black mamba! And that explains exactly why the scrub hare looks quite fresh!

This mamba would have just killed it, and I'm guessing the slender mongoose responded to the scene because of the alarm calls from the birds! Oh, my shattered nerves! I think we should definitely welcome on board as many other people as we can see this fascinating scene! I saw the mongoose running, and then I just saw it trying to bite something, and it actually tried to bite the tail of this black mamba!

I thought it was trying to make another kill at first, and then I saw this almighty serpent start slithering about. Good grief! Now, I was telling Dave as we approached the sighting, please could it be a big snake? Please could it not just be a slender mongoose?

Have a look at the slender mongoose down there, Dave, directly below! It's on the dead stump! It just jumped down, but it was standing kind of looking up at the black mamba! Isn't this a wonderful, wonderful kind of David-and-Goliath display here? The slender mongoose looks like it's trying to work its way higher up this tree.

I'm going to reposition ever so slightly! Hello, everyone who has just joined us on this unscheduled safari broadcast! As you can see, there is a snake up in that tree, and it is a black mamba! One of the most highly venomous snakes that we see in Africa!

My name's Scott, and it's great to have you on board with us. Let’s take a closer look at the snake as I explain to you what exactly is going on here, now! We were driving along peacefully—it’s a cool, cloudy afternoon—and hoping to find something interesting when we've heard some birds alarm calling.

It was mainly the starlings that clearly were letting us know that they weren’t happy about something, so we drove into this area. It looks like the snakes trying to move—I just want to—it's quite tricky! There's another predator on the scene. Let’s show you the slender mongoose quickly!

David is just at kind of 9 o'clock there, and this was the first predator we actually saw—this tiny little slender mongoose. I thought, "Oh well, as per normal, there's no sign of any snakes, but just two slender mongooses."

Then we spotted something else! A dead scrub hare! It looked quite fresh to us, but I wasn't too sure exactly what was going on. It looks like the slender mongoose was actually wanting to steal it from the snake! Can you actually believe what’s happening here?

So this tiny little scrub hare would have been caught by the snake, and this mongoose is trying to steal it. Now we need to keep a close eye on quite a few moving parts! Now I’m trying to work out where the snake has gone.

It started slithering down the tree; and with snakes, we learned that they can disappear so quickly! There’s no sign of it in the tree anymore that I can see! And who knows? Will this black mamba put up a fight against the slender mongoose, which is definitely far smaller than it?

I’m guessing that black mamba was about three meters in length, but the mongoose is showing an incredible display of its strength as it drags what will be an absolute bargain of a meal for it! It’s going to keep this mongoose fed for days now, because we see snakes so seldom!

Because that mongoose isn’t going to be able to move too quickly, I’m going to try and just get us into a spot where we can work out where this snake has gone. Let's hope it doesn’t slither up into the vehicle!

Like I said, this is one of the most venomous snakes that we do see in Africa, but I don’t think we’re going to get ourselves into any trouble, just yet. Now, I can't for the life of me see where the snake has gone, but let’s just pause and see if we can’t have a scan in these bushes.

It could have easily disappeared into any cavities or holes! Ah, you’ve just mentioned that you've been hoping to see a black mamba for many a safari, and this is the first one you've managed to see with us!

I’m glad we managed to work that one out for you! Where could it have gone? Hmm! It's incredible how such a big snake can disappear so quickly! There’s not really that much undergrowth for it to hide in!

Let’s keep driving around this kind of falling-down tree and see if we can’t get a view of it! My heart is absolutely racing, as I’m sure a lot of yours are as well! There’s so much excitement out of the blue! That’s the joy of being on a live safari.

I didn’t have time to mention where we are and what’s going on! We are in South Africa in the Sabi Sands Reserve at the moment, and this is a live safari if you have not gathered that already! No immediate sign of this slithering serpent.

It could just be kind of curled up in a ball somewhere! I’m guessing if we get some more views of it, but the snake is territorial, so it’ll know this area well, and I’m guessing it would have worked out and remembered a good place to slither off to.

I’m guessing it's somewhere at the base of this tree. It looks like there could be a few hiding places—a few holes in and around that root system! There sure know where! Has the mongoose dragged the scrub?

Ooh, I can see the little mongoose! I think we may have disturbed it ever so slightly! But seeing as though it has just stolen this meal from the snake, I’m not too concerned for the time being, and it will come back immediately to where the scrub is!

I’m guessing it’s somewhere just in front of us over here! So what we should do is get into a good spot and just sit and patiently wait to see if we can’t get any more views of the snake, as well as the slender mongoose starting to snack down on the scrub!

Hoo-wee! Absolutely awesome, awesome stuff! And seeing as though things seem to have calmed down for the time being, I’m thinking of saying goodbye to everyone who has just temporarily joined us!

And if you would like to continue joining on this afternoon safari, you can just google “Safari Live” and find us quite easily that way! Thanks very much! We’ll see you all next time!

Welcome back, everyone! Whoo, that was absolutely crazy! And such a good example of how you just never know what is going to happen out here!

I can't believe the snake gave us the slip! I was really hoping we were gonna be able to get some more views of it! But I think if we positioned the vehicle in their ice spots and just sit and wait patiently, we could well see the snake coming out to investigate what has happened to its hard-earned meal!

What I do know is that these creatures can just move so, so quickly that sometimes they give us the slip with relative ease! But I’m sure a lot of you are ecstatic that we finally got a decent snake sighting in! We see them so seldomly, and I’m very, very happy that finally our luck has turned!

Cool! Yeah, thanks, Davy! You just buttered their dad! He was just letting me know where the little scrub is; we've got a view of that. We’re going to just get into a good spot where we can wait and watch the mongoose come back and start doing its thing, and hopefully see what the snake is getting up to. So while we do that, we are going to send you off to one of the others.

Bet they're feeling jealous about our wonderful sighting! Unbelievable, Scott! I can’t believe you saw what you saw! First of all, seeing a member; second, while seeing a slender mongoose; and third of all, I’m gonna see that footage when I get back! Because that’s just ridiculous!

I don't have as much action as you guys did there, but we are down at one of the major crossings! I would ascertain on the Mara River by the fact that the slopes are very, very gentle. And there are one, two, three, four, five, six, seven—but not ten—of the biggest crocodiles you’ll ever come across just sunning on the bank!

They are enormous! Those are all really, really big crocodiles! You can see a baboon at the back, I think they call olive baboons. They were walking past and coming in too close. There are some youngsters on top—they’re having a little look down! You would, wouldn’t you? That’s what we’re doing right now!

Yeah, we’re just peering, but we know—we know inside ourselves that going any closer is just silly! I remember being on a walk once up in Makalaka in Puffery, and I was leading. About 30 meters in front of me, a crocodile stood up on the bank, like it is now! It was in front of us, stood up, and sort of walked kind of towards us, but it wasn't really towards us.

It was kind of trying to turn around to go back into the water, and just that moment of it moving that sent terrors through my soul! Everything about that animal moving and looking at you is frightening! I don't think we need to be taught that! I think we know that instinctively! Our body just knows!

I mean, look at that! That is primeval! They have been around for so, so long! Any ancestor of ours knows very well what crocodiles are capable of! Beautiful! Really, really big ones!

I mean, the biggest recorded crocodile was five and a half meters. So what’s that? Such work the doubt! Trying to work that out! I apologize, that’s very long! Five and a half meters in feet—Tom, I think—it’s about three! Yeah, fifteen, sixteen feet—make it eighteen feet! That is huge!

Yes, crocodiles! Wow! And you know, they feed on fish, as I said before! But you know, they are reptiles! So they spend their time in the sun! They don’t need metabolic energy like we do! So they don’t need to eat all the time!

Even if they just had a full belly every couple of months, you know, they could probably go for an entire year without one meal! A proper meal, and they wouldn’t have to eat again! They don’t need the energy that we use to expend to run around and do our thing! They just have to lie there in the sun, and it does all the work for them!

When they’re really hungry, I want to be active! Then they get up, they go in the water and catch some fish—just wait! Yeah, as is going to happen! It’s probably happened for however many years the old bulls have been crossing these exact places!

So why go anywhere? Beautiful, my river! Scarlett asks, “Why do they have their mouths open?” They are cooling down! They are reptiles, so they rely on the ambient temperatures to heat them up! And when they get a little bit hot, then, just like the birds do, they open their mouth and let the wind push over their mouth, and then it cools them down!

It doesn’t require any effort for them to open their mouth! It actually requires muscle to close the mouth, so having the mouth open is actually the relaxed sort of stage! But they are enjoying themselves on the bank! There wouldn’t want to be ollieboys trying to cross this little pond!

Katie asks a question, “Are true crocodiles and tortoises related?” I don't know! My honesty answer is I actually don’t know that question! There’s a lot about the internal organs of crocodiles I don't know about! But I’ll definitely look that up!

What I’m not sure—two hearts to have two a tortoise, wouldn't you? Yes? No? Katie, I’m sorry, I’m not sure! You’re five and a half meters—that's close to about 18 feet! 18 feet and a thousand kilograms! So that’s close to 2,000 pounds! Can you imagine trying to swim in the river here with these extremely large animals that don’t need to eat, but will... Their prehistoric!

I remember my tracker telling me the only animal he’s afraid of is a crocodile because he does... I’ve got no instinct as good as no rationale. Most trackers are afraid of any badges, as I've said! But they are afraid of crocodiles!

But we’re going to move on from our probably our last view of the Mara River this afternoon! We’re going to go over to Jamie, who I believe is with that Wolo Wolo—the allavors are starting to lift their heads up! They are showing signs that they are going to get up and perhaps start moving about! Maybe even have a drink from this rather—I guess I’d call it—fitted puddle that’s in front of them!

It doesn’t look particularly appetizing to drink from, but lions won’t be too fussy about where they drink! Obviously, like all animals, they will prefer fresh water—met elephants, of course! They are the ones who are famous for really enjoying and actually actively searching for fresh water over stagnant water.

But in this case, I don’t think it will stop them! We go another one strolled over, sitting up blinking in the harsh sunset! That’s very peculiar back! How very odd! Thank you, Manu—apparently my voice disappeared briefly! Apologies for that, but we’re back again! No idea how that happened, David was quite possibly!

Yes, but you’d have to go back quite far—far back inside! What's biting you? Far back down the line! David's question is: are the Andelaw laws related to the sausages? There is often a possibility, with lion prides, that at some point way back in history they might actually have been related to each other!

They sort of came about through a split in a larger pride! It’s impossible for us to know that for certain! Yes, the sausages are the immediate neighbors to the Allalaw laws, but territories for lion prides do shift around a little bit!

The females are sort of the generational guardians of an area, so a pride might shift around a little bit! You know, a couple of miles here, a couple of miles there down the generations! They might be under pressure from other males, but a lot of the time they’ll actually stay in quite a similar area for a few generations at least, which means that there is a possibility!

What has got you? What is biting you? Did you sit on an ant's nest, by any chance? Little man, something's biting it, and I just can't get comfortable! Really quite awful!

It's too frustrating for words! Now, it’s bolted over to the other knee! Hold it, cub! So, we see some sort of fly, but a bite—potentially a biting fly or perhaps a stinging insect of some description! Oh, now look what you've done! No, there are more!

It looks like flies to me! Roadblock! No roadblock! Maybe new to these live safaris? And wondering, well, where are the male lions? Are they not with the females?

The truth is that male lions are not part of a pride, and it’s something that I think is a very, very powerful misconception that males must be part of a lion pride and that they're always with the females!

Think of it this way: a male lion or a group of male lions known as a coalition! They have a big territory, and that territory can encompass the territories of several different groups of females! Now, those males have an important job to do. They have to patrol that territory!

They have to keep other males out! While there may be fathers of these cubs, they have to make sure that they’re protected from strange males entering their territory, which means they’re often off on their own. Often they split up— even if they do belong to a coalition!

They'll wander about, they'll mark their territory, and then now come and visit the females! They will often visit the females when there’s food involved! Male lions are more capable of hunting their own dinner or breakfast or lunch—or whatever it happens to be, whatever time of the day!

But they are not adverse to allowing the females to do the work for them and then going and joining in! Often taking what’s known as the lion’s share of the meal and will also help with that if they can, if they come upon the females while they’re hunting! So, they’ll go to mate, to eat occasionally, just for the company!

But they are not always with the females! Often they’ll be with different prides, and there’s no reason why they might choose to be here with the females! There’s plenty of other things for them to be doing.

Actually, you’ll probably find that they prefer to be away while these... Just gonna sit here because as you can see, cubs don’t necessarily have a sense of personal space! Lions have a bit of personal space as it is, but cubs love to go and flop on each other!

It might be a little irritating to the males, but look out! That's a male—that's a young male cub! Please forgive me if I’ve got the name wrong; I think Faith said Aaron, but it might have been that Parin!

Now, Parin is 10 years old, and it's lovely to hear that you are watching the live safari! Parin, now here we go! We’ve got the subject of the question from Parin: can lions swim? Parin, yes they can!

Most of the mammal species out here can swim some better than others, obviously, and some like it more than others! Elephants love swimming, for example, and that’s partly because I don't think they have to really worry about things like crocodiles! They're too big to be threatened by them!

So, lions do swim! They can swim! They often swim across that Mara River! Steve was at the Mara River earlier; he was showing you the various animals around there!

The lions often swim across the Mara River if they need to! They don’t like doing it though! There’s no real indication that lions particularly like it and that’s probably actually mainly because they’re scared of being eaten by a crocodile! Crocodiles don't distinguish between a lion or an antelope or a zebra or whatever else they would be looking for to make their next meal!

Lovely to hear from you, Parin! I’m excited to hear what question you come up with next! Gone, lions! There’s a tree right there! I've been told so many things about your fantastic tree-climbing ability! You know you want to!

It's right there! Ah, Squat! Ah, Scarlett, I have been in the position where I've been able to touch lions, both adults and cubs! That's something that I’ve spoken about in the past!

About the problem with cub petting! But Scarlett, of course, is wanting to know about the softness of lion cubs' fur! Mine's fur is surprisingly coarse! Except around the base of the ears, you know, the soft pads on a house cat around the base of the ears!

Around underneath the arms—the arms—the legs—the front legs, around the armpits! It’s coarse on that! That’s where the softest fur is on a lion! But lions' fur is very coarse! It's very functional! It needs to be! It’s there for a reason!

Obviously, if it was too soft and fine, it would cause all sorts of problems! That could become matted and uncomfortable and full of parasites that would be entangled in it! Well, their fur is quite coarse! As a young lion cub, well, I’ve never touched a very young lion cub before!

And I am ashamed to say that in the past—before I knew better—I did touch an older cub! Got to play with an older cub before I realized the full detriment of what I was doing! How absolutely unnecessary it is and how unfortunate the future of those cubs that are raised for people to pet actually truly is!

I can tell you that it’s not as soft as a kitten's fur! We're going to sit patiently with our lions and see if they decide to get up to some tree-climbing exploits! But while they sleep, let’s jump back on board and join Noel in the back!

I think she’s on Wendy! So we had set up this really nice view of a vulture! And then we could hear kudu barking! So we’ve just come into the block a little bit and we found our kudu!

But they’re relaxed now! So the wind is coming strongly and then circling around! So I’m wondering if they’re smelling something that they just can’t quite see! So I think we’ll stick with our kudu for a little while!

We’re not far from the last area where we were seeing Tundi! And we haven’t seen her in a couple of days, and it’s very good weather for leopards to one be hunting about and to just moving because it’s much cooler than it has been!

Now, this kudu is a really interesting mark on her back there! Her stripes are very different—look, they’re all stripy! Patterns are unique, but that’s a little abnormal sort of loop it’s made there! Very cool!

And of course, a resident oxpecker to help the kudu with any possible sightings of predators as well as to pick her on the bum area, as you can see! And take off ticks and parasites!

Now, something that those oxpeckers will do, other than consuming the ticks and the blood, as we talked about earlier... There you can hear it—a little maybe—sorry, the wind just picked up! They were alarm calling just a little bit there!

But if there is something like say us on foot or a predator of some kind walking around, those oxpeckers will fly up and alarm call and it warns the kudu, or impala, or a rhino, or buffalo, that they happen to be on that something's amiss!

It's also a sound that we as walking guides need to really keep track of because if you don't, you could possibly end up in a scenario that you don't want to be in! You always listen out for oxpeckers! Red and yellow-billed! We get both in the area!

Now, kudus are meant for camouflage! So that striping even just the odd pattern we saw before, but the striping pattern on the side is—it's called a disruptive marking! It’s meant to break up the body shape of the animal!

So when they get nervous or something, they’ll sort of freeze behind a bush, and that’s supposed to help! Then also, when they run off, they’ve got this white under the tail that they’ll lift the tail up and run and jump!

That’s supposed to be one of two things—one it’s supposed to be a follow-me signal for other kudu! And then, too, the thought behind that is that they’ll run, and the predator will focus on that, and then turn around a corner and drop their tail.

Then the predator doesn’t have anything to focus on! Now, Alois, I believe you are asking, do we have different rain season patterns like the Mara? Like the Mara, it's got big rains and rains here in Juma, or do we just have one rainy season?

I think that's the question I heard! If I heard it properly! We have one rainy season—okay, we're Ferg! Oh, sorry! I believe Scott's mamba is doing something interesting! Let's go to him and we'll finish this later!

Yes! The mamba has come back! We can just see it slithering very slowly through the grass there, and it is approaching the slender mongoose with its scrub hare kill!

It looks like it’s about to—oh, its head is up about fifty centimeters off the ground, peering towards the scrub vehicle! Let's just show everyone the scrub hare quickly!

We can just see a little white spot there—that is the scrub's tail! I think the slender mongoose is still there! I can’t be certain! The snake’s about! The slender mongoose is going for the snake!

Oh, it's just so thick, and I don’t want to try and reposition any closer! Whew! There, we can see the snake there again! Now only just, we can see the snake slithering through the undergrowth!

And has the mongoose given in? Absolutely epic, epic stuff! I am going to try to reposition us a little bit closer; I think we can get it into a slightly better spot!

I'm just gonna move very slowly! How absolutely awesome is this, everyone! And the fact that we’re coming to you live makes it that much sweeter!

Please send through your thoughts and your comments! I would love to hear how you guys are feeling. I’m feeling absolutely ecstatic because to see something like this is incredibly fortunate!

Fiona, you would like to know if there are any animals that are possibly immune to venom from animals like mambas! Mainly the honey badger, which is renowned for being incredibly hardy and tenacious.

I have seen a documentary where a puff adder—also a highly venomous snake—attacked a badger as the honey badger was trying to attack it, and it did manage to bite it! A honey badger just curled up and went to sleep for a few hours, woke up, shook its head as if it had a small hangover, and then continued to eat the puff adder that it had killed!

So possibly honey badgers! Other than that, there are not too many animals! Including a mammal like us, an adult human being will be in deep trouble if they are bitten by this snake!

It does attack your nervous system and neurotoxic venom, and slowly all your organs will shut down. But I don’t think we’re going to get ourselves into any trouble, just yet!

Now I can’t for the life of me see where the snake has gone, but let’s just pause and see if we can’t have a scan in these bushes! It could well have disappeared into any kind of cavities or holes!

A deed—you’ve just mentioned that you’ve been hoping to see a black mamba for many a safari, and this is the first one you’ve managed to see with us!

I’m glad we managed to work that one out for you! Where could it have gone? Hmm! It's incredible how such a big snake can disappear so quickly, and there's not really that much undergrowth for it to hide in!

Let’s keep driving around this kind of falling-down tree and see if we can’t get a view of its! My heart is absolutely racing, as I’m sure a lot of yours are as well! There’s so much excitement out of the blue!

That is the joy of being on a live safari! I didn't have time to mention where we are and what's going on! We are in South Africa in the Sabi Sands Reserve at the moment, and this is a live safari, if you have not gathered that already!

No immediate sign of this slithering serpent! It could just be kind of curled up in a ball somewhere! I’m guessing if we get some more views of it! But the snake is a territorial snake, so it’ll know this area well!

I’m guessing it would have worked out and remembered a good place to slither off to! I’m guessing it’s somewhere at the base of this tree! It looks like there could be a few hiding places—a few holes in and around that root system!

There sure know where! Has the Mongoose dragged the scrub?
Ooh, I can see the little mongoose! I think we may have disturbed it ever so slightly! But seeing as though it has just stolen this meal from the snake, I’m not too concerned for the time being!

And it will come back immediately to where the scrub is! I’m guessing it’s somewhere just in front of us over here! So what we should do is get into a good spot and just sit patiently to see if we can’t get any more views of the snake as well as the slender mongoose!

Hoo-wee! Absolutely awesome! Awesome stuff! Seeing as though things seem to have calmed down for the time being! I’m thinking of saying goodbye to everyone who has just temporarily joined us!

And if you would like to continue joining on this afternoon safari, you can just google Safari Live and find us quite easily that way! Thanks very much! We’ll see you all next time!

Welcome back, everyone! Whoo! That was absolutely crazy! And such a good example of how you just never know what is going to happen out here!

I can't believe the snake gave us the slip! I was really hoping we were gonna be able to get some more views of it! But I think if we positioned the vehicle in their ice spots and just sit and wait patiently, we could well see the snake coming out to investigate what has happened to its hard-earned meal!

What I do know is that these creatures can just move so, so quickly that sometimes they give us the slip with relative ease! But I’m sure a lot of you are ecstatic that we finally got a decent snake sighting in! We see them so seldomly, and I’m very, very happy that finally our luck has turned!

Cool! Yeah, thanks, Davy! You just buttered their dad! He was just letting me know where the little scrub is! We've got a view of that!

We’re going to just get into a good spot where we can wait and watch the mongoose come back and start doing its thing, and hopefully see what the snake is getting up to! So while we do that, we are going to send you off to one of the others! Bet they’re feeling jealous about our wonderful sighting!

Unbelievable, Scott! I can’t believe you saw what you saw! First of all, seeing a member; second while seeing a slender mongoose; and third of all, I’m gonna see that footage when I get back! Because that’s just ridiculous!

I don't have as much action as you guys did there! But we are down at one of the major crossings! I would ascertain on the Mara River by the fact that the slopes are very, very gentle.

And there are one, two, three, four, five, six, seven—but not ten—of the biggest crocodiles you’ll ever come across just sunning on the bank! They are enormous! Those are all really, really big crocodiles!

You can see a baboon at the back; I think they call olive baboons. They were walking past and coming in too close! There are some youngsters on top—they’re having a little look down! You would, wouldn’t you? That’s what we’re doing right now!

Yeah, we’re just peering, but we know—we know inside ourselves that going any closer is just silly! I remember being on a walk once up in Makalaka in Puffery!

I was leading, and about 30 meters in front of me, a crocodile stood up on the bank, like it is now! It was in front of us, stood up, walked kind of towards us, but it wasn't really towards us.

It was kind of trying to turn around to go back into the water, and just that moment of it moving that sent terrors through my soul! Everything about that animal moving and looking at you is frightening! I don't think we need to be taught that!

I think we know that instinctively! Our body just knows! I mean, look at that! That is primeval! They have been around for so, so long! Any ancestor of ours knows very well what crocodiles are capable of!

Beautiful! Really, really big ones! I mean, the biggest recorded crocodile was five and a half meters! So what’s that? Such work the doubt! Trying to work that out!

I apologize, that’s very long! Five and a half meters in feet—Tom, I think—it’s about three! Yeah, fifteen, sixteen feet—make it eighteen feet! That is huge!

Yes, crocodiles! Wow! And you know, they feed on fish, as I said before! But you know, they are reptiles! So they spend their time in the sun!

They don’t need metabolic energy like we do, so they don’t need to eat all the time! Even if they just had a full belly every couple of months, you know, they could probably go for an entire year without one meal!

A proper meal, and they wouldn’t have to eat again! They don’t need the energy that we use to expend to run around and do our thing!

They just have to lie there in the sun, and it does all the work for them! When they’re really hungry, I want to be active! Then they get up, they go in the water and catch some fish—just wait!

Yeah, as is going to happen! It’s probably happened for however many years the old bulls have been crossing these exact places! So, why go anywhere? Beautiful, my river!

Scarlett asks, “Why do they have their mouths open?” They are cooling down! They are reptiles, so they rely on the ambient temperatures to heat them up!

And when they get a little bit hot, then, just like the birds do, they open their mouth and let the wind push over their mouth, and then it cools them down!

It doesn’t require any effort for them to open their mouth! It actually requires muscle to close the mouth, so having the mouth open is actually the relaxed sort of stage! But they are enjoying themselves on the bank!

There wouldn’t want to be olieboys trying to cross this little pond!

Katie asks a question, “Are true crocodiles and tortoises related?” I don't know! My honest answer is I actually don’t know that question! There’s a lot about the internal organs of crocodiles I don't know about!

But I’ll definitely look that up! What I’m not sure—two hearts to have two a tortoise, wouldn't you? Yes? No? Katie, I’m sorry, I’m not sure! You’re five and a half meters—that's close to about 18 feet!

18 feet and a thousand kilograms! So that’s close to 2,000 pounds! Can you imagine trying to swim in the river here with these extremely large animals that don’t need to eat, but will... their prehistoric!

I remember my tracker telling me the only animal he’s afraid of is a crocodile because he does! I’ve got no instinct as good as no rationale! Most trackers are afraid of any badges, as I've said! But they are afraid of crocodiles!

But we’re going to move on from our probably our last view of the Mara River this afternoon! We’re going to go over to Jamie! Who I believe is with that wolo wolo—the allavors are starting to lift their heads up!

They are showing signs that they are going to get up and perhaps start moving about! Maybe even have a drink from this rather—I guess I’d call it—fitted puddle that’s in front of them!

It doesn’t look particularly appetizing to drink from, but lions won’t be too fussy about where they drink! Obviously, like all animals, they will prefer fresh water—met elephants, of course!

They are the ones who are famous for really enjoying and actually actively searching for fresh water over stagnant water. But in this case, I don’t think it will stop them!

We go another one strolled over, sitting up blinking in the harsh sunset! That’s very peculiar back! How very odd! Thank you, Manu—apparently my voice disappeared briefly!

Apologies for that, but we’re back again! No idea how that happened, David was quite possibly!

Yes, but you’d have to go back quite far—far back inside! What’s biting you? Far back down the line!

David's question is: are the Andelaw laws related to the sausages? There is often a possibility, with lion prides, that at some point way back in history they might actually have been related to each other!

They sort of came about through a split in a larger pride! It’s impossible for us to know that for certain! Yes, the sausages are the immediate neighbors to the Allalaw laws, but territories for lion prides do shift around a little bit!

The females are sort of the generational guardians of an area, so a pride might shift around a little bit! You know, a couple of miles here, a couple of miles there down the generations!

They might be under pressure from other males, but a lot of the time they’ll actually stay in quite a similar area for a few generations at least, which means that there is a possibility!

What has got you? What is biting you? Did you sit on an ant's nest, by any chance? Little man, something's biting it, and I just can't get comfortable!

Really quite awful! It's too frustrating for words! Now, it’s bolted over to the other knee! Hold it, cub! So, we see some sort of fly, but a bite—potentially a biting fly or perhaps a stinging insect of some description! Oh, now look what you've done!

No, there are more! It looks like flies to me! Roadblock! No roadblock! Maybe new to these live safaris? And wondering, well, where are the male lions? Are they not with the females?

The truth is that male lions are not part of a pride, and it’s something that I think is a very, very powerful misconception that males must be part of a lion pride and that they're always with the females!

Think of it this way: a male lion or a group of male lions known as a coalition! They have a big territory, and that territory can encompass the territories of several different groups of females! Now, those males have an important job to do.

They have to patrol that territory! They have to keep other males out! While there may be fathers of these cubs, they have to make sure that they’re protected from strange males entering their territory, which means they’re often off on their own.

Often they split up— even if they do belong to a coalition! They’ll wander about, they’ll mark their territory, and then now come and visit the females! They will