Safari Live - Day 376 | National Geographic

48m read

·Nov 11, 2024

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

Good afternoon everyone! Well, no better way to start an afternoon game Drive than with the little prince, who's posing ever so beautifully. He must have known that it's time to shine because he has been lying in long grass pretty much the entire day close to where we left him this morning, and all of a sudden he is just working. I've been appeared out of the long grass in the last two minutes, so he's kind of spoiling us a little bit imposing ever so beautifully.

My name is Justin; on camera I've got Craig this afternoon, and it is a very warm welcome to Juma and South Africa. And we'll play a warm welcome from Husana. To remember we are coming to you live, so we would love to hear any questions that you have about not only Husana, but any other things in the wilderness, and you can just send your questions through to hashtag Safari Live on Twitter or at FC on the YouTube chat.

Now, I have giggled and laughed at Husana. I've been with him since about 2:00 o'clock, so in the last sort of two hours in sitting around with Husana I just kind of seen what he gets up to and sort of patiently watching him. I've giggled at his hunting this afternoon because he has paid zero, zero, zero, zero, zero attention to any antelope like an impala. But as soon as the biggest male waterbuck you've ever seen arrives, now he wants to hunt that.

So it doesn't matter that they are antelope that are within his sort of hunting range; he's decided that big male waterbuck are part and parcel of what he's going to be hunting for the day, which is quite ridiculous because a big male waterbuck really is not on the menu for Husana. It's a bit too big and powerful for him, but never this one can dream, and one can try. You never know, actually, I suppose it is possible that he might bring one down, but I highly doubt it. I think he'd have a tough time to bring that down, and when you serve, I certainly wouldn't be able to keep it, that's for sure.

So we'll see how he goes for the afternoon; he is looking like he's working up quite a bit now. Unfortunately, all the impalas have left, but what I will say is that if we start to see impalas coming down, which should happen now that it's late afternoon coming, we're going to give him quite a lot of space. We're not going to park anywhere near him because what I did notice during the course of today is anywhere where the car parks, these animals will alarm call at it, even if you're nowhere near him.

I'll at one point park quite far from him where I knew I could see him if he moved but wasn't anywhere close to him, and every single impala was just staring at me and shouting. So if impalas do come along this way we're going to make a concerted effort to give him quite a lot of room and try and form from quite far away in order to give him the best possible chance to hunt as well as we're so just to not be in the way and ruin anything that could go on.

So that's the idea for the afternoon. Hopefully a little star will stick around for the day. Chris, unfortunate that question is a little bit like how long is a ball of string; it depends really on so many factors as to how long it will take for them to pounce when they are stalking a prey source. Obviously, these guys mostly will try and get as close as possible in ambushing out and grab whatever it is, and sometimes that can be anywhere from five minutes to two hours, three hours. It just depends, you know, it's always different in its ways.

It depends on the movement of other animals, the cover that they've got and how they kind of position themselves. But I always find with these guys is that they'll wait until the last possible second before they pounce, so they hope they try and let that animal come as close as possible before they decide to do anything.

Isn't he cute though? Same kind of peering over the bushes, Husana cat. There's no animals for you to hunt just yet. What was interesting, though, is that there was also alarm calls on both sides of the dam. So there's alarm calls far to the north towards Tumblety dam and also some alarm calls in the Milwaukee system. So there are obviously other things moving around. I wonder if we're not going to see some of those felines moving this way.

I say freelancers; I imagine it would be some sort of cat that was moving in those areas. That were you going to set, boy? If you decided that's your spot for the off-screen, did you just stand on your tail? Apparently, one needs to pin one's tail because it gets unruly when lying down, and I don't know if you noticed that, but he just stood on his own tail as he was lying down as if to say, "Tail, you are not going anywhere; you will behave yourself, and you'll sit right here with me; you're not allowed to go off on your own little mission."

Okay, he kind of just moved himself and then sat down, putting his tail so he was perfectly comfortable, and I don't think he's gonna sit here for long; I think he'll be moving just now. Anything's gonna be out in the open for too long. Michelle, you say he is just too handsome. He is very pretty, isn't he? He's at that stage of a male if it's life; we're not too many scars. He's kind of as good-looking as he's ever going to be, and we've seen that with Tumblety. Tumblety was looking very handsome and nice but a little bit of a broken, yeah, and so Husana will slowly start to show the scars of male leopardhood. He's got one on his nose and those will get more and more as life goes on.

Good, now we're gonna sit with Husana for the afternoon; he's sure to be entertained. Already so far it's been good, and meantime, let's send you across to Lauren. She can say good afternoon.

Hi, Lauren says hi, everyone, and good afternoon. I have already said my name, but on camera today I have Senzo who is feeling much better, aren't you? Since he gave me the thumbs up, he's feeling better. He's been a trooper, and he's out here with us all on board the vehicle today to see what we can find. Now, Senzo is my lucky charm; I always have amazing sightings with him, and of course we found Husana yesterday. It was just incredible, and I did watch back the moment that it happened, and I do appear to make many amusing facial expressions and many, how shall I say, screams. Surely, thank you for that! I love them all. I was just so shocked; my mind could not compute how Husana is there, but he's also in one de Luzi. So my brain was thinking, well, that can't be Husana, but him who I was gonna be, and I just got myself very, very confused, of course.

And Tristan is correct; he's looking so handsome! We got some great views of him yesterday, really, really perfect positioning, and he is a handsome boy. I talk about him a lot when I go home, and I think some people think I have a boyfriend called Husana. They must just assume that it's the main man in my life, which is not the case. He obviously is a cat, but I do talk about him a lot, and I actually even showed my mother a photo of Husana on my phone because I was proud. It was a really nice cool. My mom said, "Oh, it's a sauna!" For those of you who don't know who Bucera is, she's a female cheetah, not a male leopard. Yes, my mother has just got so much to learn.

Anyway, we're driving very, very slowly in case any of you noticed because apparently there were lots of Impala alarm calling from this area. Haven't seen any tracks other than alleys; there's a lot of leopard tracks. I have a funny feeling we're gonna bump into a breeding here at some point, but no cats or any other sort of tracks. So this is Husana's, sort of not Husana, Jenga. Husana's favorite area at the minute, so I'm not actively searching for him, but I am scattering the area to see exactly who was alarm calling and why. Alarm calling, when Impala go crazy like that, you really have to pay attention; it's exactly what happened to me yesterday.

Karen's asking, has Husana ran into Tingana lately? Now, the last we have seen, and you know you never know what actually happens at night time here, I think it was last week, 'cause that right sends, yeah, I lose track of time here. I couldn't even tell you what day of the week it is. Oh, it's Sunday, 'cause it's Father's Day! So happy Father's Day to all the fathers out there, jet fathers, adopted fathers, uncles, everybody! Yes, I knew two cents he has gorgeous little twins, so happy Father's Day! So I do know it's Sunday, but my point is, I think it was about a week ago that James had an interaction between Husana and Tingana, and it's something we discuss a lot at camp because it is so pivotal in Husana's future or his immediate present, I guess.

And Tingana, yeah, he smiles. I see, but it's nowhere near as aggressive as it would be of the likes of Fukamori and Hukamori is believed to be the reason that Husana is back with us. Apparently, they had a bit of an interaction, a bit of a fight, and Husana ran all the way back home. Bless. So Tingana's reaction is really not that fierce now. Why there's so much speculation, obviously he does know it's his son; he'll be well aware that that's his son, but he's obviously a dominant territorial male, and his son's getting bigger and stronger and stealing carcasses and eating carcasses within his father's territory.

So yes, they have bumped in, but the last thing that we are aware was with James, and I think it was possibly with you all last week. We haven't seen the two of them interact since then, but who knows what goes on when the cameras are not on them? I just wonder if Tingana will remain like this, will remain completely tolerant and tell them to go away, but not overly aggressive. How long will that last? I'm really not sure.

Alrighty, of course, it's not just Tristan, Husana, and I. Steve is out this afternoon as well, so let's go across and say hi.

Good afternoon, everybody, and welcome to my vehicle. My name is indeed Steve, joined by Darby Seto on camera. A very warm and merry Father's Day to all of you! I know it's not Father's Day all over the world, but in South Africa, it most certainly is. Well, this morning I was out on tracking tip and managed to find Tandy, which was very, very cool. Found some steaming tracks, and then we found some more female tracks, and we weren't able to find who it was, but we're given the report later on.

And Tristan notes has tasks to boot our Tandy was drooling and really salivating, and then Subbu, he was found towards the end of the drive there. Are twin dams? Are we gonna go there and see why Tandy or exactly what's been going on, and Tandy was getting a little bit annoyed, I suppose, with Shibuya encroaching on our territory. But I found tracks of another leopard very close to where I left Tandy last night, so there's a very good chance they might have had an altercation.

Then Tristan obviously tracked and found Husana right where he is now, but I found his tracks all the way in the east with another male, and they tracked him all the way back to where he is. So he did an enormous loop last night. Probably found the tracks of his dad, followed him for a little bit, and this is where Tristan left Tingana last night, so was the end of our rehearsal. He went in that direction, and then the tracks went all the way north and west to pull the sock with another male, and there was something going on with everybody tracking this morning, but no one was able to find those two.

So anyway, we're gonna see if we can follow up on Sabri, and if we can't, we're gonna see if we can find Tandy. In the meantime, Mr. Lord, who's got a beautiful, beautiful bit. Well, we did have a word, and it flew away, but I think there we go. Well done, Senzo; you are an absolute hero!

Oh, honestly, okay, it's up ahead. Shall we move signs? Or to the end, you know? Let's not move. Okay, it is, of course, a Kingfisher, a brown-hooded Kingfisher, I think, who we had perfectly poised in position there. But immediately, as you saw, it flew off, and now we don't quite have the best view of it, but we still do have a view of it. Should we try and get closer? Craig, are you guys ready for this? You know what the birds are like; I absolutely think, out of all the bird groups, kingfishers have to be my favorite.

Stay, okay? Oh, can you work with that? He said an amazing job with this because it's not easy trying to follow birds. Sometimes I feel like they just know that you want to get the camera, and they just will not allow any sort of sighting of them. There we go. It's not perfect, but you can definitely see even sort of glaring in the Sun that silhouetted look. You can actually see immediately that it is a Kingfisher, and the brown-hooded Kingfisher is actually part of the house Ian's group of kingfishers, and you can sort of tell that immediate with the fact that it does have blue on the wings, and it's one of the smaller kingfishers—not the smallest, but it's one of the smaller ones.

And believe it or not, the female is actually larger than the male. The sexes are very similar, very difficult to discriminate between the two, but the females are—oh, Megan said that's our 198 bird. I hope I got the number right there—oh, Megan, I'm so happy for you! I also have a bird list as well; I keep it on my phone. Every time I see a new species, I write it down, so I'm very happy you saw that, and I got it right. It was 100 in India, very, very happy for you.

So yes, it's impossible for me to tell right now if it is male or female, but if you saw them together, the female would be bigger than the male. You can see that big beak there because it feeds on insects, so he's a big beak to stab them and eat them. So I'm glad we managed to get a view of it for you. It took a lot of effort, but for now, we're gonna send you back to Tristan and his spotted cat.

Hopefully, that brown-hooded Kingfisher makes an appearance, but for now, Husana, as well, he's posing there beautifully as you could ever imagine to start anything in the sunshine. He was trying to chase the diker that, unfortunately, ran away from him. We tried to move just a little bit, and that's the problem with dikers; as soon as they pick up any sort of movement or of a car, they move away, which is unfortunate, so it's not ideal for us that that happened. But it was Husana being shouted at by about 40 other impalas that were around, and they were behind him to the right there. You can see them there.

So they were shouting at him and making quite a lot of noise, and that's why he's just standing out in the open, not really sure where he's going to go. But he needs to position himself somewhere where it's quite dense and thick and then wait. Eventually, we're gonna find a lot of animals are gonna come past here to drink. I was saying it earlier that it's the time of the day when they do drink.

So if he can get himself into a nice thicket, then it's gonna be much better than what precautions to be taken. Our safety with predators, really, that many, I suppose the just give them space as much as possible and try not to make too much movement or sort of move around them too fast or anything like that, and then generally you're alright. You generally don't have to worry too much if that's the case. I find most predators are actually quite sort of calm around vehicles in this area. That's not to say, you know, the areas that it would be the same, but here where we are, it seems that most of our cats don't mind the cars around us.

And as long as you're not driving over their tails or into them or chasing them off their food, you're typically going to be quite alright when it comes to kind of viewing them. So see, look now, he's gonna go into his little thicket and is hopefully going to find a place where he can sit so that the impalas won't see him. And what we're gonna do is we're gonna park quite far now. Unfortunately, there's going to be other vehicles that are gonna come, which means that we knock on really dictates how close they park.

But we're gonna try and park a little bit differently to everybody else, so we're gonna go quite far, park up the hill here, and try and see if maybe just maybe these impalas will come walking along the road like they often do in the hope that they'll walk towards where he is. We're just gonna stop, yeah, and see should he decide to stalk.

So he's in that bush over there; we're not going to have a great visual of Husana, which is fine. I prefer him to be able to hunt than fast to worry about which position he's in and, you know, being close to him to be able to see him. I think if we search out and in, parlors do decide to move, well, then we're going to be in prime position to see any sort of hunt that does take place. So it's a good place to check in, a good place to sit.

I might move actually a little bit more than what we have right now, just because I'd find that the proximity to the bush limping parlors still comes through. So, Judy, you’s nine years old. Judy, how much does Husana eat every single day? Oh, difficult to say, Julie, because he doesn't eat every single day. So what he requires is he requires large meals at times where he can then feed and be able to kind of make his tummy as full as possible.

And in some days, he'll go to three, four, five, six, seven days without eating. But in terms of actually probably surviving, I'd say probably, I don't know, maybe seven kilograms—no, not even five kilograms of meat today would be probably very good for him. But most times he won't even eat anywhere close to that in a day. He won't have anything at all. But what happens is he'll kill something like an impala, and that impala will last him three to four days, and he'll eat so much to the point where it's not survival; it's just kind of making his tummy fuller than full.

He'll make his tummy as big as possible, and then that will kind of keep him going through the days where he's not able to eat. Unfortunately, I didn't think my plan is going to work too well because the cars are gonna come from that side, which means the impalas are going to take a long time to come through now. They're gonna unfortunately wait for everybody to settle, so they'll have to be patient and just wait for everything. They'll eventually come, though, because water is what's in there; there's no other words he knew it was close by, so he just needs to sit for quite a while and wait.

And that's why these guys are gonna go around; are they gonna pop behind us somewhere? But they can whistle awesome space, good anyway. While we search and wait for her, so let's see if he's gonna get anything to eat. In the meantime, let's enjoy crossing to Steve, who's checking water holes of his own.

Well, thank you, Tristan. You are at one watering hole; we are at another. We left Tandy right down on the bottom of this dam wall yesterday evening, and this is where Sabri was found this morning. So it's gonna scratch around here and see if maybe we can be lucky with her. Myself and Senzo, who was it was you, me, the other day, found her just up here. I wasn't very far at all. Here, little diker killed, so it would be nice if we could find her. She's a very pretty young lady.

I'm Ellie Tristan's girlfriend; reckons she is the prettiest leopard around. Obviously, that caused all sorts of discussions at the dinner table. I think Columbo is a gorgeous, gorgeous leopard, but did I think all female leopards are beautiful? Okay, so sorry about that game drive. I do have an issue with my game driver; it has to be open, or there's a green pigeon there. Darby, always a good one. Just flown off. Green pigeon was busy drinking water.

The effort you got a nice one—African green pigeon, any call that they do.

Okay, so we're gonna scratch around here. We'll see who and if we can find. And while we do that, I mean, who are the three female leopards? Are on the mat with Columbo, Tandy, and Subbu? How about a little poll for all of you viewers at home on little Twitter Poll? Who do you think is the most beautiful between the three? We've got Java as well.

This is gonna get very awkward, isn't it? A day it's gonna get awkward, Faith Kent. Can we do have a poll—the four? And we do for Toke, a child and there because she's around; she's also very pretty. Throw four in there if there's doable. I don't know how these things work. Okay, Poll the form. Could Kuja, Tandy, Columbo, and Subbu?

Send to your votes right now. Let's see exactly who you in the viewers think is the prettiest, the prettiest of them all at the moment. And then we'll ask. I think as well.

Oh, Ellen, that's a very question we're not expecting, so it's going to be some very hard times here, very, very. Did we literally rain? We might have a very out-of-season rain as well, but I've got a feeling things are gonna be quite dire here. This year is gonna be quite dire; last year was far more water than this, and they were Hugh, there was a huge die-off of buffalo in the Kruger Park.

And the year before, so very hard to say, really, but hopefully something turns around, but unfortunately that's what happens. You get these dry and wet periods, and clout, the week they remove, there we go. She was like honey, yeah, so we wished she was like. That's a very good start, you got a Derbi, okay, so she was lying here.

Let me just have a little scan before I jump out of the car, and this is a typical sort of body posture of a cat that has been lying down. Let's double-check it is a cat and not a hyena. Was lying here; you can see that there was a footprint in there. This actually looks like a hyena; they were lying here.

There's another foot there at the bottom; it comes over here and more of the body all the way over here with front legs, the bottom around here with two feet in the back, and then the front of the body, even the head was on the ground. It actually has moved a little bit in the ground; obvious or quite a big hyena should give it a smell.

Conrad, our technician, he said he got woken up the other night with a hyena outside his window that woke him; because of the smell, can you imagine? Something walks past your window, probably close the window, don't really smell anything. See if there's any hairs in here. Any hairs?

Hello? No hairs? Lovely track there, but this was a hyena. I didn't drive on this piece this morning, but yeah, hyenas moved off over here, but there is. There is a leopard track, so it's possible that this hyena was following her. They like to do that; they like to sort of find the leopards and follow them because, you know, leopards are very good at providing food for these hyenas.

And I've got a very strong feeling, me, if we put a little bit of effort in and we keep our ears open, they're probably going to hear or see something in this area. And if not, we're gonna get put in some effort to find her nemesis at the moment, which is Tandy.

And obviously, watering sources, leopards and lions and hyenas, obviously, their territory sort of overlap water points, and so this twin dams would be a highly contested sort of area indeed. But how far into Tandy's territory will she come? Very hard to say.

Okay, well, while we try and make head or tail of where these tracks go, let's go to see how she's had luck in the area of Tingana. We have just arrived down. We only have one people today, who are you and where's your buddy? Just is this okay for you, Senzo? Senzo doesn't want to fit the hip bones. No, he's joking. There we go. We have a very lazy hippo in the dam to me still looks like the shape of a fish. I don't know if it does to other people, but every time I come here, I think that is a fish.

So this is either Scuba Steve or Snorkel Sarah; who knows? It's not so easy to identify your hippos, and I can see from here one, two, three, four birds on the back saying, so give us a better view there. Yes, four little pickers picking away, and it cannot be pleasant, and I don't think that dam looks very pleasant at all either, Pickers.

Now, funny enough, we came here one night, and I think it was the night that we actually had the Avoca meal here. So we were about to talk about the hippos and, of course, the Avoca meal just came, and all attention got diverted. But when you look at the hippo and FLIR, sometimes when we got to check what dam we put the FLIR camera on, the thermal camera, but you're not, is that hippos are quite far away.

But when you come here and you put this hippo under the thermal camera, you're actually able to see lots of yellow-white dots across the body, and they're quite large. And we actually had a discussion saying, "What is that?" From what we can see or what we can believe, hello, looks rather grumpy, I think.

So it looks like little wounds almost, and it could be, now this is just me speculate, and I don't have any proof of this, but it could be where the oxpecker is how cool something out of the body. So it's a small little wood, nothing deep, nothing dangerous to the animal, but that area will obviously be hot because it's healing. So though you know your body's fighting infection or trying to heal cuts, it can always feel warmer than other parts of your body.

So I think when you look at this hippo in the FLIR and all these white dots across the body are actually from the oxpeckers, and they're small tiny little wounds, and it's utterly fascinating. We're not able to show you this right at the minute; of course, we're not got a FLIR camera with us, but when we do, we bow show you. And it was so interesting to look at.

A lot of animals get really uncomfortable with the oxpeckers. It can't be pleasant having something on you that's pulling things out of you. It can, you know, I'm sure if the chick or the parasite or whatever it is is lodged in our uncomfortable place, it can't feel too pleasant. And you can actually see this when you watch the animals; they try and shake the birds off, and of course, there's a big debate in science we do mention this regularly.

You are sort of, you know, in school or even at university; it's a mutual relationship between the animal and the oxpeckers, but the question really is now, is it really neutral or is it more parasitic? And there's debates for both sides here. So is the oxpecker helping or actually making wounds worse? Mitch is asking a question, and I think we could ask the Lord about the hippos leaving the dam when it gets to work to dry.

Sorry, and yes, I'll have to. They are truly amphibious animals, and they really require the water; they cannot survive without keeping their skin moist and wet. So right now, I don't even know if that water looks very sludgy; that's the word I would use to describe it—sludge.

So it's very stagnant; it's not clean water at all. A lot of the other water holes around here are in much better condition, and, of course, it's because of the hippos themselves defecating in the water, pumping all that extra nutrients. It makes the water become really unclean, filled with bacteria, extra nutrients, and then your algae comes, which is why the dam looks so green sometimes.

So the hippos will leave, I don't know where. I mean, it looks like there's quite a fair bit of water there; the hippos still look quite comfortable there, but yes, definitely at some point, the hippos will up and leave when the dress becomes completely dry. I don't know when that will be; when that's gonna happen, all depends on the sort of environmental conditions and the weather. But when it does, the hippos all leave.

Hmm, Nancy's asking, "Good, oxpecker, oxpeckers clean out human wounds as well?" Now, that's a tricky question because what the oxpeckers are doing here is not cleaning, not cleaning the animal—they are literally plucking things out of the animal, which is slightly different. So they're plucking off parasites, any sort of, you know, arthropod egg animal that's in there; the oxpeckers are plucking them out, which obviously is a great source of food for them.

Humans, I guess I'm just thinking over in my brain, I guess if we had ticks, which humans do get, and oxpeckers probably could pluck it out for us, absolutely, but not necessarily clean, if that makes sense. Now, I don't believe an oxpecker would ever land or not human and start to pluck all the ticks off of us. But in terms of possible, is it possible, then yes, I guess it is.

I actually had to remove ticks off my dog when I was at home, and it was not pleasant, but they're very visible; you know, you can see them, and there's a special method of removing them, of course. So yeah, oxpeckers could potentially do it, but I don't believe they ever would. And it definitely wouldn't clean the wound, so going back to that debate, there's a lot of literature and science right now calling them little vampires because they're sort of sucking all the blood and the parasites off animals, but they're leaving behind wounds, and they're actually said to make the wounds worse and take blood from the fresh wound, which does not help the animal at all.

So they dig in at the wounds and make it much, much worse, which side of the fence you're on is up to you. There's a big debate; I don't think it's proven either way at the minute, but it's a really, really interesting topic. And, of course, I was just referencing you're looking at the hippo and FLIR, and you can see all these little wounds all over the body. So I'm guessing they come from the oxpeckers, but that does highlight that maybe the oxpeckers are detrimental to the animal—not quite sure how they will prove that, but it's definitely a hot topic right now.

Now, when I come to beautiful silk, I like to just stay a few minutes to see if anything appears or anything comes out. We have obviously had some awesome honey badger sightings here, so it's always good just to wait a few minutes and see what happens. So that's exactly what we're gonna do, but while we do that, they're gonna send you back to my favorite handsome boy. Not Tristan; I'm talking about Husana.

Oh yes, well, that would be a bit awkward. I think Husana is very much everybody's favorite at the moment. Unfortunately, you don't have a view of him at all. We were trying to be patient and wait for these impalas to move, but for now, they're just sitting there and kind of waiting and milling about, much like we are. And you can see they're quite alert in town; the wind blows or any sort of movement.

You'll find these impalas actually pop their heads up, and they look around, and obviously look in our direction too. Impalas are incredibly intelligent animals, and they've—people don't give them credit for it—but they know very well that lots of cars mean potential danger. So I'm pretty sure this is the same herd of Impalas that's already drank here today, and they already know that there's liquid around, and if they need to be careful, and so that's why they're just kind of making sure that they're watching and checking what's going on.

I think eventually what we're gonna see is them starting to come towards this area and coming to drink a little bit late if the cars will move on. Then you'll find that they'll start to come down, but until then, it's just gonna be a patience game. Most of the impalas that we've seen here are for the females; there'll be the odd male that will be mixed in amongst them.

And the right season is gonna start to die down quite a bit now. What we're gonna see is that these guys, most of these females, should already have been mated with and should be theoretically pregnant. Those that are gonna fall pregnant, you do get a later rut, which does sometimes take place in a sort of May-June, but I think we're getting past that point now. It should be almost at the time where—there's Husana; he's walking now, Craig; he's come right out into the open!

So he's not even hiding; these impalas will be able to see him very, very clearly because of how—in the open he actually is at the moment. He's just sitting behind the back of a vehicle, watching what he's watching. Is there something else coming from behind us that doesn't reflect it?

So, Matt, the reason why the impalas are not running away, even though they know he's here is quite simple, is that from where they are, they can see him. And so there's no point in him moving and trying to run away and then not knowing where that leopard goes; then he can stalk them from where they are. They can watch him, see him, and make sure that they are keeping an eye on where he is and make sure that he is kind of in their field of view and they don't have to worry too much about being hunted.

So often you'll see predator-prey animals who actually follow a predator, sometimes keeping eyes on them, making sure that they are not in any way disturbing it. We'll make sure that that predator is not getting anywhere away from them and being able to hide again to hunt them, so it's obviously an interesting way that he does think—well, that they do things.

The problem is I don't know what he's watching because I can't see anything at this stage that he could potentially be stalking. He's definitely following something, and I just have no idea what it is. The thing is, is the more he moves, the more the impalas look, the more they might see him, and the less chance he's got of being successful.

Now the monkeys are alarm calling it to me; he's having a tough time here, unfortunately. He needs to stay hidden if he is to be successful. Wait for the cover of darkness, but until then he's gonna have a tricky, tricky time passing through the bushes. They're still watching these impalas, but I think the more space we give him, the better it's going to be for Husana.

But look at how he's creeping, and they're cool. We're just gonna stay exactly where we are; we're not gonna move at all, and hopefully eventually he's gonna start stalking towards this area. All the impalas to start moving, and he'll be able to stalk them from where he's lying. But I feel sorry for him in some respects because he tries to move, and the monkeys shout at him. It's like there's aerial watch, this ground watch; it's tough to be a predator sometimes.

So he's gonna have to be very, very, very lucky to get this right. Unfortunately, the way things work and the way, you know, animals are sensitive to what's around them, you're gonna find that's gonna be very tricky for him to hunt. This herd will be on extra alert, but you can see his patterning works, and those kind of shaded areas at Rick's work very well to kind of camouflage himself and stay hidden.

Good, we going to stay with Husana; we'll remain here for the afternoon. In the meantime, let's cross to Steve and see how he's getting on with his afternoon.

Thanks, Justin. He does have a very good camouflage; he went past where he was this morning, and I couldn't see him. I would not have known he was there if I didn't know he was there; it was invisible, invisible leopards. That is how it works; once that camouflage is given away, then they need to move off. Once they have been observed, and that's one of the reasons why you'll get animals alarm calling in a group like that, because I see you, I see you, I see you.

And the stealthy predator misses, which with owls and birds of prey—who else you got there, Darby? So you also get owls, and birds of prey also get mobbed by birds, and they generally move away quite soon afterwards because without their stealthiness, I think is there without their stealthiness, they—um—they don't have the necessary ability to catch anything.

You see the same with cheetahs; cheetahs, the game's up. Lions are quite similar as well. They're all sort of stealthy, even in Ghana. How many times have I seen it in Ghana who's kind of on the move, and then he gets spots? He just like calling, and he's like, "I got, he's seen me. It'll, it okay?" So he's just gonna go through the drainage, though. There seems to be no sign of Sabri.

Where she's got? Okay, she's not lying up down in the bottom. I do apologize about our picture breakup that we are experiencing now in the sand; very sandy. It's gonna bumble through this little drainage line. She was left on the other side of the dam this morning, I believe, and she came from this side. So maybe she actually had some meat. But she definitely had some altercation with Tandy; that's what Tandy was behaving the way she was behaving.

But who knows if they actually came to blows? I didn't see either of them up close this morning to Sabri for a visual of the Queen Tandy. Hello, Meighan. Well, a lynx or a caracal has also got pointed ears. Yes, African Wildcats have got pointed ears; servals have got round. A lot of it's got to do with camouflage, you know? I mean, caracals actually blend in beautifully with these little points and tufts on the top of their head versus round ears.

So that the pointed ears actually work in camouflage. A caracal is almost invisible when it's staring straight at you. Leopards and lions, for camouflage, flatten their ears to break up that shape that they have. So I think it's an evolutionary trait that the family itself or the group, the species itself, has sort of evolved with. Domestic cats, they're not really hiding from anything. They do sneak up on things, but they're not coming over termite mounds, over rises, and having me like a lion or leopards in a garden with sonic puppets.

But the misfit to break up the cat line outline, whereas a caracal taper at least actually four. So that's just me speculating at all why domestic cats, which were once the African Wildcat, have been bred into sort of that, and maybe some people have even bred some domestic cats to be very pointy about it.

Yeah, I think maybe they like it not absentia; one of the mysteries of nature. Okay, you know, go check the fire break one last effort here forcibly, and then we're going to go and see if we can find Tandy where she was left this morning.

Well, we're gonna get going around here one more look forcibly, and then we'll move on to Tandy. And let's go over to Lauren, who's also searching. Let's see how she's getting on. While we moved on from our hippopotamus, we had a little bit of an interaction with Winston Churchill.

Oh, we tried to put him on camera, but he comes so close to the car to say hi that it's really not possible to actually put him on camera at all. So we're gonna keep bumbling on. I do feel like Tingana is around here somewhere. And honestly, I'm not gonna lie to you; it's not because I've seen tracks or anything like that. It is just a gut feeling. Sometimes you get these weird feelings out here, and it is nothing more than that.

Little squirrel, are you able to get that squirrel, Senzo? And off we go! I love how much squirrels run for their lunch and their life. Sorry, talking of food, I regularly enjoy eating raw peppers on my drive. It's my thing—raw red peppers. I think they are absolutely—because you have, like, already well and truly dived into the shredded paper.

And everyone in camp thinks I'm utterly bonkers for eating or just sitting and eating them. I think they're so delicious. Love raw peppers! But absolutely, he could curse everyone in Kenya up, and the Mara thought I was crazy as well. And everyone, crazy! Do you all think I'm crazy? Does anyone else eat raw peppers for a snack, or is it just me?

Senzo also says, "Good," in the back of my vehicle. Well, I think it's delicious! I think Faith also agrees. Actually, I'm pretty sure I heard Gordon Moon when she saw me eating it. Yeah, Faith loves something too. Thanks, Fee! You've always got my bet.

So we're just gonna bumble on a little bit towards the pan. Someone loves them was a backseat; Bex loves them all chopped up in her salad—raw, yes! I do like them chopped up, but sometimes you can all grow—I don't have the time to chop up a pepper, so some things you just have to munch the whole thing up.

But I do like them chopped up as well, of course I do. So yes, Gory pan is up here, and I think it's pretty much dry. But we often find King Kana or Columbo here, so I'm taking a bit of a gamble to see if we can see any spots around here.

Oh, it looks like my boy is stalking again, so we're gonna send you across to Husana.

Oh, I'm sure you'd like to be considered as anybody's favorite; I think he's a free-roaming spirit. But he's moving around. I think he's pretty much kind of tint on hunting something, whether or not it's these impalas or something else, I'm not sure.

But you know that monkeys are really shouting at him, so it's gonna be a bit tricky, but he's gonna head up towards those impalas. Unfortunately, we're gonna lose view of him completely, so you know condition ourselves and just try and see if we can get something.

Performance, it's gonna be a big bump here, Craig, so just be ready. Sorry, unfortunately, we need to try and wait for everybody else to [Music]. Just to try and kind of shuffle around and see what we can do, but you'll probably use this gully system as much as he can, if possible.

The gully system allows him to be able to creep around and move and kind of get into places where he's able to hunt. Now from here, I'm not sure where he's gonna go. I'm hesitant to try and go up just from the point of view that if these impalas are on top right of where we are at the moment, we hit up there, they're gonna just push away from us.

So if we stop and just wait a little bit, it allows him to move along and to kind of find where he wants to go or so you never know, the impalas might turn and start heading back towards him. There they go; they've obviously seen him, and off they go.

So that is the end of Husana's hunt, I'm afraid. He's going to have to now find another way of doing things because those impalas have now seen him, spotted him, and are not very happy about the fact that he's around. So let's just see where did he go, though, Craig? Sir? Next question, there was—there it is!

What is he stalking now? Going to the toilets, that's what Easter Joy says! I do think he has good hunting skills. I mean, he does miss a lot, but so does every leopard. He just tries that much more than a lot of other leopards.

He’s a very, very active cat, and he spends a vast majority of his time going off to many, many, many, many different animals. And so I don't consider him bird hunting; I just consider him to try more than others. And you can see now he's given up on the pan; it's too many things shouting at him.

So, between monkeys and impalas, it's not time to head off somewhere else. And he does this seeming the most times that he's at the pan. He waits until the afternoon, which surprises me because they often theoretically should be a great time to be at the pan because so many things come and drink. But he seems to move off, and then he does this big loop and messes around, and then eventually starts hunting again later in the sort of early hours of the morning. He's back at the pan and kind of either resting while still looking for food from there.

I'm just gonna try to get through here, this way, roughly close to where he was this morning. He wasn't too far from this area. Oh, he's such a pretty cat, though! He's gonna come through right, so here we are; he's so nice if he climbed up onto this dead tree that has fallen over and just posed for us, wouldn't that be lovely?

It should come from our left-hand side; there he comes! Oh, and boy, up onto the tree! I don't think he's going to go onto the tree, but one can hope and wish. See how he goes when he goes over rises high, keeps his head down, and just checks very carefully.

It's a bit clever; he knows that there could very well be something like a diker or impala or neos, I mean like they're just on the other side. So when he approaches, anyhow, we can't see over the top; see how is he doing much there. Is it flatter, and he tries to kind of creep up as much as possible and then kind of peer over the top so as not to give himself away too much?

Once he's had a good scan of the area, you'll find he'll start to walk again and kind of move off and find something else. But you can see on his tummy now that he's in need of some sort of a meal. What have you seen, Husana? I don't know what this cat spots that we can't look at him.

Leopard corner and him back to normal once he gets lower down. He'll be back to normal and kind of looking around again. But what it is that he saw, I have absolutely no idea because there is nothing that I can see that's not to say that he hasn't spotted something.

We as humans are pretty blind when it comes to watching leopards, that's for sure. No seeing what leopards see, I suppose. They were not watching leopards but seeing what leopards see, maybe because he's going around towards the drainage.

Let's go around. Sky, how often does a leopard's tail movement give its presence away? Oh, I mean, it does happen, but not that often. I mean, most of the time the whites of the tail is at the back, and generally, if something gets very close, their tail stops.

It's normally from afar that the tail twitching is happening, and once they get a little bit closer, then they stop doing it. So that's what he's stalking. You see there, Craig, is impalas. This is what we're gonna do; we're gonna sit and we in a position ourselves right here where I can somewhat see the impalas.

I'm pretty sure what Husana is gonna do is he's gonna go down along the drainage line in order to try and hunt these impalas. There he is, so he's walking down. This is exactly where I was walking around this morning, actually, only enough, looking for him.

And the impalas are kind of on my right-hand side. So I don't want to move too much; we're just gonna sit here and watch where he goes. But the cover of the drainage line is the perfect place for him to be able to kind of stalk along where we can't see him.

And you can see that's already from what we're looking at now is how once he gets down in there, it's very, very difficult to make him out. You can just make out his back as he's walking along, and he's gonna try and get himself closer and closer and closer towards where these impalas are.

So I'll just kind of stick where we are right now; we're not gonna move. That's all; I don't want to off-road any further. Let’s try and wait for him to get his way closer towards where those impalas are at the moment. Come on, boy, now don't go up there because then you're going the wrong way!

Yes, you need to come along the drainage, come along further. He's just trying to work it out. Husana's trying to figure out, okay, where do I go? If he's impalas are moving, the impalas are actually dropping towards the drainage line, which could potentially benefit him.

If he moves quick enough and he gets to where he needs to be fast enough, then maybe just maybe he'll be able to position. Now, just trying to watch where he's going; difficult to see, obviously designed to camouflage pretty well. But I'm pretty sure he's gonna get what runs there between the grasses.

It's quite steep little and in there; there's a gully that he can walk along, and the gully goes all the way along, and he can then follow that gully to the right-hand side, which is there. He's just popped his head up now, Craig! Why don't you go down rather?

It's going to be better for you. I decided this is the way he wants to go, but you can see he's concentrating in terms of how far he's got to go. He's got probably about, I would say, 100 meters that he needs to cover now before he's going to be able to get anywhere near where the impalas are.

So he needs to be able to kind of go very, very, very slowly from where he is now and try and get a little bit closer. Once he gets to within maybe 5 to 10 meters, he's got a much better shot at what he's doing.

But for now, his ability to get closer is gonna be what's gonna make or break this hunt. I saw Inked, it'll be better off if he's down below, and where he is now, a little bit more exposed; obviously, we can see him clearly, but we're the impalas not seeing nearly as well because in front of him is quite a lot of vegetation that he's gonna hit into.

So I'm not the worst place to hunt, I suppose, so we'll see.

You know, how much greater is his sense of smell over humans? I'm not sure the exact figure and the exact statistic, but I can tell you, it's much, much, much, much stronger. I mean, we walk around and pick up a scent of something, whereas these guys they'll pick up a scent and they'll be able to follow it for quite some time and actually lead them to things.

And I've watched leopards go for over four or five kilometers following a scent and leading them to a kill. Their sense of smell is infinitely stronger than what ours is. But what the actual figure is, no statistic or what parts they can pick up a million, I'm not 100% sure to be honest with you.

But you can see how he's kind of creeping along at the moment, slowly making his way, and you can see what I'm talking about, about how thick it is in front of me. So that's the thickets there, and it doesn't stay thick like that, unfortunately, as we pan towards the right and towards where the impalas are, you can see it opens out.

And in the impalas, it just through that gap, you can just make them out cutting through this thicket, so he's got a long way to cross. But unfortunately, very little cover from here to where they are. So what he's gonna do is he's gonna get himself into spots like years now, park off inside there, and then wait for the impalas to move around.

The sort of cover of darkness will probably be the best thing, and that sun is starting to set now. So it'll be good for him just to be patient and to try and kind of wait until it gets a little bit more dark and dingy. The problem is the impalas are not gonna stay here until it's pitch black; they're gonna start moving out of this area because they know it's much more dangerous for them to be in here at night than it is during the course of the day.

But I still haven't seen him emerge from his little leopards area.

Sighs coming now. Yeah, most definitely, that how to provost; tail does its own thing altogether. It seems to have a mind of its own, so it'll twitch and move and kind of go even when the rest of his body is motionless. His tail will twitch, and that's just all kind of excitement and indication, probably more than anything, if it's a female with two cubs, to stop moving and to not come where she is.

So that twitching of the tail would be a good signal. Remember that back end of their tail is white, and so it's easy for a cub to see. And so that's probably where it comes from, and then that behavior is learned as they get a bit older. But look at him go, isn't that cool? It amazes me the camouflage that they have when they get into this dry, wintery grass.

The problem that he's got now is he's reached the sort of limits of where there's cover for him. From where he is now to where the impala are is completely open at this stage. So what he's got to hope for is rutting male impalas that cause havoc in amongst the herd and chase each other all over the place.

Now you can see he's walking, and look how much more exposed he is already, and that's because there's no more grass cover, there's no more bushes, and he's trying to—what he's trying to do is use this one quarry bush between the impalas and him at the moment.

He's trying to use that as his kind of cover to stalk a little bit closer, but he's got a long, long way to go still before he's even anywhere near a strike zone or anywhere where he can lie down and wait and be patient.

So there can probably be another good 15, 20 minutes of stalking and moving painfully slowly in order to get himself anywhere near where those impalas are. We'll just have to be patient and just see how it goes. It's one of those things where the patience is a virtue of this poison, and particularly when cats hunt, one needs to be patient.

Search all over the universe, I didn't exactly, but I think it was something along the lines of is he larger than Tingana? No, not by a long shot. He's not quite a lot smaller, wider. I'm not sure what you mean by wider, to be honest. I don't know if you're talking about his lengths or his breaths or his head or his body.

Why? There's not really a term we use with leopards as he is long as a desert in Ghana? Probably fairly close to height-wise. No, no Enya and bulk wires? No, I'm afraid. Still got a long way to go in both accounts when it comes to hunting, Ghana.

So the stage is he's not in any way close to the width of, I don't know, whatever comparison we're making. He's not there; I mean, even his track width is not as big as Tingana. So there's really nothing about him that's wider than Tingana at this stage.

Asana, you've boxed yourself into a corner here, my boy, because you've gotten into a place where no, you can't really move, which is not ideal for him. I still think if he had followed the drainage along, he would have been far bit off. He could have popped into that thicket, and then he would have been very, very close.

If there's impalas moving, they would have moved roughly kind of towards where he is. The problem is the presence of vehicles, and yeah, there's two vehicles on the other side means the impalas are not feeding, which allows him no room to move.

If they start to feed and they drop their heads, it's much easier for him to kind of get closer and be able to get in where he needs to. So we'll just have to be patient and wait, and like I said, it's getting darker, so things will start getting easier for Husana.

Could will be patients in a sit here. In the meantime, there, I'm gonna send you across to Steve, who is still tracking Sabri and Tristan.

Well, we checked the fire break, everybody, and we found tracks of, well, most likely Sabri heading in a westerly direction along the fabric, and then they cut back. And now the track seems to sort of hit this wall, that this is where I found Tandy this morning; kind of hit this wall.

Tree House dam is just up here, so we're hoping we're hoping we're gonna find him because, well, she didn't def, she didn't cross arch; she didn't go south. She came back, and she started walking. You see? Yeah, Tandy's tracks this morning just on the road. You'll see this map, I do apologize. History tracks this morning that were steaming is Herby, as you like to call her.

And there's my footprints next them. I followed her down here, and then she materialized out the end of this block. It's very exciting, but now the boys' tracks have come in this direction. She was st. marking down the road. Then I checked that road; there were no tracks this morning, so we're gonna be like he does. Sabri's at the Tree House dam; we'll possibly can smell it; can probably smell it.

But so Sabri moves along here; she might move just along at a different angle, and they put Steve mark their territories. So see, now you want to know which African cats have the best parents. Wow, there's a very good question. Well, cheetahs seem to be the least successful because they're just not strong enough to sort of defend their cubs if they do have them.

Leopards, solitary parents, so they do the best that they can, and lions, well, they're in a pride, so they have a little bit more help when it comes to supporting the youngsters. But it'd be very hard to really say; all in all, I think cats do quite badly when it comes to looking after their youngsters; it's just the way it is.

You look at dogs and hyenas, and they have a little bit more success because of the fact that they use burrows in the ground. And that's an evolutionary adaptation that many, many mammals have utilized for not only the survival of their young but the survival of themselves.

And while lions haven't done it, or leopards is beyond me going into aardvark holes. So it's very hard to really put a number on that, but cats for the most part, leopards seem to do a little bit better than cheetah. But I really wouldn't know how to put a number on that. Each environment you go to will have different success rates.

The Serengeti does very well for cheetah because the environment; cheetah don't do very well because the environments is hard to put like the cold hard facts around it. But lions in the Kruger, when I worked on the east side of the Kruger, they did very well. They were just killing machines—prides of 24, 25 lions, 16 cubs surviving at a time, and then little calm is here.

I haven't had a good couple of couple of years, but then Tandy's having a consecutive one cub sort of litter going through. So anyway, let's cross to Tristan and see what he thinks about which of the big cats got the best success rate with hiccups.

Oh, hmm, it's a tricky one, I suppose. I mean, I don't think cheetah, unfortunately, is high up on that list given their inability, unfortunately, to even defend cubs if something attacks and they are close by. It's a tough one. I think it depends a lot on the area and the density of predators that could potentially be dangerous to their cubs as to which ones are successful in certain sections.

So, you know, in areas where there's very low density of hyena lion, then obviously if it's - quite well and so do cheetahs, say, probably you'd find that there's more success in lions just from a pride point of view. So once they get past that sort of most difficult phase where they relying so heavily on mom in a den.

I won't say actually with the pride then it's much easier for many of the pride females to protect the little ones from various threats. Oh, it's probably lions and—their combo, I think probably have it a bit easier. And probably make the best mothers.

Now it's not to say that they aren't very good mothers; lepids in the Soviets, and I just think they have a much tougher time with far more male lipids in, and in the area, than what the lions have to deal with. And remember that in both those species, generally, male lion or male leopard in those species is the number one cause for cubs to be lost.

It's not, it's not so much other predators for both of them. You can see the little white tip of Husana's tail is now made us, and we'll move. Since you last saw him, he's just watching these impalas. The impalas are slowly starting to relax now, which is good news. The quieter it is, and the more things kind of take on, the more they forget about the fact that there's cars and various other things.

And so they're starting to slowly kind of go back to feeding and making themselves pretty comfortable, and Husana then, he's able to kind of move a step forward every time. But the problem is there's one impala to the right, which is the male impala, who is kind of stopping any sort of movement for Husana.

Linda, I think animal stomachs growl when they're hungry, like humans? Probably, probably find that there's some sort of noises that come out of the stomachs, and we never that close that we can really hear too much. Sometimes hear them when they're sleeping, so much that they almost snore.

But in terms of growling, tummies, very, very seldom. Most of the time with these cats, you know, we're not close enough to be able to hear it. I would be very, very surprised, though, if they don't. I'm almost certain that their tummies do growl when they're a little bit hungry, especially when they see a prey source moving around very, very close to where they are.

Husana, I still think you should have been in the drainage. Most of those impalas are moving into the drainage. I mean, you would have been in prime position to have hunted them. They're coming down from right to left at the moment. You can see all this. Husana's head has changed and tilted slightly, so I think he would have been perfect if he'd stayed down there.

But who knows? Maybe there wasn't enough cover, and that's why I opted for the more Thor sort of thicker bank area in the drainage itself. What we really need is those two boys to start fighting, and the male impalas that cause havoc in amongst the herd and chase each other all over the place.

And now you can see as he's walking, look how much more exposed he is already. And that's because there's no more grass cover, there's no more bushes. And what he's trying to do is use this one quarry bush between the impalas and him at the moment.

Particularly when cats hunt, one needs to be patient and search all over the universe. I didn't exactly. But I think it was something along the lines of, is he larger than Tingana? No, not by a long shot. He's not quite a lot smaller, wider.

I'm not sure what you mean by wider, to be honest. I don't know if you're talking about his lengths or his breaths or his head or his body. Why? There's not really a term we use with leopards; is he as long as a desert in Ghana? Probably fairly close to height-wise.

No, no Enya and bulk wires? No, I'm afraid still got a long way to go in both accounts when it comes to hunting. Ghana.

He could have popped into that thicket, and then he would have been very, very close. If there's impalas moving, they would have moved roughly kind of towards where he is. The problem is the presence of vehicles. Yeah, there's two vehicles on the other side, which means the impalas are not feeding, which allows him no room to move.

Could will be patient in a sit here. In the meantime, there, I'm gonna send you across to Steve, who is still tracking Sabri and Tristan.

It's not, it's not so much other predators for both of them. You can see the little white tip of Husana's tail is not made us, and we'll move. Since you last saw him, he's just watching these impalas. The impalas are slowly starting to relax now, which is good news. The quieter it is, and the more things kind of take on, the more they forget about the fact that there's cars and various other things.

No, no Enya and bulk wires? No, I'm afraid still got a long way to go in both accounts when it comes to hunting. Ghana.

Safari Live - Day 376 | National Geographic

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