Safari Live - Day 202 | National Geographic

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

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome again to another afternoon sunset safari with us here in June and the Sabi Sands. My name is Steve Faulkner, and I’m joined on camera by Sebastian. The drone team is in the other vehicle for a change, or in Wendy. Please send through your questions and comments using the hashtag #safarilive. Let us know what you'd like to see or talk about.

We are seeing if we can follow up on "the little chief" or son of that amazing young leopard, where he might have been this morning. We've just checked the last place we saw him, and he's not there. So, where do you think he might be? Hmm, I've got a feeling he might have just turned back again and gone back to his favorite spot. What do you think?

It is a very nice 29 degrees Celsius (85 degrees Fahrenheit), a bit blustery. It's a good day for the leopard to be catching something. It hasn't been cold today; well, it hasn't been hot, should I say, so it's a good chance he's moved and has been moving. We’re going to go have a look at where Taylor is. Obviously, we’ve got to check the tracks along the way.

The one thing that we have an advantage over these animals with is that they can try and sneak and hide, but if we get our nose to the ground, we can quite often find them. How amazing was that safari this morning with James doing his thing at Cheetah Plains, watching two crocodiles killing two Impala in less than a week!

And I'm not the only one out this afternoon. Sydney is also driving; he’d like to say good afternoon to everyone.

“A very, very good afternoon to you all and welcome to the beginning of the afternoon game drive! I am Sydney, and I am NOT traveling alone this afternoon. I am with the SINs of my camera operator. We are both going to be with you, so follow us on Twitter, hashtag #safarilife. You can also follow us on the YouTube chat stream.

My plan this afternoon is quite simple because the weather is nice and overcast, which is good for the animals. I will be looking for Tandy and Kalama; I haven’t seen them for quite a long time. What I saw this morning was a lovely sighting by Chitra Dam, so I will be hanging around the central part of the game reserve to see if I can find those two.

The conditions are nice and cool, and the chances of tracking today are perfect. I haven't yet spotted any of the animals; I just want to try and see if I can find some tracks. I can see there's been some activity happening. I am NOT alone in the reserve this afternoon; Steve is also doing some tracking on the other side of the game reserve.

Well, nothing at the moment. We are still having a look. Nothing seems to have passed by this way, so we're just going to go have a quick look at that area where we watched for him. If he is around, we're going to spend a little bit more time in the area where the tracks were or where he was last seen.

There's a good chance he’s either gone to one of the watering holes or he’s moved off just slightly from where he was. But who knows? Here are some lovely Impala; maybe they will tell us where he is. There is a beautiful one on top; the second rut is happening, and these two males on the right-hand side are scaring all the ladies. That’s what happens when there's pheromones in the air; the males get all excited again for mating rights to the odd handful of females that potentially didn't get mated with.

Here comes the third male into the fray from the side. You can hear that very funny noise that the Impala make. Such beautiful but strange animals in their own right. Good indicators of predators around. We actually have a couple of other animals with them over there. Let’s go up to them, shall we?

There’s a zebra; at least one zebra and one wildebeest. It seems to be a bit of an accumulation here of animals sort of hanging together, trying to shelter out of this wind. The Juma migration is in full swing at the moment. Just going to make some space yet because those Impala seemingly still want to have a little bit of a go at each other.

Here's a beautiful zebra; you can just see the size difference of a fully grown male Impala. Zebras are far bigger, enjoying the company of these others because the Koomas were through two days ago. It’s very hard for me to remember exactly when because we seem to be in a bit of a bubble with all these rehearsals and early mornings, but when Koomas had a zebra kill not far from here, and no doubt it belongs to the family of the zebra here; 'cause I only see two zebras.

So maybe it was part of their family; it's hard to say, but if it was, then the memory would still be quite real for them. My safari you reckon now Hasan is missing an opportunity; well, he would really struggle to catch one of these when they’re in such a large group. It really is difficult with so many eyes and ears, and that is the purpose of these accumulations—to spot the predator. It gives them all more time to feed and to get fat and healthy because they all fear lions if they come through.

Invariably, that also sharted any leopard that might move through, so it does pay a lot of sort of benefits to them all to hang out like this, just sheltering from the wind and the thickets. That's where we're gonna find our animals today, hiding away in the thickets.

Kermy, Hassan ahead a meal I'm trying to think. I haven't been with him for this last week; I think he had another daycare on last week that we know of. He had that under a tree just behind Gallagher Lodge. That Inga came and stole from him. I’m trying to remember the dates, but then we don't know about scrub hares and small birds he's had, and also, we missed him for a few days. He didn't come out of the block yet, but I'm sure he had something, and we didn't find him on it; very hard to say but they can go two weeks or so, three weeks without eating.

Well, they don't choose to; this area is full of plenty for them. The accumulation of animals to the watering holes, as we've seen, Asana spends a lot of time around Vitelli watering hole, and he's been catching and Dakers by the dozen, or it seems, and yet there's still so many day care. I found an incredible breeding, must be really, really awesome because they're just constantly around. Even from the drone, we get caught up with lots of day care; we spot a lot of them—ideal habitat in and around the Juma area for them, hence why we have such a high density of leopards.

Okay, well, we’re going to move off from our little family unit of animals here. In the meantime, let’s go over to Sydney and see how his tracking is going.

I am now on yellow road in the middle of the game reserve trying to see if I can find some very nice fresh tracks of these cats as here it is the last area they have been spotted a few days ago. So Tandy is with Kalama in this area at Columba, the little one. So when they are two, like their chances of them coming out is very high because yesterday I didn’t see them, and nobody saw them yesterday, which means they must have come out for a drink or maybe for some other hunting activities. Who knows?

Resilin, the leopards, they can fight very hard, and their fights sometimes are very painful. Seeing because they can screech, scratch each other, and it sometimes results in one of them bleeding a lot on the face as they can be able to use those claws to scratch each other as they’re fighting.

I have seen a leopard fight just that it was at night; it was not a good sighting, but yes, I also hear some other people who witnessed those kinds of fights that they can be vicious sometimes. Haylee, at the moment, the game reserve is very much dry, but this is the right season for the vegetation to look like this. This is normal because now we are just at the end of our dry season. Anytime soon, we are going to get some fast rains, and everything will get back to normal. They do have some of the evergreen trees that I can see, which are still green to maintain some of the animals' grazes. It's the ones that are at this stage feeding a lot on the dry grass, but they gotta have to balance that with quite a lot of water consumption and as eating dry grass, and they must go and then drink a lot of water.

So when going to drink, that is when our predators, such as Hassan, will be waiting for them to come. I've got a very beautiful bat; can you see that bat? The essence is right on top of the tree. This looks like it's a Battaglia, and look at that. That is quite a beautiful bat. Yesterday, I have just seen a juvenile Battaglia, and next to one of the nests in the game reserve, and today, look at that one! I've got now the adults. Nice and very big; you can see some wind blowing there. This bat is very good indicators of the carcasses in the reserve.

Look at the color of the big knives and pinkish. The juveniles don’t look like others; they look completely different as if they are two different species. They also like to scavenge the Battaglia. It is here in Juma Game Reserve where I have seen my first Battaglia in the water bag, which is one of the areas not very far away from Johannesburg. The Battaglia, we don't have them that side, so I was very lucky, and these are very beautiful birds.

I’m just gonna carry on now and see if we can find some of the tracks. I still have got a huge responsibility of finding Tingana and Colombo. Not gonna give us any time to do tracking if we're going to be jumping like this.

Hello! Well, we are back at the watering hole; we're gonna see if we can find any tracks here. See tracks of a male leopard; a herd of elephants have been through here. Let's go and have a look. Shall we? Nothing in Viet, but we know he likes to hide in these bushes just over here. Okay, there's a track; it's one track, and it could have been from yesterday. No—very hard to tell; there’s lots of animals on top of it.

These bushes, yeah, he likes a lot; it's been quite incredible that he's been around this watering hole for as long as he has. I find that quite incredible; the power of water indeed!

Hello, Safari Sally! You wanna know my best advice on tracking? Just be patient with yourself and try and think outside of the box. You obviously need to learn the tracks first; learning the tracks is the first thing. Then being able to trail an animal—well, that's a different story altogether.

Once you can identify so, you get two elements of tracking: you get to recall track and sign, which is looking at a track on the ground and identifying the species and maybe the movement, even the sex. And then you get trailing, which is the ability to go on the tracks of an animal and follow them and then find them. That takes a lot of practice, a lot of time. It takes years to get good at that. People like Herb, who’s been doing it for 25 years or so; I've been doing it for about ten years, and now we're getting there.

But once you learn the area and you know where things are, you kind of overlay it onto your map inside your head about where the animal could be moving. So if you do little scans with that thermal, it’s a little hidden touch.

Okay, well, it seems like the mahram seems to have sorted out some of the technical issues, and Taylor McCurdy is going to be joining us this afternoon.

“Gonna be all well to them. Hi, and with the giraffe drive! Hello, everybody! Better late than never! There is a giraffe there; many giraffes! They are plenty of giraffe in the Mara, but I think I've told you this a number of times, and I think you've all seen it for yourselves. They’re quite cool; I suppose I better introduce myself at some point as well, as soon as we've just started the show. I'm just glad that the wind has died down.

My name is Taylor McCurdy, and on camera with me today is Archie. Woohoo! And this is a live and interactive Safari, and it's great to have you all here! So remember to send through those wonderful questions!

So, Manga said we've got lots and lots of giraffe; they seem to like it around here every single day. Without a doubt, on the main river road here in the Mara Triangle, you can find not one giraffe but sometimes like 30 or 40 giraffe, and that's a small group! There are quite a few of them. I'm hoping that we’re going to see giraffe crossing the river at some point—maybe some of the shallows, but maybe not right now.

Although they are enjoying eating on the tree line, there's another one; they're just coming out from everywhere. Perhaps, perhaps the giraffe grow out of trees? No, they don't! I'm just talking absolute nonsense! But this is very, very cool! Such a nice scene to see!

Of course, our chair in the Mara can hear lots and lots of cars driving past us—it’s also very normal. Well, giraffe grass, suppose you do like giraffe, with a name like that, you say thank you for making my heart smile! It's a pleasure!

I don't know how you're supposed to do it. I don't know how do these people do that, and they take the perfect photo that silhouetted. My fingers always get in the way!

Anyways, I'm very, very awesome! I'm not sure what we're going to do. What I do want to tell you is that yes, Louise, I'm specialist at being awkward! We should all know this by now! Man, I don't care; I just embrace it!

What my original plan was, was to sit and wait very patiently at Maine North crossing because there was a leopard that had killed a wildebeest at some point. We're not really sure when, and we're really hoping to, of course, have a look at that leopard, but unfortunately, the Sargassum live.

Everyone's, of course, just sit right next to us and then idle their engine! It’s my favorite thing in the entire world! Sorry, I was just waving and then reminding them that we did do a live Safari show as well and that I can't stop and talk to everybody all the time.

Sort of the hardest thing to do is that there was a leopard that was eating a wildebeest at Maine crossing. How long? Like 45 minutes waiting patiently, hoping that the wildebeest was not going to come alive because that would be scary but that the leopard would come back.

Then I could hear a little Sys call or a Warbler or something—a small bird alarming—so I know that that leopard is still in there. I also wouldn't imagine it would just abandon a beautiful kill like that that could feast on for quite some time!

But then some cars were there blocked, so he couldn't actually see anything, so we had to leave unfortunately, but maybe next time! Maybe at some point we’ll get you a leopard! They’re lots around at the moment, so better keep watching every single day, every morning, every afternoon, because you don’t know when they're going to show up.

Anyways, we're going to go a bit further down the road; maybe we're going to see that serval again! Let's go to Sydney, who has got an animal that hasn't no shape like this!

I have got the water back now starting to disappear. It’s quite a very small bachelor herd; the bachelor herds are those kinds of males, both young and adults. Look at that! Nice and very good-looking!

Round ring at the back is just a sign for the “follow me” sign in case of a danger. Also, when they are just feeling relaxed, they see each other from that long distance. Look, these animals can be so very much camouflaged; you can see now when he is walking in between the trees.

Even that white line, you don't see it at all, so I'm just gonna pull forward and see if we can have a good sighting, as I can see now they’re trying to move deep into the thick bushes. I am sure they are not very far away from the water holes because that is their special preference.

They simply got disappeared, I cannot see them anymore. So they’ve been feeding together with some of the Impala here in the area. So the combination here is about safety—safety in numbers! You can pick up a very distant ship’s man here, so the animals touch the water box for them to mark their territories.

The males—yeah, they don’t use urine; they don’t use droppings—they rely on their strong body scent in order to use it as a scent mark. Just fell into the artifact; hold of the animals such as the water box. If you can check throughout the year, their bodies are full of hairs. They are very much hairy with fluffy hairs from the neck, one of those animals which are very difficult to tell if indeed they are in very good condition or not.

Somebody else is true in our area at the stage; the animals vary. Various kinds of species. They are still in a very great condition; it is quite difficult to tell if the vegetation is dry at the moment; they look normal.

So now I'm just gonna go and look much further in the area. But Steve, my other colleague, maybe I don't know if he got something interesting for you already.

Let’s see! Nothing yet; we are still checking with nothing around. I’m just watching the water hole. He’s just gonna go around the area where Prasanna was seen this morning to see if we can get any tracks of where he's possibly moved.

But when it's windy like this, it can be very difficult to find animals. They like to shelter down in the drainage lines, and so it’s easy to just bumble in there. So without finding tracks, it's going to be quite difficult. Good chance he's moved, but how far exactly is hard to say. We'll keep on our wanderings and see whereabouts we come up.

We actually found him on the train close to camp this morning. We helped guide through this really, really undetectable block towards our left-hand side and managed to stay with him; it was quite incredible actually.

Important to use of technology! Hello, PD! I believe you’re new! Welcome to the show! That’s a very good question! You want to know why the animals don't attack us? Well, first of all, a lot of the animals are afraid of us, so they generally move away.

There's sort of a zone that you can get towards them and then move away; that's their comfort zone, and if you get too close, they move away. But if you corner them, cornering an animal is never a good idea; these animals are wild! And if we had to corner one, how might it be that animal would obviously decide to attack you rather than escape!

So it's all about space; it's all about not squashing animals into a tight corner and respecting them and understanding their behavior. We do understand the behavior of animals. It takes quite a bit of time to get into that sort of state of mind and a lot of training required as well.

We don’t just have seen people out driving, and now African wilderness without any sort of qualification; especially if you have guests and if you read the animal's behavior, they generally are quite shy and move away from you. But eventually, over time, they get quite used to the vehicles, and you can view them quite safely, quite naturally, without causing them any harm.

If you go too close, you're going to cause their behavior to change, and that's not ethical! It's all about ethics, Archer! If you understand the behavior changes, you can preempt, you could make decisions.

So, for example, if I saw an animal and its behavior started to change, I would just switch off the car, take away all the influence that might be causing it any stress. If need be, even move back! Over a period of time, the obituary process sets in, and animals realize that, well, these—these things in the box that are moving towards us aren't causing us any harm—they're not stealing our food and aren’t chasing us; they're not hurting us in any way; they’re not competing with us.

They eventually just start ignoring us, and sometimes you’ll see how close the elephants come to the car. Leopards—they come really close; they really see us as a threat anymore. So I hope that answers the question! But a lot of the animals also have become accustomed to seeing the car.

But if I get out on foot, they see the two-legged upright standing human, and you will not get as close to them as you do, that’s for sure! Because they've evolved on the African continent with this human in it, there's a two-legged hunter that has hunted them for a very, very long time. And some of the vehicles, they don’t associate that with us.

But we go to bring it all the way back up to the Masai Mara! Taylor McCurdy has found you some spectacular birds!

Welcome, everybody, to the bird beach paradise, sharing the Mara Triangle, where everything is very relaxing, cool, calm, collected. Where’s the pool boy? I don’t know what type of cocktails birds drink, but, you know, I’m sure they’d like something—maybe they would like a catfish smoothie.

No, I do like the spot, however, because every time I come here, there are lots of birds, and they’re doing nothing except lying. Lie! I lie! They’re there! They’re grooming themselves at the moment! So maybe this is—I shouldn’t call it the beat, the bird beach bar; perhaps it should be the salon— you know, where you realign those feathers, you know, come and get yourself nice and clean!

It was quite interesting in amongst all the birds how those yellow-billed storks we’re looking at—there’s one; is that the same one, or was it the next one? Oh, there it is! Look at this one! Now I don’t know if it’s just dirty— the closer I look at it, the more dirty it actually looks! Initially, I was like, “Maybe it’s a juvenile,” ‘cause it’s even its legs are a different color, but as Archie has zoomed in, I look at that filthy goodness! You need to go into the washing machine, bird—to get those feathers nice and white again!

You're not gonna impress anybody, you know that. That one—that's what a yellow-billed stork is supposed to look like! Beautiful with a bright red facial skin, the bright red legs, and then of course a lovely long yellow beak.

Roxy, you said you love the birds here in the Mara? Yes, I do too! We'll see what we can—we’ll probably try and do a bit of birding. I’m sure we’ll see some superb starlings.

Who would like to see some superb starlings? They’re very pretty. I won’t show you a picture in the book ‘cause I'll wait for them to find some along this road. They normally aren’t. And then, of course, my favorite of the black-headed heron!

Thank you! Thank you for looking! They’re so meticulous with the way that they check every single feather that they can with their beaks, and they’ve got interesting beak shapes. Look at that one! I can comparison if we compare the beaks between—I suppose—the yellow-billed stork and the black-headed heron! They’re very much different, don’t you think?

I mean, the heron's beak is most like the tip of a spear, wouldn’t you agree—how it’s quite sort of broad in the middle, very sharp, and of course, they will stab fish with that? And I suppose the yellow-billed stork will do something quite similar, though they have an interesting fishing technique where they walk around with their heads in the water.

This is one of their techniques. Of course, all these birds have got various techniques, and they leave their beak a little bit jojada and they move around and try and snap fish up like that.

Paula, you said that the stork's beak is almost as long as their legs. Perhaps I get what she’s saying! Some of them look like they were just resting slightly; they do have very, very long beaks! Long and all! They don’t have as long necks as here.

So I suppose that beak length makes up for it and helps for them to feed easier! You can see that one at the back almost looks like it’s got a little bit of pink tinge coming onto its wings! Breeding season must be around then; only the males normally go! It’s lighter, tinted pink when they get excited for the birds!

Have you ever seen yellow-billed stork chicken wings before? There we go! Pink chicken wings! Portland, my favorite bird is not either or any of the ones that we’re looking at at the moment! We’ll see if we can find you one—it's a secretary bird!

Out here in the Mara—you get them in South Africa too, but they in the Sabi Sands; you don’t see them as much! Oh, look! There’s a grey heron too! That’s what I was talking about! That even has a bigger beak than the black-headed heron.

Do you know what? I saw today, but I can’t tell you which one I saw; I’m pretty sure it was a flufftail! I need to actually have a look at my bird book and see what types of flufftails we get here. But they’re very special birds; they like to live in marshy areas, sort of rocky, where there’s quite a bit of grass around as well.

So yeah, so I’ll have to see. That would have been new to me! I just—from its sort of flight and its behavior in the long grass, that was acting very much like a flufftail!

But I have to check, and they’re just resting; they’re not nesting or anything, and they really are just bathing in the sun. Hello, our dear friends, the blacksmith lapwings! Oh, how I’ve missed you so much! We don’t hear them much here, and other birds are a lot louder and seem to steal the show!

I suppose the Ferrari, sorry—the crowd of dust that they’ve left behind there was absolutely spectacular! Maybe that’s why that yellow-billed stork was so dirty! Perhaps!

Anyways, Sydney is trying his absolute best this afternoon to try and find you some leopards; hopefully, he will! I am still looking for the leopards—the beautiful Salamba and Tandy in the area here!

But it seems to be very much quiet; not much activity took place according to the evidence I’m seeing on the ground. I have not yet picked up the fresh tracks for Tandy and Kalama this afternoon, so I am also concentrating on some of the warning calls, and none of the warning calls has been given so far about the presence of these cats in this area.

Now, Jennifer, there are quite a lot of disturbances when it comes to the tracks. One, the wind can easily blow the tracks; but what makes me to confirm that these are fresh tracks is the following: If I see that the track is looking fresh, no insects went over the tracks, and it’s still much visible, I can see the fine sand—that is what convinces me to say this is a fresh track!

But if the track is looking very old is when you will see insects going over the tracks, and apart from the insects, the wind will blow it so that it is not clearly visible! So, I have got something now very beautiful in front of me here!

The battle zebras are standing here waiting for us to see! So I know a lot of people—they do have a kind of confusion between zebra, battle zebra, and the mountain zebras! We both have those species occurring here in southern Africa—in South Africa, it’s just that here in Juma Game Reserve, we only got the bachelor zebras!

So the battle zebras—the difference between them and the cape mountain zebras is that they have got less black stripes around their bodies, and the mountain zebras, they have got a lot of black stripes around their bodies. And the bachelor zebras, their stripes are coming halfway—they are coming from underneath their bellies, and the mountain zebras, their stripes are coming halfway down to their bellies.

The battle zebras, their stripes, they have got some yellow with shadows on their stripes, and the mountain zebras don’t have the yellow with shadows on their stripes! And if you look at the legs, the bachelor zebras—the legs are not completely fully striped, whereas the mountain zebras—the legs are completely fully striped!

Right there, we are seeing now beneath the tail is one of the areas you can tell between the difference between the male and the female. When the line underneath the tail is thin, it’s telling you that is a male zebra; when the line underneath the tail is broad, it’s telling you this is a female zebra.

These animals have a very dangerous kick, meaning that you cannot go confirm by lifting up a tail. He is now feeding on this grass—these dry grasses; this animal prefers to feed on tall grasses. If you can check there now, this area is not completely grazed; the grasses are still very much tall, which is one of the reasons why you see the zebras with the very beast because the very beast prefers shorter grass, and zebras prefer tall grass.

In other words, these zebras, they go in front, cutting the grass shorter for the wildebeest behind to eat. There’s quite a very beautiful animal. Look at that! Bring the zebra skin; if you can check that, it does have two colors, which is black and white!

Many say it’s black with white stripes. But a lot of people say it’s white with black stripes! That I’m seeing it as an animal white with black stripes!

Look at that; this is beautiful! So in terms of eyesight, zebras have a very good eyesight, and both males and females, they look pregnant all year round! They both have a very big stomach, and they are not ruminants; they just have a simple stomach like we do!

So there must be most zebras not very far away from where we are seeing the zebras. So this is Emperor’s! You can see now there are more further down—they work in groups.

Zebras work in harems; but harems, they also feed together with other harems. When harems are together, then it’s called a dazzle of zebras. So now I will be heading to fresh tracks in the area here, so I'm just going to head on now and see and carry on with my tracking.

Well, good luck, Sydney; I hope you manage to find Tandy wherever she might be! I haven't had any success yet with Hosana; some tracks, but they're not that fresh. But it's hard to say when it’s windy like this; the wind can also damage the tracks, cutting the edges off. Moving dust across takes away the freshness and can be quite deceptive.

You know, we just came past the site where the Koomas killed that zebra a couple of nights ago, and Enna ended up stealing the remains from them. But there was nothing left; I’m just gonna have a quick look to see if we could identify if it was a male or female, but I couldn't find anything. They picked up the pieces; we sorted from the drone; there were Enna to get it all over the place, feeding on that zebra!

I don’t even know if it was a big zebra or not—all we know is it was a dead one. Hello, Michael! No, no luck with—no luck with the Koomas! It seems to be off the property, wherever it is, but no one can tell us exactly where. We’ll let you know, I promise, as soon as we find one you’ll all know immediately!

So we've done an entire loop now! Hello, Monique! You want to know about cheetah and hyena tracks? They’re quite different actually! Very very different! Let me show you in my lovely book here.

Here is a lovely hyena track; the size is very similar! I mean, the tracks are very similar, but you see the back—these two lobes here—there are two lobes, and the toes are kidney shaped, and you can see the claws. Cheetah tracks, you can see the claws as well, but the difference is this back here!

But something you don’t notice in the track here, but in the sand, these areas here are all pinched; the sand is pinched together. Let me get the cheetah track now. Okay, and there is the cheetah track!

Very similar in length, but the back pad is parallel to the front of the toes, and it’s got three lobes at the back. The claws are visible, but there’s a lot of space between the toes and the pad, which means you don’t get this pinched sort of sand patch in between there. They’re quite a clear print on the ground with what we call negative space.

Here it is in the sand over there, and the mud is not a very good picture to be honest! But a cheetah track looks similar to a very big leopard track, which has sort of been squashed in a vice grip—just squashed.

Because if I show you the leopard track, there’s a big male. So if you go and squash that, well, a cheetah looks like that, except the claws are clearly visible in the cheetah. And these two ridges over here actually stand out in the cheetah track because that is the grip that they use, almost like your track shoes—used for moving quite quickly—whereas the cheetah leopard doesn’t really need high-speed movement!

They bulge out there, and they leave a very nice distinct mark in the sand, so I hope that answers your question! We are looking for any of those really, but I saw some just before; they’re not very easy to show you on the camera in this light! Lighting is also a very important aspect and when it's very overcast, it's hard to see tracks because you can't see the angle, and the shadows are very, very deceptive! You need the shadows!

Anyway, we're gonna keep searching here for a little while longer, and in the meantime, let's go back over to Sydney, who’s doing the same.

I have spotted elephant tracks going down there! I am now still on towards the western side of the game drive just trying to see. I've got some tracks here, but it's not for the cats!

This one I've got here is still not winning with the crest at the moment; maybe our luck's gonna be much more twas there where we are going! Because from down this side, it seems to be very much quiet. No, I don't have—I’m battling to hear the FC; I’m not getting anything from the FC at the moment.

We just checked it here; I am battling to get a hold of the question from the FC! Could you please give me the question back? I am not hearing anything; I am not getting the questions.

So now, while I’m still fine-tuning my communication, let’s go to Steve!

Well, the gremlins are all over the place! We are back exactly where Husana was left this morning! I'm going to have one more little peek in here—oopsie! Sorry, zip! We’re not just lying down here in the drainage that we can’t see very camouflage!

These animals, ladies and gentlemen, are very kind of flushed. This is an area that we spent a lot of time with Tandy and Columba the whole of February! It seems it’s just this side and that side; it's really, really cool to have spent that time with her when the little furball was just a little furball!

There’s nothing much more to say. Just big feet, cuddly little face! It could be anywhere! Okay, well, I don’t see anything here! We’re gonna go around to avoid Taylor again and see if we can assist Aubree!

Those alarm calls—alarm calls are a great way to find animals, but tracking is a good way. Alarm calls are much more real in the moment! But there were no tracks coming out; I didn’t find any tracks!

So, it’s very hard to say he might still be here, and those might be alarm calling at some other leopard that we haven’t been paying attention to this morning. Maybe Tingana's coming back in! This is Austin Area! Tandy likes to spend a lot of time here, but if he is around here, he’s probably very flat!

So if we don’t come right by the water hole, we’ll come back in this area just before dark! As it gets to that sort of time, the coolness and the light are in favor for the leopard, and they will slowly start moving, looking for their meal!

Alrighty, so how is everybody doing on this lovely Sunday afternoon? This Sunday in South Africa! David, there are a few—the best alarm calls—our monkeys are very, very reliable! Very high-pitched, and the monkeys also look, so you look up in a tree, and you’ll see the monkeys and you'd be like, "Okay cool! Let's look that way!”

And quite often you find them! Kudu and yala are also quite reliable; bushbuck are in the same category. Although the other day, we had kudu alarm calling; I was on tortured with sensor, and we had kudus alarm: we couldn’t find the animal!

Maybe the animal was skittish and it just moved away from us! Or it had been there, and the smells were sort of still around and scared the kudu! So they are quiet! I find kudu and bushbuck are not very reliable!

Impala as well; you’ve just got to differentiate the difference between the alarm call and the rattling call! And when the impala alarm, it’s high-pitched quick snorts, but when he's rattling, it’s a very similar sound with a small that’s longer and more forced! That is my analogy of it!

Franklin can be quite good, but we’ve noticed also that sometimes they don’t call; if they see an animal, they just sit there and freeze! Squirrels—I’ve given up on squirrels! Squirrels, I don’t like squirrels! Monkeys and baboons are very good—very, very good!

But birds make their free! Wow! Gets everyone's attention! I think I got you all there, did I? Yeah? That was the CB! Even jumps in his seat! So the baboons are very good. They also will be up a tree and will look in the direction.

What else I’m thinking—is there another animal that’s quite common that we better utilize? The most obvious ones and the best ones are there. Obviously these other areas, guinea fowl—are guinea fowl quite good?

They do that technique, but the thing is they do that call in the morning together, and they’re doing the afternoons together, so that’s a completely false at that time of the day. But in the middle of the day, you find them; we’ve got to assign a dream 11 jitter one afternoon or one morning because of that.

But as the sun starts setting, it’s not reliable at all; it’s sort of a contact call.

So that is helpful! Go where birds—I suppose also quite useful! My concert—I’ve ever found anything successfully using go-away birds because they move quite a lot, and it’s hard to really keep up with where they’re moving!

Franklin would explode out of a bush and make that noise! Okay, well, we’re going to go back over to Sydney; it seems like he’s sorted out his earpiece.

Let’s hope he can hear what we’re saying.

“My apologies for the communications earlier! I was experiencing a little bit of a problem here with my communication system, but now I think I am sorted! I am now carrying on looking for some of the big cats in the game reserve.”

No sign yet of the cats where I am; maybe these cats are resting! Not sure; maybe they have caught something! David, the vendor name for a leopard is Mweya! Where is a leopard?

I’ve got some very beautiful antelopes here with me, and I am so very lucky today to find both male and females together. Mostly when it comes to this kind of animals, Nuala, since I’ve been here, I always see the females together with the young males. But to find three males together with one female is something very rare!

So the females don’t carry horns at all, but the males do carry horns. Look at that! You can see the tips of the horns are very much white! Mostly when the tips of the horns are like this, it means that animal is getting old.

And when it’s very, very old, the tips then break off! Look at some of the disruption markings—the markings that are there just to confuse any predator! A very much hairy group—good mane just like a mane!

Kim, I also love antelopes a lot! They're such very much cute, and it’s interesting seeing them challenging each other for territorial purposes! They fight amongst any allas—is the one of the best fight amongst all the antelopes because it is associated with body language, and that is how they provoke each other!

I love Nala fights! I’m going to carry on now and see if we can find something!

“Okay, then! A new song for you!”

So now we are going to Mara and see some of the beautiful elephants of Africa! No, no audio; good back!

So I'm doing singing tests—as you can hear cousin Auntie saying you didn’t have my audio! Apologies! I’ve got to prove emmalin’s the gremlins followed me all the way here!

Anyways, we have—we have got like, I don’t know how many elephants did you say? A hundred? Hey, Archie? Easy? Maybe more? Maybe 150 elephants all in this area! There are so many! It’s one of my favorite spots in the Triangle! You ever come and visit, and you just need to come to this!

I don’t even know what this marsh is called, but it’s beautiful, and it’s in the Triangle! It’s quite close to that all and all our gates! It is stunning! If you are an elephant and you like to eat grass, if you’re any animal and you like to eat grass, why would you not want to come here?

It’s beautiful, it’s lush, there are lots of little depressions and loggers—AKA drainage lines and mud wallows! I mean you can have a great time! Especially if you’re a young elephant, you might wanna chase the birds too; that could be quite exciting!

I'm always up for a little baby elephants chasing birds! That’s one of the most awesome things to see!

Now these are different storks! These are white storks or that big one, and then there are egrets at the back—cattle egrets. So another stork to add to the list today! You’re doing one on birds so far—we’ll see how many more we can add up!

Maybe we get some skelos to rockers and things! Hello, little sleepy pants and an elephant! No, not sleeping—just a quick catnap! Fair enough!

Now you can also see that the camera is just moving a little bit. Like I said, it’s been quite windy, and now that we're out in the open, the wind has picked up, and our camera is very much exposed, so it does bounce and bobble around a little bit! Archie’s holding on as tight as he can!

Well, how sweet is that noble in event having a nap? Now yesterday we had a funny moment! It was actually like during the one-hour NatGeo kids segment! Oh my goodness, it was very, very, very, very funny because we had an elephant bull—one of these bulls—I suspect chased a kiddo not for—I don’t know— a couple of hundred meters! Chased some female obviously wanted to mate with her!

And she is having it, so she ran away! Rosalind, now you have a very nice question! But Louise was not very nice to me today! Louise is directing for all of you, so Rosalind's question was about what is the loudest animal!

Archie and then Louise quickly commented and said, “Except me!” Remember Brent Leo Smith is still the loudest thing in the world? I kid you not! When he talks on the radio, it can be on volume one, and it's still blaring!

And Archie and I got like nails on a chalkboard! So Bren started to defend himself! Ha ha ha! Sabrina’s the loudest! And then you'd probably gonna get something like cicadas afterwards! Maybe a lion’s roar, and though an elephant's trumpet is fairly deafening as well!

You know, I'm trying to think! Most animals are silent, except the wildebeest at the moment—they just don't stop making noise! I just rang, and that's all you hear it along the river!

It's just quite cool! So yeah, so everyone's actually fairly quiet most of the time; they’re making odd noise except for the wildebeest! Oh hang on! What’s happening here?

This is this is interesting! Okay, so we’ve got the big bull on the left; you can see him. And then the one with his bottom towards us—that's another elephant bull there! Now he’s much smaller in sort of height, but he’s got a good set of ivory on him!

Whereas the bull on the left is actually much taller, and I suspect a little bit older, and he just basically showed that younger bull that he was not happy with him getting close to the cow that was just on the other side!

No, I don't know! Maybe she could be coming into Easter, I suppose! The calf is probably around two or three years old, although she probably would be already pregnant, then! You know they have a calf every four to five years!

And our chair living is quite good, so it might even be sooner than that! Maybe every four years or so! But he absolutely dwarfs that cow! You’re a big boy!

And he’s also secreting slightly from his temporal glands! I think he might just be coming out of must! And for those of you that have no idea what must is, I shouldn’t just be throwing these words around!

It’s basically the excited state that the males get into when they want to mate with a female! And that’s one of the indicators as well as a number of different things!

And the reason why I think that is because he’s got some patches between his legs that they're drying up! So, and that's the other indication is that they dribble urine!

I'm so sorry, Louise! Please can I have that again? Who asked that wonderful question about the elephants now? I wait for the delay! Margarita, you wanted to know if these elephants are if it’s just one family group, or do they belong to different family groups?

I would say, I reckon—let me stand up! Apologies—I’m going to shake the car because I was sitting down! I’m going to stand up; I’m gonna climb out of the vehicle!

So right—hello! Fix my hat! I’m going to point now! So obviously we’re in the marsh! Great feeding area! There’s lots of different animals that are feeding in this grass!

Everybody was quite happy; there’s lots of water around! They don’t need to fight over it! So this—should we start down there? Should we go from right to left? That down over there, Margarita in the corner—those group of elephants, that looks like they could probably be one family group!

You must remember with elephants! They don’t always feed on top of one another! They can also spread out a couple of hundred meters and graze quite happily! But just the way that they’ve sort of semi-gathered, maybe we’ve got another smaller group at the back there! Or perhaps they are some bulls and things like that!

Some loners; it’s very difficult! They’re very far away! And then I definitely think we've got a group here in the middle—this group I think would belong to one family group!

I’m going to go ahead and say we maybe have four or five different family groups of elephants that we’re looking at at the moment! I’m also concluding the ones you can’t see on the other side!

So I think they’re quite a cassette; they’re quite happy to move together! They all got to slowly move back down into the forest where they all spend the night! You can see it’s windy; my hair’s uncontrollable here in the Mara! Just clip it!

I've got clips everywhere, and then there’s just somehow finds ways to blow out from underneath my hat! I’m really hoping we’re going to get some action with these bulls, though!

But it doesn’t seem like it! But a very peaceful scene nonetheless! It’s always really nice to watch the elephants! But we’ll probably move on because I’m itching to try and find you all some lions!

And I need to check the forest line in order to try and find you some leones! Maybe the triangle boys are around, or perhaps the Mara River pride will be about!

So, and that’s what we’re going to do now! And you, Ben, you were wondering! Well, I don't know because I need to go and find them!

So that's going to be the plan now, is that we are going to go and find the lions! Because that’s what I’d like to do! And I don’t have much time to search, unfortunately, as we do not have a ranger with us to accompany us in the darkness!

Because my vehicle does not allow for it! Right! It’s a go across to Sydney, who is still trying to locate those creatures with spots!

Yes, are we doing big loops? Nothing of yet, folks! But this is an area now on our western side that is officially fully underway with regards to winter! You can see there’s not a single leaf on the trees; we’re quite high up on what we call the Catena or the slope!

And you can see that all the trees have pretty much lost their leaves! It’s very dry; there’s a fire index of 6 today, and we’ve got to be very careful with regards to burning because of the wind and the dryness!

If a fire happened to ignite now, we could have huge amounts of area being burned down, so we have to be very careful! And that is why fire breaks get put in!

But you can see all these trees—months ago, this area was full, full, full of leaves! And all that organic material has fallen on the ground! There’s an enormous amount of termite activity on the top of these hills here with really big termite mounds!

Excuse me—and this is an area where we are hoping to find an aardvark at some stage! We saw one from the drone a few nights back further north from where we are now, and this is an area that Kookaburra relaxed to hang out because the diggings have provided nice sort of holes for warthogs in the ground!

And so we’re just having one little look over here—see anything? Seibert! Amazing how it's changed from the summer months!

And that is why these trees that you find up on the slope, the red bush, willows are such hardwood! Because they grow in the summer, and then in the wintertime, they grow very—they don't grow! They just sort of go dormant because there's no photosynthesis happening; they can’t get access to the water! So they just drop their leaves off!

From an ecological point of view, it’s very, very important because all of that is being recycled back into the soil! If you do find any plants appear with leaves that are well, that means they’ve got access to the water, and they’re doing very well! The rain varies; we can have a look at this little herd of Impala that is enjoying the dryness up here in Yuma!

Anyway, any lipids? The rainfall can vary, but it’s anywhere from two hundred and fifty to three, maybe four hundred millimeters of rain a year! The savanna biome can get up to about as high as 850, but no, not really more than that!

But in this area, it doesn’t get lower than about 150, but you do get years where it can do drought and the rains just don’t come! But this valley needs a regular aid—seasonal rain coming in the summer months, and we go through wet and dry periods!

And we’ve just come through last year, I think this last season is quite a nice wet period which enables the animals to get nice and bulky again!

And you can see these Impalas are enjoying this winter forage of grass up at the top of the hill here! They have the potential to be mixed feeders, so they can feed on whatever is good at the time!

And there’s no leaves at all; maybe there’s some small forbs that they’re feeding on there, but I think they’re feeding on some grass! A nice big herd! Once again, the wind seems to have died down a little bit; it’s just moving around quite camouflaged.

Actually, I mean, to our color vision, they kind of stand out, but to a black-and-white-seeing predator, actually, they are quite difficult to spot unless they move with that three-toned sort of body color.

And the back is being quite dark, the side a bit lighter than the belly, white; so it’s home color to countershading! Helps them to blend in with the surroundings! See they’re quite relaxed; there’s no evident predator in the immediate area!

Well, we’re going to leave these very camouflaged impalas, and let's go over to Sydney and see if we can spot him with this camouflage shirt!

I am now at the Buffelsbroke area in order to see if I can pick up some of the very much interesting cats here! So for now, I am going to show you something very much interesting here! I will show you this termite mound! I can see they've built quite a very big house here, not very far away from where we are!

So if you can check here, where I'm climbing now—I'm climbing a very big house! It’s like a pile of sand here! So this is a big house; it started from very much low, and it has been done by these interesting insects—termites!

You know the termites, when they’re building this, they have got a very interesting behavior which is called trophallaxis! Trophallaxis is where by these termites defecate—the queen defecates! And these youngsters, the newborn, must have to eat droppings from their mother!

And when this is done, that is when you get things such as methane gas, because when the methane gas comes, it comes from the bacteria inside the stomach of these insects!

These insects are one of the insects which are the first of the Inka Empire insects because they eat the wood! This wood is very much difficult to digest, and because of that, they have to get some of the digestive bacteria!

So these digestive bacteria, they survive in the stomachs of these termites! So when the food goes in, that is when it’s going to get broken down, and after that, they will then defecate! When they defecate, their little ones must come on cue and eat straight from the excretory opening!

It’s called an ultra forluxus! So they go and get these droppings as they come out, right from the anal opening! You will see them cooing, trying to eat those kinds of droppings! So, which is also another way of these insects to minimize the load of the droppings in the termite mound!

So you can see these insects are very much clever! So if you can check their droppings; again, it’s going to be recycled and work because it comes out with some of the indigestible material!

So when they come out, they take again the very same droppings, and they use them in order to build the nest! You can see they don’t waste anything! So they make sure that everything is used twice or maybe even thrice again!

So now I am going to go back to my search and see if we can find something! So apologies! I am using the communication from the sensor, so I’m not using the communication from the original communication cord!

So every time, I will be giving sense of my wires, so that I will hear the FC asking questions!

Well, load! Know what happened? There was Sydney’s signal! He must be going through one of those little tricky signal bits! Don’t worry; we were right up on top, so I think we’ve got pretty decent signal here!

Keep going around! Sydney was talking to about a termite mound; I was gonna talk about one, but he’s done it for me! The aardvark could potentially—this is an area that I'm pretty sure we're gonna find one one of these days!

Lots and lots of diggings happening around on the top here, and we got one, as I said, from the drone! It looked quite funny because it's quite a unit of an animal, running around! Constantly, constantly, Nikita!

I’ve never seen an aardvark in the Sabi Sands! I think I’ve seen six, six aardvarks in my life, and Namibia is a great place to go and have a look! I got two in the Kruger Park!

Here’s a lonesome! Hello! Oh, he’s on his own! It’s not a good idea being on your own out here! He can get very jumpy, no one to watch your back!

Prime candidate for a predator to pick off! And a lonesome animal! See how he’s got to put his head up and then listen, and then he’s gonna put his head down!

But then if something makes a noise, he’s gotta put his head up again! So it’s that time spent feeding, and with your head up, that is important to notice!

That’s what the importance of being in a herd is—is you can spend a lot more time having a little sleep! It’s the same as what goes on with us! If we go camping, Archer, we go walking in the wilderness, and we spend the night sleeping around a fire!

If there’s only one of you, you’re gonna have a very hard time because someone's gotta keep the fire going, and someone's gotta make sure that hyena don’t come and snatch a piece of someone’s face!

But if there’s two of you, well then you can at least divide up the time! Spend awake! Three of you, you could divide it once more! But if there’s eight of you, well then you can each do an hour in the night!

And the rest of you can sleep! So it’s a very good way to think about it! For that one hour, you can spend defending everybody in the rest of time! You can know that someone’s watching out, and you can go right back to sleep!

Okay, well, it seems like Sydney has found some signal and something rather large as well!

“I managed to find one of the big animals! You can see it is an elephant head! So this elephant is very much stationary feeding! Look at those ears! This is beautiful! This one is coming right straight! Just want to give us a nice posture for the pictures!

Look at that! He’s trying to pick up something on the ground! So this is how they sniff and look at the tools! I can clearly see the toes! So they use the trunk in order to also pick up the information on the ground here, so they will know about a lot of things! Let’s see what it’s going to do!

This thing is stuck! That stick is breaking! It’s not even fresh; it’s a very dry stick. I’m not sure what this elephant is trying to do! Look at that!

So they use these legs in order to dig for the water during the dry season! Laurie, the elephants are not monogamous! So the elephants are polygamous! That is why you find them walking in this big head!

But when it comes to the powers, they are not decision-makers—they take orders coming from the females, which is a good thing because not a lot of animals have that!

You can see this elephant has also got some dust—I write on the body! If we can go up a little bit, I can see there is some of the soil hanging there! You can see that this elephant picked up the soil from the ground and throwing it up to the body!

This is what they do when they’re trying to also control their body temperature; the elephants can be very much destructive!

Look, the little ones are playing there! I mean, the elephants, unfortunately, they are not part of the territorial animals! Elephants are part of what is called a home range! A territory takes place within a home range! A home range means these animals can just go anywhere and everywhere for survival—for feeding purposes!

Territory has got something to do with mating and breeding! It’s an area demarcated within a home range for breeding purposes! And the territory has to be defended! Home range is not defended!

And the home range can overlap; territories cannot overlap! Once the total overlaps then, a fight must takes place! So it means now these elephants might be feeding, heading towards Buffelswok, as we are not very far away from the Buffelswok dam!

And that is the area they depend on for water availability! Being part of the home range gives elephants much more opportunities to go and feed and drink anywhere and everywhere! Because the territorial animals, they depend on sit in water holes.

But when they dry, they also trespass and have water in different areas! Look at what that one is doing! Very much peaceful! Forget that! A safari story! They animals, when it comes to the colors, are very much difficult for them to distinguish colors!

But yes, some of them can! Elephants, I am not too sure, but I know the elephants don’t like things such as flashlights! That one, they can be able to sense it! They can be able to see it! So when it comes to the colors, not too sure which colors they can be able to determine!

You can see that this elephant we are watching now has not been going through stress for quite a long time! Elephants, when they are under stress, you can easily read that from the side of their head, so if there's any kind of gland coming down, it’s telling you that it was a sign of stress!

But looking at this one, I can see there is nothing fresh which is leaking down between the eye and the ear! So it means it has been in a very good condition for quite a long time now!

Those that have been under stress— that is where you must check! These animals have got to spend! I didn't copy nicely the name of the viewer who asked the question about elephants going to must! The elephants—the ones that go on must is only the males!

And these males, they don’t go on must twice a year! Must is kind of an unpredictable condition which is taking place once a year for about seven consecutive days up to two weeks; some can be less, some can be more than that! So they reach maturity when they’re about twelve years!

After that, that is when they can be able to go on must! It’s a very short period! But by that period, the elephants are very much temperamental!

So let’s see now that I found the elephant! Still not yet the cats! Steve is also doing some tracking!

“Way is let’s see maybe Steve has got some of the tracks already!”

Well, I’m always looking for tracks! Always! What is this here? That is tracks of a male leopard heading directly from that direction! It's not very clear to see in the sand, and you can actually see it now over my right shoulder!

There! Just jump out, and I can show you! Can you see these?

Hyssop! Okay, so which one are you looking at? This way? This way?

Looking back! Okay! Here’s the toes—the four toes in the front! One, two, three pads! Now the size—the size now we talked about! What advice do you have for tracking, someone was asking me, always measure it!

It's gonna take time before you can see the track here! Let me just get a little stick! Here’s the track! Here’s the back, and here’s the front!

So by doing that, you can measure it quite nicely, and that's just about ten centimeters. That's easily to comply—with and a leopard track, if you don't look at the size, but the size of a lion tracks and a leopard track.

And if I show you here again, here is the back pad! And see how wide it is, but if I draw a line there, the outside toe? Look how wide it is in a female leopard! It’s quite narrow there!

That outside toe doesn't extend as much! Males just got really, really big feet! And he has walked pretty slowly because this is actually registering, which means that the one foot is in the other foot!

You step on the footprints, and let’s see if we can follow this a bit! It's been quite windy! It’s kind of headed straight down the road here towards the power lines, which then often goes out west!

Let’s have a look! I haven’t been on this road in the last few days, but they've come straight from the power lines, straight from via Taylor, straight from a sort of quarantine area where we’ve been all morning!

Now I'm not ever going to assume I know which leopard it is! It’s a male leopard, that’s all I can tell you—it’s heading in this direction! No one’s driven over it!

Maurice, it’s a great question! You want to know what Hosana feels! But I think he does feel a relative sort of sense of security knowing that he’s in the area! He hasn’t been given any sort of negative feedback from his pop!

He hasn’t been chased away; he's had a few meals stolen from him, but all in all, it’s been quite a nice sort of comfortable affair for him! I think it’s quite off-putting for any young predator to be moving away from an area that they’re familiar with, and then they’re still going an area that they’re familiar with!

And then having to go somewhere where all the smells are new, the males are new, the females in you! You don’t know the drainage lines, the topography! I think that’s a little bit unsettling! But I think it would also be quite cool for a cat to go into a new area!

I loved going travelling—new experiences or whatever! And that’s a bit daunting in the beginning! But daunting; you don’t know how to look after yourself!

But you know we have to learn, and he’s learned very well! He’s a very successful young leopard! But yeah, I think he’s finding it quite safe and secure—I don't know what’s going through his mind, though! But he seems to be enjoying himself here, although his dad is stealing a bit of his food.

But I mean if he was somewhere else, the male who stole his food would probably do more than just steal his food; he’d probably give him a bit of a hiding! Okay!

Well, I’ve lost those tracks now, but they were heading directly west here! There’s an ass raptor! Look at that beautiful lizard buzzard!

Just land on the top of the tree there, and you see that very characteristic black stripe on the throat in the barred chest! Beautiful bird! Very black eye, that sort of pinkish sort of sere!

But very easy to identify by seeing that that black stripe on the throat! I've got some white on the tail as well! It’s a medium-sized one of the medium-sized small raptors that we get! Yep, and as the name lizard buzzard implies, they do feed on lizards!

But they’ll feed on small birds, on rodents, snakes! He just took off from a patch of this, so I’m flying directly towards this! He’s good to have a bit of a poop here!

We go! Turn around! There you can see that stripe now! Very easy and very characteristic! I remember back in the day when I was still training, my trainer—well, we stopped at a bird like this!

He asked me what—said I said I'm not really into birds! He gave me a very stern look! And since then, I’ve put a lot of effort, but it just takes one bird at a time! Practice, get used to it!

Oh, see how he does that with his head! Perhaps he’s able to sort of push their eyes into sort of a binocular sort of vision! So when they kind of move, that’s hard—I’m going to have to do it with my eyes!

Hey! Said! Do you use mine to use my binoculars? Anyway, Taylor is in the Mara, and I think she’s moved off from her elephants, and she’s found a lovely zebra who’s doing something I love to imitate from time to time in the dust!

They see me rolling; they hatin' control and trying to catch me rolling! Trying to catch me rolling dirty! Trying to catch me!

I think I’ve always wanted to do that, and I’ve never had the chance to bite bad edits; can shake that off of my bucket list! But here we have some zebras who are enjoying an afternoon roll in the dust, which is awesome!

I do enjoy any animal that is either a bad thing in the water, obviously, or rolling around in the dust, and it’s quite funny! I’ve told you this before, and most horsey people will know this, or if you’ve owned horses before!

When one zebra, one horse roles or defecates, normally it’s the more dominant one! They all copy—they all go and do exactly the same thing! Watch now!

Watch these youngsters; they're gonna try to probably sit on top of one another and roll in exactly the same spot! But that seems to be a nice little placing!

And kicking up lots of dust! Not if you are a new viewer! Welcome! Because you're probably wondering what on earth these animals are doing! But lots of different animals cover themselves in dust!

Obviously, in very different ways; elephants will use their trunks to scoop up dust and throw it over their bodies! However, the rest of the mammals kind of have to roll around like this!

And what that will do is that helps suffocate any little parasites that are living on their body! So particularly lice will end up being suffocated! Maybe the small tick larvae as well!

However, I don’t think a big tick like a bone tick or anything like that or the soft grade ticks would really be affected too much by the dust! But the larvae and the smaller mites and things, I think would definitely be suffocated!

And then, of course, birds use a very interesting technique of moving their wings around and ruffling their feathers, which is quite great to see! Not 'Margaretta,' you’re just making me thirsty with your name! Thank you for that!

And you’ve asked about the differences between, I suppose, male and female zebra and if males are a bit larger! So Margaretta, it’s actually quite difficult to tell the sex between, I suppose!

And again, same thing goes with horses, and this really just comes with a lot of practice and experience looking at these animals! Typically, the stallions, the males, are a lot more muscled up; they have a very thick neck!

They’ve got big shoulders and rather large hindquarters! So you can see the zebra on the right-hand side is a maid because she’s got a bulging belly—there's a foal inside!

She hasn't indulged on too much grass! I don't know if there's such a thing! Oh, no, I do! Oh, yes! I remember one horse of mine in particular that indulged in too much grass!

And otherwise, it can be quite tricky! And if you also, yeah, it's difficult to say! And then normally, with the stallions, they’re either the ones that are up in front leading the herd or, maybe in this case, that actually looks like could be the stallion just watching, keeping an eye on us!

Saying, “Don’t get too close to my ladies.” Those stallions are very protective over their girls, so we call it a harem! But it’s hard to say it right now!

But you can quite easily, if they're going to drink at any sort of waters, you got over there, then you can tell the difference quite easily! A buffalo will spot a little herd of buffalo just resting up in the distance!

Again, we are heading into the marsh, break away a pride lion's territory, so I’m gonna have a quick scan for them and maybe find them! But off you go back to Taylor McCurdy, who I’m guessing is also doing just the same as me, making her way home!

Someone told me that there was a male lion around. Yes! Oh no! I'm just making sure it's not one of the sub-adults from the looks like females.

Me, but where on earth is the rest of the pride? Most nights, we actually hear the whole pride roaring, as well as the triangle males! But we haven't heard them for quite some time, so I'm confused as to where they have disappeared!

And then again, the reports of the male lion being around, which I have yet to see—you know, maybe it's a male and a female that have been mating; perhaps that’s what's happened here!

But it is a beautiful picture! Now I’ve told you many times, and you've actually seen it firsthand; I have never seen a lot of pride of lions take down a buffalo before!

I've seen them attempted many a time and be chased by the buffalo, but I’ve yet to see them actually catch one of these enormous creatures! However, with the growing pride and all those youngsters, you know, being quite large, there might be able to now!

Maybe they'll have—well, maybe some of these younger lions are gonna have quite a bit of guts, and maybe their inexperience will work in their favor! You know wanting to drive? Just give it a bash! But they are big and powerful creatures, so it’s buffalo!

And then you need to be careful because they can quite easily turn it the other way around, where the predator becomes the one that ends up getting injured! Oh hi, bacon!

It was almost like I said your name just now, but with Lion Air! Hi, lion! You’ve commented on how much you quite—quite like the pride of lions! Me too, I like them too!

Yeah, I think I’m actually thinking they could be my favorite pride in the Mara Triangle! Archie, do you have a favorite pride of lions? They’re winners! They were cool! They are cool!

Not where they’re still around, those two females—remember that? Four cubs! But sadly, one disappeared! And now they've got three!

And the last time I counted, the O’Nora's—there was 16 lions in total! Which means the last time that I’d seen them, when I was here previously at the beginning of the year, there were 17 of them!

So, that’s pretty good going! That means that they’ve only lost one youngster, which is unbelievable! And most of those youngsters are actually males!

So