Safari Live - Day 190 | National Geographic

You you you you you you you you you you you you this program features live coverage of an African safari and may include animal kills and caucuses. Viewer discretion is advised. A very very good afternoon to you all and welcome to the beginning of our show. My name is Sydney, and I am NOT traveling alone this afternoon. I am with Sando. Sando is my photographer this afternoon, and for your questions and comments, you can send us on Twitter, hashtag Safari Live, and also on YouTube, charge stream.

This afternoon, the weather is not that very bad despite the very strong winds. I can see that here where I am, animal activities are not taking place due to a lot of wind activities. My plan for this afternoon is going to be going down to the eastern side of the reserve and see if I can find some of the cats. Yes, I'm looking for Tandy and Columba; those are my two favorite cats at the moment. So this is the beginning of my trekking, so let's see what we can find.

Now the wind is a little bit too much here. Let's now go to Ralph and see what Ralph is up to this afternoon.

Well, hello and welcome aboard everybody on the afternoon sunset safari! We are coming to you live from the Juma traverse of the greater Kruger National Park in South Africa. My name is Ralph Kirsten, and on camera this morning, in the crow's nest, I've got Fergus. Hello Fergus, and hello to all of you once again.

Now this is the first time that I've actually been driving when I've opened on the opening sequence. I thought I'd give it a go because we are now on the lookout. I'm going to look for some cats, some leopards, and I'm just moving through. This weather has dropped in temperature substantially today. It seems like this cold front has finally arrived up from down south in Cape Town. It made landfall about a week ago, and it's finally now arrived with us. So you can see there's a lot of clouds around; it's very chilly.

As I say, the temperature dropped with it from yesterday to today. It has been a substantial change, and well, it's very interesting. Lots of wind now, so I'm sure the behavior of the animals is going to be quite different.

Now please don't forget to join us on the hashtag Safari Live on Twitter and on the YouTube live chat. Send us your questions and your comments and get involved on this interactive game drive. Now I'm not the only one that's out here. Obviously, you saw Sydney, but there is a bush walk out this afternoon as well. I wonder how they're doing in this wind.

Good afternoon, everybody! How are we doing this beautiful afternoon? It's windy and blustery, and I do indeed have a jacket on. On Bush Walk in the afternoon, so you can tell the temperatures. My name is Steve Alchemist, I'm joined on camera by David, and we are out. We're gonna go up towards the north, and I'd like to do a little bit of a walk through one of the burnt areas to see what we can find and see how the plants are starting to recover again after that little bit of burning. They did last night.

We had a very small spattering of rain, which is very strange because there's a cold front that's coming from the Cape. So we're gonna head up to the north and see exactly what's going on up there. Come on, Herbie! Off we go. There is come jump on board folks, beautiful afternoon in the African wilderness! Let us know what you'd like to see and talk about. I want to do a little bit of fire ecology this afternoon. I know that the Mara is experiencing some big fires at the moment, so I'm sure there'd be some updates on that soon. Brent sent a few pictures through earlier; incredible the power of fire always, always amazes me.

On a day like this with this kind of wind, you'd be very, very careful of any fire, any burning, because the wind will just pick it up and take it very, very far, and fire can be very devastating in high wind conditions. But let's go over to Sydney; I believe he's on the trail of a leopard.

Yeah, this is the beginning of my tracking and on the ground so far. The only evidence I've got here is for the spotted hyena, heading towards the direction where we are going to be looking for these animals this afternoon, which is the eastern side of the game reserve. So the chances of seeing the leopards are very high this afternoon. Yes, the wind does disturb a little bit of tracking because when it's too windy, the wind always rub the tracks, so the chances of tracking are not very there.

I can see that the track that we are looking at on the ground there is a brown hyena track, and it's not a fresh track. You can see that the track is very stiff; it’s showing that this was shortly after some little bit of rain. It is not that very fresh. So it means there was some little bit of drizzle. Maybe it was early this morning when it was still very cold, but for now, I have not yet picked up any fresh tracks. So we are going to be looking for general game at the moment until I pick up any evidence regarding the cats.

So I am going to be driving towards the western side. Don't mind me; their camera will be shaking a little bit because they are driving. Yeah, we can now go to Ralph, who is also looking for some leopards on his end.

Well, we are always looking for leopards, lions, and everything else in between! And look what we've spotted! An elephant, perhaps; the world's heaviest and largest land mammal! And what's the wind here? You can see it raising its trunk! I think it can probably smell us. The wind sort of streams is circling a little bit; it’s going directly towards him. But I think part of a herd is moving through here as well now, that's moving down towards the water. If you do see a pole in your screen, there it pops up! We've got that on just in case it does decide to give us a little bit of precipitation, and we just hit him and going to protect all the equipment.

I think I'm gonna spin around and just head down in there because I always love hanging with elephants! So let's see if we can get down there and have a better view of them. And as I said, with the wind like this, you can have a lot of the animals being rather nervous from the antelope, impala, and kudu to run; they are extremely skittish in this kind of weather. And to elephants, they can also be a bit nervous as well, and even the cats and so on, they can also put themselves in a position where they're a little bit out of the wind, and they can maybe hear a little bit better, you know, because everything, all the senses now gets thrown a little bit off from their smell to the hearing because they're constantly hearing noise down, so they can't pick up that very distinguishable crackling of branches or so on from a predator coming.

So, the elephants are not perturbed too much, but just with all the different smells, that can make them a little bit different, if I can say that in this kind of weather. And you saw that one youngster how it did sort of have a bit of a smell on us. Noddy, we can see them again through the brush! I don't know if it's worth stopping here. I wonder if they've actually gone down into the little wotties! Let's just go down a bit further here and see if maybe one of them has made it right down into the actual river itself.

All right, so sorry about that folks! The tremblings, you know, with this kind of weather can often affect not only streams but signals and all sorts of things, so just bear with us if we have any little gremlins attacking and you have some frozen screens or anything like that. Now, Tracy, you say that you're very excited that we found some elephants! I love hanging with the ellies; they're like the big friendly giants of the African bush! And I’m just trying to get us a better view on these guys!

They're moving towards us but there was lots of brush in between us and them, so there's another little road here that I thought, oh maybe... coming over? Look, I wonder if it’s a couple of miles... oh now there we go! Now we’ve got a nice view of one of them, yeah we are! Let’s see, there might be some more around! I saw a little bit of a head shake, hello! And just showing us that you’re there; thanks for that! Oh, I wonder if he's actually... let's have a look at a nice close-up look there. It is a female! So, it’s not a male, but most likely now part of the larger breeding herd.

Let's see the trunk; that's not anything distinguishable. It's not a short trunk. The youngest female, it's fully grown, but she can fill out a bit; also, those tasks are reasonably small! There is another one just showing up off on our left! And are they starting to show themselves? But this one that we’re watching has got the clearest view on it at the moment. It’s taking some mass sunny; obviously, just feeding as well. So they’re not on a mission; they're not moving, and they're just stopping and feeding and sometimes just walking slowly as they feed, and they might be making their way towards twin dams, which would be nice! They're gonna all come for a drink! Hopefully, we can meet them there.

I don’t have to wait and see which way they move. It's amazing how quickly they disappear in the thick bush! Such a massive animal, and I can walk almost completely in silence! It’s only the vegetation that brushes up against him that we actually hear! I'm just gonna drop back slightly; here's one actually! I'll stop right there! It's got a nice face shot! It looks like a bit of a bigger individual; that’s very pretty with that light coming through, just biking through the clouds and making for quite a lovely atmosphere.

You can see how much wind is as well with the brush rustling. They're not really bothering the elephants too much! Rarely, always looks relaxed with my feeding and I really do seem to enjoy feeding as well. I always think elephants are quite bush connaissances. They sort of grab on all different little things into bits.

Isabella, looking at this individual here, I think it's a female; it's quite a lot bigger than the other one. I might be wrong, but I would put this in sort of mid-20s to early 30s. It’s not an extremely old individual, but a very nice decent set of tasks! And let’s see if we can see which one it favors, which one is more worn down! I wonder this one on the right? Yeah, looks a little bit more Breann as they would say in fall. Say I'm going to be using quite a few French words today just because of the French being in the World Cup final tonight and the soccer.

So this L fall, its task, so a little bit worn on the right-hand side! I think that left one seems quite a lot thicker as well, and you would call those defaults or say those tasks, right? So this is quite a lovely little encounter, and I'm going to stay here and see what or who shows themselves out of this breeding herd because, well, elephants are just completely magical! Incredibly magical! And to find them out in the wilderness is always special! And we’ve spotted something through the vegetation!

It is a small family we believe of this tract kind! Black and white striped zebra, and he’s seen through thick bush! This is the best sight we've had so far! We might try and get a little bit closer in a moment! Does that one starts walking off? Very camouflaged in the air in the vegetation there with this black and white strap! Surprisingly! But that’s what you can expect on a day like this! The animals are going to retreat into sort of the cover with lots of bushes—trees make a little bit of a buffering against their sort of the wind go down into the sort of drainage depressions! We’re gonna be moving through one now, healing up to the north! So let’s see if we get a little bit closer to these beautiful animals!

They’re kind of making a line towards Gallagher Pan! It's possible they might be going to drink, but it's also possible, because there are some impalas there and I saw a warthog and there’s another zebra bottom! Let’s see if we can get a little bit closer, shall we Davi? They are really special! An iconic African animal! The striped horse! Mythical striped horse, they called it for a long time! There’s a lot of debate behind why they have their stripes!

There we go, Davi! Straight up! Yeah! Why they have their stripes, I believe one of the theories or one of the original theories of thermoregulation has been sort of booted out. Some people think that there are different fat cells or layers underneath each of the stripes, which the black attracts the heat and then the white gives off the heat. That causes like this convection current against the body, which would obviously assist in cooling. But apparently, that has been thrown out!

Definitely one of the ones that you can clearly see in the wilderness is how the camouflaging or dazzling effect the stripes have as the herd moves as one, which is a confusing tactic for the herd against predators, especially when the youngsters are hidden inside there! But my favorite tail, something that I did a lot of research on, is that the stripes, the black and white stripes apparently fend off the tsetse fly, the biting horse fly that is very wise! It was very prevalent in Southern Africa many years ago, and they have very nasty bites they can give!

They suck the blood, and they want to transmit certain diseases! And what scientists did, they took three model horses or zebra-style bodies, one black, one white, and one striped, and their lecture feyder! The little cage on the bottom to catch whatever fell on the bottom! And they dragged it through as scientific experiments! They dragged it through the bush at the same time, the same distance, the same place, all of that sort of stuff! And then they counted the amount of flies that had been electrocuted and fallen onto the bottom grid! And they found that the white one was quite high in bites, the black was less! I believe I'm not sure which one actually was the worst, the black or the white, but black and white combined had the fewest incidences of tsetse fly trying to land on them! So that is another theory that seems to ring quite true, and I think I quite like that one!

My world, your music, indeed! We love seeing the zebras! Anna Taylor was commenting as well, the Makoti hoodie! She’s napping in the Mara! So she’s gonna have a full of zebras up there! But we almost see them every day now, which is really, really nice! And my belief is that the zebras all kind of went east for the grazing, the better grazing and the bountiful towards the east, where the rain had fallen! Very sweet felts over there!

And we’re probably going to see it with the buffalo! I’m not 100% sure, but there’s quite a lot of winter grazing left behind! And horses and zebra and animals like that have a very good sort of tendency to enjoy hay-like material! And so we've got lots of grass! Not the best quality in the world, but they make do with quite low quality! But as long as it's in bock!

So now the animal that enjoys eating a lot of food in bulk or alpha seems to have found some more. Well, this, I was wrong in this season of that animal—it's a young bull that is obviously following on with his head! Now they’re all making their way down towards twin dams, and there are more elephants on the way coming down into the Milwaukee here! So I’m gonna start up now, and I’m just gonna head down because we could get, I think, a lovely little view of these animals! Maybe babies coming towards us as well! So this could be wonderful!

Maybe I need to wait here a little bit now! Never too late! You can eventually see you in elephants of pigment! But they won't show it initially, and it doesn't—because they are hard gut fermenters, it's not an extremely easy thing to do when you see or to see if they're pregnant! As I say, it doesn't show that much, but it does show more than, for instance, hyenas! Hyenas, you can almost not see when they’re pregnant!

Now, I just did that little move just to give this female and her baby a little bit of room that they don't feel like they are intimidated by us being in this sort of path! I'm just watching to see how the tail goes! Okay she’s gonna have a bit of a lot of a poo as well! But sometimes when an elephant’s tail goes out like that, they are a little bit stressed!

So now she’s probably thinking about her youngster there! She doesn’t look like an extremely old female! Yeah, they're walking nicely in the drainage line in the similar wotty! So we're gonna get a great picture of them now! I just want them to give them some space that I can then move down, and we'll be able to watch them!

She’s sort of circling back a little bit towards us! And you always should need elephants to become accustomed with your presence! You shouldn't just charge in and think you can just join them! They sort of allow you to join them! You know, I always think of it, so like in this situation there, especially with the little youngster! You also want to be a little bit careful because mommies will react accordingly with the youngsters! Regardless, in the animal kingdom, from humans to elephants, everybody's going to be protecting the youngsters!

And you see how that little one now can use its trunk! Let's see how well he can use it, and he's still trying to work it out! Is he picking up that grass, putting it in his mouth? He’s got decent ability. They can’t see any tasks that have come out just yet; that's normally had about two years old! So I would put this youngster about a year and a half, I would say! Is that trunk lid they get to use it usually at about a year’s age, and when they start to work it out?

So I would say between one and two years old! Maybe about one and a half, still struggling! Not quite adept at all those muscles! And there are a lot of them in their trunk, really struggling a bit to get the grass nicely in its mouth! But getting there! You see, maybe a grab on Turton and also use his foot! You’ve probably been watching mom and the rest of the herd how they do it, sort of grab onto a clump with a trunk, and if it’s too difficult to pull it out, they're gonna use their foot!

You see they’re coming through! There we go, good! Not done, but then losing! Nice diversion! The wind’s gonna make it a little bit harder for the same amount of food as the adults! All right, I think I’m gonna try and get us a little bit of a view here of this little youngster!

Because there’s not many things, I would say, in the bush that is more interesting than watching little bees! I've got one of the very, very beautiful ways! There you can see it is the Cape Turtledove trying to feed! There is something very interesting I found about these doves and pigeons. They are not part of the mammals, but this bed can be able to produce milk to give to their little ones!

And how do they produce milk? It is very much interesting because they don't have mammary glands! The only characteristic that is similar to that one of the mammals is that they are endothermic, meaning that they can regulate their own body temperature! So apart from that, they don't have anything in common with the mammals! The doves, they have got a part here right close to the neck which is called a crop, whereby they store food before the food goes down to the stomach.

This bed can break down the epithelial parts of the crop, and then they regurgitate it and give that milk to their little ones! That milk has been recorded as very, very rich in terms of protein and fat. Normally, they start to produce that milk a week before they lay the eggs! They start to produce that before the week before they hatch their eggs!

So this bed, the minute that I'm talking about has produced by the same prolactin hormone, which is the very same producing the milk when it comes to the lactation period of the mammals! And if you can check, they’re even going to suspend feeding for about a week just when having the little ones! The first week or two, they suspend feeding because they don't want to contaminate the milk with the seeds! Because they know very well their little ones are too small and cannot digest the seeds at all!

So you can see that this bed is very much well gifted and very much interesting! And if they’ve got X, and one of the X falls, the bow is gone! Okay, when when they’ve got some X, it's very much interesting! If one of the X falls, this is what is going to happen! The left egg, when it hatch, the little one is going to grow and have a lot of amount of milk! Because normally they produce milk for two, because they normally lay up to two eggs!

So now when there’s only one chick available, then it means that chick has got a lot of milk to feed on alone! So let’s get it on and see if we can find something! Yeah, we’ve got quite a lot of doves here in southern Africa! Athena, the one we saw now is called a cape petrel dove! We even go to some of the laughing doves! We do have quite a lot; it’s not the only one we have got here in southern Africa!

And in South Africa, in particular, Juma Game Reserve, we have got a lot of different species as well! So we can go to my other colleagues so that they can show us what they've got on the other side as well! Thanks, Sydney! Out in the wilderness, on Bush Walk, we're always looking for the very small tracks and signs!

And what's really interesting about the small tracks and signs in the bushes is to see how animals are interacting with the wilderness! And what we have found is just small little white hairs on the end of this branch, which is very, very interesting! Because we saw the zebra just before, and now we found something that zebras have been doing!

We're going to show you now! We've got the zebra tracks that have come in from two sides! There's a track over here of the hoof right over there and over there, and then there's also tracks on this side of hooves! This side, that side! And then what you can clearly see over here is where hoof has been moving quite a bit! What happened over here, folks, is this little branch right here—it’s nice and smooth! It’s really, really nice and smooth!

The zebras walked up to it, and they put their butt to the mat and they just started rubbing! Because when you don't have fingers—oh, that actually feels really good, Davi! That’s quite sharp, in fact! But that really gets to those itchy spots that they can't get to! So quite often, you'll find the animals will come up to something that is low down, it's in the right spot!

You know, I've seen friends and men do it when they can't reach that itch on their back and they're on the side of the cavity or something! And the look that's often on the person's face is quite similar to that of a dog! When you get them just some that right spot on the belly! Have you seen that before? I love finding these little things! And that’s so cool because we found the zebra, we found the tracks, and we’re heading off to an area where we know they've burnt!

And I know for a fact a zebra always move straight into the area after burning, looking for the Ashton looking for the fresh flush! That's what we're hoping we're going to find! Tony, you want to know about the quagga that ended at the resort! It was the type of zebra—the quagga! It is not alive anymore; it was an extinct species of zebra!

I’m not—I think the scientific name did have quagga in it, I’m not sure! But it was shot a very long time ago; there’s definitely a species of zebra! But I need to double-check that! I think it was before my time! But it is a name we know very, very well! One of my favorite rugby players is the quagga! He’s got a very funny-looking nose; I think he’s broken about 15 times! His name is—what is his actual nickname?

But everyone calls him Quagga! Certain people name, but I’m not sure when the last quagga was around, but it's probably—over a hundred years ago, and it was shot at probably down in the Cape, where the settlers that lived down there just basically shot everything that they could! 150 years ago, there were lions down there! There was a blue antelope; there's all sorts of things that occurred in the Cape, including elephants that no longer exist! Classic example of human colonization, really, around the world!

Okay! Well, I kicked this elephant dung along the way down this part where we go through the drainage line to the other side of this store with these beautiful elephants! Yes, and we're watching these ili's now! We've got a nice clear view on him, and there’s a bull that’s following him! I wonder if he's trying to get up to no good?

He's actually got a big hole in his... yeah, he is! Well, it would be quite an easy way to identify him! A reasonably young bull, but he's adult and mature! And that's nice to see them, very calmly moving through just feeding as the guy! I'm pretty sure they are making their way slowly towards twin dams, and I’m hitting straight in that direction!

And I'm hoping they're all gonna go for a drink! Well, it's lovely to watch him at the waterhole! Now, torture while elephants take a few years in between having calves—it does take them almost on two years! And for the gestation period is 22 months! So, oh, little head shake there from this little youngster! Thanks for that, just letting us know that is there!

And so it's normally at about, yeah, I would say around about five years between coughs! We can have a little bit less time in between! I just see mommy, she'll breastfeed for about, you know, almost on two years! And as a coughs well, be from the gestation two years in another two years, and even on to about three years before she has another one!

You see that hole in his ear? He's got a big one! And then there's a little one below it! I wonder what happened there? If he got caught on a thorn tree? Or it's quite a big hole; it looks like you can see the wound had been healing there!

It's in its latter stages of healing! And then you can see his actual ear opening! Nice big opening! There it is! You see all the little scratches on him as well that he would sort of get when he's walking between the bushes and branches and trees! And have very thick skin; it's over an inch thick! So they don't really feel anything much!

And you see all those wrinkles! And I read an article on that just recently in that! Those wrinkles assist them quite a large extent with thermoregulation because it makes the surface, or the surface area of the body more, so it does assist now in cooling down and for warming up! So in this kind of situation, there would be more surface area and warming up a little bit in the sun as he stands broadside there to the warmth!

And if it was trying to cool down, all there'd be extra surface area for the wind to blow over! So definitely, does assist in thermoregulation! I think today is not too much of a problem! It's probably perfect temperatures for them! I'll take care! I'm pretty sure that the pressure that they’re applying onto the ground is pretty much the body mass, literally divided by however many feet on the ground at the time!

So, at this moment in time, you know, if this elephant is probably, I would say about four and a half tons! So it's probably applying just over one ton per... you know, I don't know how they work it out, but Conrad, the engineer in FC, would be able to tell me the exact mass behind it! But I'm pretty sure you could work it out by looking at the circumference of the bottom area or surface area of the foot divided by how many feet on the ground! Also, with the weight of the particular individual!

So if you had to stand on one foot, you'd literally be putting all the pressure of four and a half tons onto that particular spot! Now another to measure pressure in, you know, different pressures in different units! And if you got your pressure, you know your tire, for instance, you're normally looking at those KPIs, and I think it's about 2,000 KPAs! And I think it’s about 500 on an atmospheric pressure! But you know, those acronyms do very well in science; I need all those acronyms from the... need reminding of them!

But I know that that's how you would work it out! So anyway, let’s just say that there's a lot of pressure being applied onto those feet! And they do have special sponges in them that assist with obviously the pressure that is being exerted! Because otherwise, they would very quickly get arthritis in their bones!

And so there's a lot to be said around the cushioning in elephants' feet, and doesn't it assist in alleviating the pressure and allowing them to be able to walk with such ease? It also allows them to walk very quietly! And it does actually also fall about in a communication receptor! I have heard that the elephants can actually communicate a little bit through the ground with their very low pitch calls that they give!

Sometimes they say that some of those actually even are transported through rumblings or vibrations in the ground! And it would make sense because like water land is more dense than air, and if you can pass a message through the ground, it would travel further than it would do in air!

So elephants are very much similar in communication in that whales have in the ocean with their very long capabilities of long-distance communication! And I heard a story about in the Kruger National Park when they were still culling going on there that the elephants in the south that were being culled obviously put out a signal and the ones in the north over 100 kilometers away were picking up that message!

So it's quite incredible indeed! You know that was an amazing communication about the elephants! And so now I have got something very much interesting to show you! I'm just gonna get off the vehicle and show you just now! Let me see what I'm going to show you here! It's one of those interesting markings here!

So look here, we've got some of the droppings hanging up by this tree here! I know a lot of people; it's very difficult to tell from what animal this is! Also, here on the ground, you can see even some of the evidence showing that some of the droppings fell on the ground! So these droppings? Big! This is from the third-largest landmark; it's from the hippopotamus!

So the hippopotamus, yes, they spend much of their time deep in the water holes! But soon as the Sun Goes Down, they have got to come out for feeding purposes! Hip-hop pajamas are territorial, and they don't only mark their territories next to their water holes because they've got to go out and travel long distances in search of food!

So the hippopotamus, how they are, they mark their territories; their style of marking is completely different from all these other animals! This is what the hippopotamus does—they come here and they leave their droppings! As they're excreting their droppings, they must be waving the tail! At the same time, their tail is going to disperse the droppings, and they mark on these trees! The reason for them to mark is for territorial purposes!

So the hippopotamus, if you check in there, what do they eat? These animals are staying by the dams whereby they are fish, and even crocodiles—do they eat those fish and crocodiles? Definitely no! The hippopotamus, they only eat grass! So they come out and go on long distances in search of the grass!

There is quite a very interesting old story about the hippopotamus staying in the dams, whereby they are a lot of other activities done by fish and crocodiles, associated with how they Democrat their territories! So the hippopotamus come here! They excrete the droppings and disperse these droppings in order to show the father of creation about the evidence of what he’s got in the droppings!

A long, long time ago, the hippopotamus was designed to stay on land! But because of his body size and because of sunburn, he had to go back and ask if he can go and stay inside the water holes! There is where the hippopotamus was allowed! And when the hippopotamus was allowed, he had to now come—every time after every secretion of the droppings, the hippopotamus had to go back and show that all his eating his grass—there is no evidence of some of the things such as the balls from the fish and the crocodiles!

You can see that the hippopotamus is trying to be loyal to the father of creation to show that he is not disturbing the fish and crocodiles; he is still concentrating on grasses! He is justing there by the water to prevent sunburn! So now we are going to carry on again and see what we are going to find as we are heading to the western side of the game reserve! We are now on the east!

I've got a question from Xena, which has got something to do with the size of a territory! A territory, the size is determined by competition! So mostly the territory can go up to four and a half kilometers to far; any four and a half kilometers square! But once this mark is marked, the extension of the territory is difficult because if other areas have already been marked, it means there's gonna be a lot of fighting!

And fighting among these animals can be very much vicious! Some of the animals during these territorial fights lose their lives! So now we are going to carry on and see if you can find something here! [Music]

So now we can go to a tea! Steve is on Bush Walk at the moment and see what he's got on the other side! Thanks, Sydney!

Well, an animal let it escape the wind or the night that could we found! And if anybody knows what that is, beautifully soft—beautifully soft white underneath, little black on the top! Hashtags for a lot of kwikki, you know what it is! A little bit soon inside there! Beautiful fluffy; never would use it to wipe my face!

We found this just a little bit further back there! And for Todd, grab it and take it along, Dave! For you think it's quite nice and soft, Francis, you have half correct when you say it’s a scrubby! Yes, you did get it right! There, France, as well done! So that is all that’s left! There's a little bit of sort of sinewy bone inside there, but this beautiful, beautiful texture! And it's so insulating!

You can imagine how nice and warm the still scrub is! And it's running around at night as we—if you didn't know that, folks—they are nocturnal! They go around grazing, feeding on the grass and little forbs that might come through! And as beautiful furs keep them very nice and insulated, especially in the cold mornings!

You've seen the layers we wear when you go out! When you're a small animal, you give off a whole lot more heat than you do when you're a big animal! So they need to be very well insulated so as to make sure that they survive the cold of the night! Now I don't think it was the cold for the kill! This one we do know that Andy loved to be around this area!

We were closer to Gallagher Pan just shortly—a short while ago! Or signs back! I doubt it was him! Maybe it could have been Shadoul! But it's obvious this is the unnecessary part; that wouldn't have gone down very well in the palace of a leopard! But it could have been an hour, in fact, that killed it; we don't know! We weren't there; we didn't see it! There's no obvious signs of trauma!

All you can tell is that is broken off! That little bone piece there is broken! How it was broken is very hard to say! Oh yeah, everyone's feeling sorry; it's okay though! There are multitudes of scrub hares about 500 tried to throw themselves in front of my car this morning! I didn't get any of them! I was very careful! Very careful!

But this guy wasn’t that careful! But they perform a very important diet in the predator hierarchy here, and we wonder how many scrub hares actually get eaten? Well, I wasn't expecting that! Right, sure, it's not just a scrub hare; there’s an animal that has been eaten! And judging by the horn that is over here, it looks like it's like a young buffalo! Want to tell? That's embedded in the ground; the termites have started!

So I'm going to leave it another piece over here! See the horn! Borer moths have started here, so nothing goes to waste! Touch! Yeah, that's a buffalo! I think it's a buffalo there! Young buffalo; only hard to say! And borer moths have started a little cocoon process as they feed on the keratin of the horn!

Alma dark hair isn't just like a fingernail! You know with feces made out of keratin and a bit of silk, they form these long turrets, and inside they go! As a little sort of caterpillar-like worm, and then they will eventually pop out the end, metamorphosing into a beautiful moth to go and then decompose another horn somewhere else! It’s all part of nature, folks! Or part and parcel of the circle of life!

Our chair, the scrub hare forms the meal for many of the smaller medium-sized predators, including our own! And then the larger predators take the bigger sort of animals! It's all part and parcel of what goes our own! Our chair! And right in front of Java here in the friend is the famous red oak grass or red grass that absolutely loves fire!

And this is what dominates the Mara Plains at the moment! That is probably burning lots of is burning! And it is a fire climax; very, very flammable! Loves to burn! And is also very palatable, so this is the choice grass fit on by a lot of the grazing animals you find out including zebra! They like this a lot, but so all the buffalo and even the impala and all the elephants as well that we see!

So the circle wrapper just in this small little spot, so we're not far from the burnt area! You're gonna go up there and see exactly what has transpired up there! If any changes have happened! But in the meantime, it seems like Ralph has finally lifted elephants! Let’s go to see what he’s up to!

Well, everyone, I've just left the elephants for the time being because they are making their way towards twin dams! So I thought we’d just do a little bit of a loop and see if there’s anything else transpiring in the area! And in my car back down towards twin dams! And hopefully, with our hande vous avec Mazzella, form! And that is the plan!

And from here, I'm hoping that we can get a little bit of signs of the leopards such as Koumori and Shadoul! Because after twin dams, I'm gonna head west! Because Sydney is going to be covering the eastern side where Dundee was spotted, as well as the Sanaa!

Oh, there he is! So we've come to a similar area! I'm going to be just going straight past him! And obviously, we do have a big enough area that we don't have to be in the same area! But we've just obviously crossed paths now! And I'm just going to be heading in a different direction to him altogether!

We do give each other our flat plans for the day! But sometimes, you know, in-between you just take a different route to what you said you were doing on your plan! And then sometimes you cross each other; that's all! But there's no point in us moving in the same area because we need to spread out and have a look in different areas altogether!

So that's exactly what I'm doing; I'm not going to be going there! We'll have a look up here! And we're all mobile, and I'm sure that Juma vehicles will also be mobile soon from the lodges! So then we’ll have even more eyes and ears out looking for any of these elusive cats, as well as anything else exciting! Maybe we’ll see a honey badger today! I've got a good feeling about that!

I’m hoping! I've only seen one while there were two in the sighting, but very fleeting; they ran off as soon as they saw me! But I was very excited! And so maybe we'll get lucky today with some honey badgers! It would be great! Now, Kim, I've got lots of elephant stories! But you want to know my favorite one to pick between a few?

Now, I want to say all the same stories all over again! But one of the most fascinating and one of our favorite stories was when we had in Puros, which is right in the northwestern wilderness of Namibia. And it's right on one of the ephemeral rivers called the watershed! And this area has been on National Geographic and a number of other TV stations with documentaries!

When I was actually involved with a couple of them! But in this particular area, it's frequented by the very famous desert elephants or desert-adapted elephants! And so I was—at this time, I was running a camping safari with some French guests! And we were out there; there was nothing there except a little clearing within the vegetation next to the Wadu’ sip!

And when I say ephemeral river, it's mostly only after the rains that it flows, and it is also a bit of an underground flow as well! So there are lots of trees, lots of greenery, and almost like these oasis in the desert! And you camp in these mustard bushes! And while we were camping there, it’s very hot as well! Obviously, being in the desert, so there are icicle showers and long-drop toilets!

And they've got no hot water, but you don't need it because you’re normally cooling off rather than trying to warm up! Anyway, one of the ladies went for a shower after lunch, and we were all just relaxing, getting ready for afternoon game drive or walk! I can't remember; we do both in that areas; it's fascinating! And both sides!

And all of a sudden, I heard a scream below! From—I wouldn't say the shower block, it’s just like some reeds, you know, in a circle around the tree with the showerhead coming out of that! And she screamed, and I went running! And from a distance, I then spotted that there was an elephant right next to her shower! And what had actually happened was she was busy showering, and this elephant had walked up and put his trunk in underneath the showerhead and was literally sucking the water as it was coming out!

And so she was busy washing, and all of a sudden, the shower went dry! So she looked up, and there was just this trunk in underneath above her head sucking out all the water! So she laid off an almighty scream, and the elephant, I think, got as much a fright as she did! And it sort of backed up, and then sauntered off! But it obviously had a nice little drink from her nice cold shower!!

And they both got a surprise! But I think that was a nice little story that I'll always remember about elephants! And well, it seems like I'm not the only one that's found the aliens! Quite a very beautiful animal! What a majestic animal! You know, elephants, where I come from, the capital city of Vanda is called "Toy" and "Oh play"—and oh, it means a head of an elephant—not a group of an elephant!

But I'm talking about a head of an elephant! So the elephant has got something to do with my totem! When my totem talks about the elephant trunk! So we are part of the elephants because the elephants are part of those very powerful animals! I come from the real family and all these real families! They’re inventor are related to the elephants! So the elephants, they profess to drink what we like the most as well, which is the Amala beer!

So the Amala beer is done from the marula tree! And I will show you this marula tree and tell you more stories about the Marvella tree as I'm driving! So now say I get one!

So we've got quite a lot of things that we are doing guided by the elephants! Just think about the matriarchal social structure of the elephants by the royal families! Traditional leaders! It is a magical system; they had men's! They don’t take decisions; they are not having all the powers to control the family and the villages! They all just ant from my family is the one who takes the final decision!

My brother is the headman, as I'm talking now, but he doesn't have all the powers! He’s not fully in charge! The person who is responsible to give orders is the matriarch! Here, I am referring to the oldest ant, and she is the one who decides how many they have to take over! If she’s not happy with someone who has been decided to take over the crown, if she says no, nothing is gonna happen! Because she’s the one who must have to lead the ceremonies and everything!

So you can see that how we live where I come from! We get guided by what the elephants are doing! I come from Toronto, which means head of an elephant! So now we are going to carry on and see if we can find more other interesting animals! They're quite lovely animals! So let’s see what Steve has got by the bushwalk! Maybe he’s got something interesting!

Yes, I think Sydney is just getting into the burnt area now! We've got a little depression! And I found some very nice scrub hare dung! And obviously, that connects to the scrub hare we saw before! But clear—this was done by one that was still alive! The purpose for it is I wanted to just show you how... if I come down here into sort of the depression, it’s not too much vegetation around at the moment!

But let’s have a look, and we’ll do it again up at the top! Because remember, the scrub hare dung is a good indicator of wind direction! You can see our winner today is absolutely pumping, isn't it? And that’s down here in this depression! And because there’s no vegetation around, not too many trees, the wind is still buffering through here!

So if we find a nice thicket area where the zebras are hanging out, really protected against the wind, if we got up onto the top of the slope, you won't find animals there at the moment! Because the wind is just too constant—it's too constant! They need to be somewhere where they can protect themselves!

So we've just arrived and walked up onto the burnt area and see if we can find anything of interest! Because my first time walking in the area since the fire! And with that little bit of rain we had yesterday, it’s a good chance you might see things sort of popping up! It might be too soon, but what can happen if you burn... is this often a little flash of the green that comes through on grass is called winter flash!

That can happen; it's not ideal for grass because it makes it use resources; it can lead for later in the year. But what it does do is it attracts herbivores who like to come and feed on grass most certainly! But what's interesting is if you walk through here with me, you'll notice that some of the grasses haven't burnt at all! Some are completely still here, and then there’s little patches where it’s been burnt!

And that’s purely because this area is a firebreak, and it's been maintained as a firebreak for some time! There’s not a huge amount of sort of material here to burn! And also, a lot of these grasses aren't very, very big with regards to sort of leaf materials! There’s not a huge amount of that as a forb! There's not a huge amount of leaf material here!

And see the space between this one and the one that's burnt! It is an enormous gap! And another one, so there’s a huge amount of open ground! Yeah! And that is because of overgrazing! There’s a dam watering hole not far away from here, and overgrazing, trampling by animals, lots of feet on the grass, these open patches, which decreases this sort of intensity of the fires, which is when you need a lot of fuel!

It marks! I’m sure we could find some scorpion holes—what's nice about when you burn like this, it really, really opens up! But have a look at our view! We're gonna do another one!

We’ve just come about 15, 20 meters higher! And have a look at how much more powerful the wind is up here! It’s very chilly! Very, very hard to maintain any warmth or thermoregulation up here! Even a scrub hare with an enormous jacket like the one that he had for a long time until he got eaten!

We look for some scorpion holes, Mark! Definitely! Definitely! But Archer, who knows what you could find! It could be all sorts of things lurking around! First time coming through! Okay!

So, as I said, being close to watering holes leads to overgrazing, which leads to a lower increase in fire that pierces Ralph is on his way towards a watering hole himself! And that watering hole is twin dams! And why it's called that is because there's one major big dam up top, and then there's a little bit of a smaller water hole just off on the soakaway below the water hole!

And then it goes across out of our boundary down in that direction there with all those big leadwoods there off in the distance! But these elephants haven't made their way as quickly as I would have liked; let's just stop and have a quick look here!

Looks like there's a gray go-away bird on the opposite bank that’s thinking about coming down for a drink! That would be nice to watch! Not—can you see them there? Very big! It’s what you come down for a drink! Not very good on the ground, and they’re great go-away!

Busy, and you can see how the wind is putting his crest up as well! And it’s quite choppy in the water! There goes a shame we can’t see him drinking! He’s been just bad that little round of mud!

What are we getting nasty protected there from the wind? A little three-banded plover coming into view as well! See how much bigger the gray Louie, as we used to call him, a great go-away bird, is in comparison to the little plover!

Yeah, there he goes; he had enough of a drink there, and you could see with those some—with most birds, they have to because they don't have a gullet! So what they've got to do is they’ve got to take a little sip and then put the head up!

And that makes the water run down; there are only a couple of birds that do have gullets! And well, I want to challenge you to tell me which birds in the African bush or even around the world actually have gullets! Send your answers to hashtag Safari, laughs on Twitter or on the YouTube live chat! Whichever one you want! Let’s hear it!

Which birds have actually got gullets? Now there we’ve got the black-collared Bob, well spotted Ferg, very, very pretty birds! And they're cool, and they have—they also sing in Jewett! And we say they go too badly, too badly, too badly, too badly! Or black! Oh, he’s just dropped down! He's on a little knob, so now, not enough! It's only a lid would, excuse me!

That’s a very silly mistake I made! But I was thinking lead wood and my masters if not sewn! But beautiful birds, and very similar to the crested bartletts in what they can do! But yes, so they call too badly, too badly, too badly in Jewett! Or black!

There we go! Monogamous pair, most likely! Really getting blown around in the wind! And I said you can see now we've got both of them in shot! They're very pretty black-collared Barbets! And me everybody agreeing with me how pretty they are!

Now Tracy, from Israel, thanks for your comment! You say such pretty birds! Absolutely! And one of the few that in winter store you see them in their real bright colors like that! Oh, I'm gonna come down for a drink! Lucky! Let’s see now! Let’s see if they’ve got gullets! Are they gonna lift their heads up?

I would suggest they will! Yep, you see that? Definitely not a bar, but it has a gullet, enabling them to swallow and keep their head down! It is very pretty! And also accessing a little bit of a spot with is less wind! So not so much chop on the water!

Well, we nearly fell in! There’s a little bit of a stretch! Come on, guys! Send in your answers! Which birds have got gullet? Very pretty lifting the head up! And then what's that bough? You could pretty much say that it’s a granny ball because it means that sick ball to crack the nuts!

Larry, you say a stork! Not quite sure on the stork; they might do, but I haven’t heard of them having them! Michelle, you say a turkey? No, a turkey doesn’t have a gullet! It has to also drink. And put its head up, so do ducks, so do geese! They all have to do that!

Lori, you say pelican! Nope! Pelican also needs to take water and put it—put his head up! It doesn’t have a gullet! So in a stork, that one is Bortalon, I think! They don’t have a gullet! Arthur, now I didn’t hear who, but somebody said ostrich!

No, ostriches don’t have gullets! Jessica, yeah, it was you! Sorry, but that’s a wrong answer! Ostriches also have to put their heads down; they drink and then they put their heads up!

So they don’t have a gullet because I need two groups of birds that I know of but I could be mistaken! There’s two groups of birds that I know of that don't and we could play with some other ones now! Bob, you see the parrot! Aha! Now we're getting on to one group of birds! So the doves and the pigeons that actually have got galets, especially the doves! I'm not sure if all of the pigeons have got, but then there’s some very sort of characteristic birds, or not that’s not the word I'm looking for!

There’s a very special group of birds called the bustards! And especially like a kori bustard that has that gullet! And you can watch a kori bustard, which is our heaviest flying bird, put his head down at the water, especially in places like Namibia!

And I know in... where is it? Also in Kenya and the Masai Mara, we see lots of kori bustards in Ethosha National Park! And so you can often see them next to the waterholes standing in amongst the antelope drinking! And with the heads down, with a head down next to the antelope!

So you’ve got zebra on up with some springbok, and then you've got a kori bustard drinking with its head just with all of them! So there's some wonderful photos of that kind of thing! And we've just spotted a little steam bookie! Yeah, he doesn’t run away! Forward, there we go! We just found a little guy here!

And let’s just see because he’s making like his name suggests like a stone back! A steam book! And it’s wonderful to watch all the smaller things, Archer as well! Isn't it? We’ve managed to find ourselves a nice perch up on top of the hill! David himself is on a termite mound! And you can quite clearly see around me the sea of flames!

And was here at one stage of pitches! There’s lots of bits of grass that haven't burnt! And essentially, from a biodiversity point of view, that is exactly what happens! You don't want to come out here and burn everything and have to be this homogenous patch! You want it to burn a bit this way but that way; a bit hot to hear but hotter there but cold there! And you get these patches of organic material remaining behind, areas where animals can still secrete themselves!

Still a bit of seed bed around organic materials to go back into the soil! And you can see it actually! There's a sea of patches all around! And where David is sitting himself is actually on a little island! The termite mounds provide a little island of refuge! The grass all around the mud has not been touched! And that’s where the termite mounds and the odd box are so important!

Dutch, yeah, and why so many of the species have evolved to live in roost and to nest! And to whatever they do underground in holes created by aardvarks! So very, very important! As important as the elephant in the creation of habitat! The beautiful holes created benefit! Aardvarks create the refuge that animals can use in an environment that is going to burn!

It is part and parcel of what happens, Archer! And exactly what these areas are all about! Pizza, you want to know which animals benefit most about controlled burns? Well, first of all, this controlled burn is primarily put in as a firebreak! I mean, we're at on the sort of southern part of it now, and it goes all the way to the other side over there! And it's this band that runs all the way across!

And the purpose of this specific burn is not about biodiversity! It's about safety! If a fire comes from the bazooka side in the north, it comes roaring down here, what it's going to do is it's going to hit this wall of burnt grass, and it's going to stop! And it's not going to run south!

But the fire itself, as a management tool, is one of the management tools is the protection of life and of property! But if you burn large areas, like what's happening up in the mire, or it happens in much bigger areas in Kruger, you can remove a lot of the dead material under the dead grasses and the grasses themselves!

You might not know it; you might not see it! But the grasses themselves are actually going to be stimulated by this burn! Right now, they are burnt right down! But the roots are underground; the roots are still alive! They’re in a dormant stage as soon as it rains; they're just gonna come! If I had to add moisture here immediately—well not like a magic trick!

But it would, within days, come out and to be flashing and be green! The grass absolutely loves the fire! So you remove a lot of that organic material—a lot of the dead Mauri burnt material—so it increases and improves the grazing that’s around! Because some of the material gets quite stagnant and old and not very tasting, palatable!

So the new growth comes back! And a lot of the species you find, Archer—they're not very tasty when they're old! But when they're fresh and growing, they really, really do benefit! Lots of the grazing animals, the birds absolutely love it because there's like a fricasseed array of insects left in and around! Some of the seeds are stimulated in a lot of these environments by fire!

And also, the fire can also negatively affect certain plant species, such as trees! If you get enough sort of grass material about this high, you can actually use it to burn and remove tree vegetation! But in this case, this is 100% a safety burn! But it’s nice to walk to see exactly what we can find! And what I did find something that is beautifully revealed by the fire is a whole lot of marula nuts that have not been opened!

So now I’m allowed to make for new friends! Darby! Have I given you one? I know you and I are friends already! But there we go! Let me give you that! Giving someone a morula nut with all the nuts that inside means that you're best friends! So this last three or four you ladies and gentlemen, here we go! Take them one at a time! Thank you very much!

And now, it seems like full abyss of the piste seems like Sydney has found an animal that also likes to come into burnt areas! Yeah, I've got one of the very beautiful bears that you can see there! That's the folktale Drogo! If you look at the tail, it’s like a fork! You know the folktale drama reminds me of some of the bears which can only learn the course from their fathers and their neighbors!

So this one, Dr. Drum, is like me; it’s like Sydney! Because here in South Africa, we have got about 11 different languages! This folktale drum can speak quite a lot of different languages!

I speak about eight of South African languages! I speak Vanda! I speak Shangaan! I speak Swana! I speak Parry! I speak Sutra! I speak Zulu! English and Afrikaans! So Africans a little bit! So you can see that the folktale Drongo, when imitating the other calls, he is leading quite a lot of other different calls!

So this bed, they go after these animals! But walking together with these animals, it’s only the folktale drum who does get the benefit! And now if we can consider the symbiosis, the relationship between this for children and the world of beasts here is called commensalism! Because only the drum was getting benefits!

And the world of this is not! You can see there that the turd drum, when they are moving, he is also moving, trying to catch some insects! In other words, these were the beasts, they are just waking up insects for this children go to eat!

So they were the beasts! One of those very interesting animals! Yes, they've got some poor eyesight! That is why people see them together with the other animals! I have been on a very interesting sighting of the world, at least before, where I saw a wildebeest—four of them caught by six lions in less than one and a half hour!

What happened is that these lions, they were not really interested in this world abyss! It's just that they caught one wildebeest, and the remaining were the beasts! They keep coming to investigate what happened to their friend, and the lions took the second one, took the third one, and took the fourth one! And the disappointing part was those lions, they didn't feed on those world vision!

They went to the waterhole and quarter kudu by the water hole while the beasts were all eaten by these other different kind of scavengers! And these days I’ve seen they’ve got a tendency of running away and coming back to more or less the same kind of area! Where they departed from!

So this animal is a lot of them died already, not because of the lion hunting them; they died because of a certain kind of sickness called attaining disease! Here is whereby there is an insect that normally lays their eggs inside the nose of this world abyss! And the lava sometimes can go up to the brain and disturb the sense of balance!

As a result of that, the world abyss is just going to start turning, turning, getting excited, falls over, and dies! So the illness is called attaining disease to me! Well, the Beast is quite a very beautiful animal! If you look at this formation, you can see, look, the one that is right in front has got the brown on the forehead!

That shows you that it’s a female! The male's got dark color on their forehead! That is how you can easily distinguish between the male and female! So now I am going to see if I can find one of the big cats, one who hunts the world beast! I'm going to see if we can find some of the big cats as I didn’t get the question very well from Allen! The wind is too much here; can you just please, FC, repeat the question for me? Yes, I’m not that very sure what is happening in East Africa!

But there are about two types of where the beasts! We've got the black and the blue wildebeest! So if there is a blue wildebeest taking place by East Africa, it means it is the same kind of world abyss we have got here in Juma Game Reserve! So if you look at the side of the neck, you can see it has got some stripes there! That is where this name striped blue is coming from!

So those tribes we call them the bringers! That's why they call it a brindle goon! So now I am going to move on and see if we can find any of the big cats!

Listen, now move on to Ralph and see if he's got something on his side! Well, Fergus up in the crow's nest just helped me spot a zebra! And I know it’s not very difficult to spot him out here in the bush! But I didn’t see it! Well hidden behind this little bit of the bush willow leaves!

Looks like—oh, there’s another one! Oh, there's probably a few of them! There’s at least two! Yesterday we also saw a few zebra! Oh, look at that! But of contact! But that one obviously wanted nothing to do with him! That's a perfect mohawk! Absolutely perfect!

And leave a prison trongo just flitting about in the background there as well! So this one’s got its tail; it hasn't been in any real fights! Tina, between his friends, neighbor often bought each other's tails off! And it can be quite nasty towards each other!

Oh, hey there, guy! Disappearing off into the thickets there! That’s it! That’s the grass just on the side of a termite mound! Very artistic sisters! So I guess yes, well let’s go and have a look!

Yeah, yeah, straight up waste! Driving along this lovely sandy road; and while speaking of sand, off to Steve! Yes, well, we found something in the road! And talking about these lovely, amazing sorts of animals, Archer, that create the habitat!

We found a track! Very, very nice track, and I’m going to just put down a little bit of a knife there to show you the size of this animal! And then also a little bit of a description next to it! It is indeed the track of an aardvark! And here are the toes!

There’s the toe there, another toe, and the toe near the nails in the front! And if we were to reference it to this track here in the book, you can actually see it quite clearly there! Can you see it? There's the two toes, and then the third one, and the nails in the front! That is the front foot of the right foot of an aardvark!

And just cross the little track over here, up ahead of us! And they, with these beautiful nails, yeah, dig into a hole in the ground unbelievably quickly looking for termites! And that’s how they create all of these wonderful places for—they’re also hired in occurrences of fire!

And I suppose we could even go in there if it got too hot! Hey, Tommy! But a very nice animal! One I have not seen yet in the Sabi Sands, but my time will come! Lots of tracks around! We see lots of tracks, and they’re always in and around looking for termites!

We’ve just got to find the right time of day to be looking! But an ecosystem engineer, because they have the ability to change their landscape! And if I'm not mistaken, they have 28 mammal species here they’ve to use aardvark holes for slumber, for restful hiding away from all sorts of things!

So very, very important! And they've probably been around for a very, very long time! Being fed on termites, so much an end to being around a long time! So, if you specialized in that, it must mean you’ve been around for a long time! And here we go through the wilderness again!

Can you see how patch it is? While I was talking about it before, we’ve got the burnt areas; we've got the open areas! And then even the trees! Now to kill a tree, you really need an enormous amount of fuel! As I was talking about before!

So that doesn't mean that this tree is dead! And this looks like a small silver cluster leaf! And how do we tell if a plant is dead? Well, you take a little branch and you snap it! And if it snaps, it's dead! But look inside there; it’s very green still!

So no, darts of the fire singed this plant! Now if I get a bit of a bigger one, if it bends and doesn't snap, it's still alive! Look at that—it’s still alive! Just that little edges, the little twigs on the outside are dead! There's no chance! And this is not a very big plant!

As it is quite small, it's just above my knee, sort of halfway to my hip! And this plant has survived the fire! So that's what happens! These savannah plants are very well adapted for protecting against fire! And that’s because of the bark that they have!

If we go back down and have a look, you'll actually see that on this idea where something is damaged, the bark—yeah, the fire managed to get in there! But elsewhere along here, the bark is still very much intact! If I just scratch a little bit, it’s still alive inside there, completely alive!

And the bog is the protection! The aardvarks provide the protection for the animals to hide in, and the trees have their own protection in the form of bark! When animals such as porcupine or elephants damage this bark, they allow a fire in, and that’s how bigger trees can be killed by something that evolved to survive against it!

But part and parcel of the process! But you can see not a very big plant has escaped what we call the fire trap! So if you want to remove trees out of an environment, you need to get lots of fuel, lots of flame, lots of heat, and you need to burn the trees before they get into this sort of heart!

Is this guy still alive? Very good! I mean, you’re wondering if I’ve seen an aardvark, folks—I’ve seen seven! Seven now! Yes! I saw a couple in the Kruger Park, and then the rest up in Namibia!

So really, really special! At almost to see! I've seen one Ancelotti as well, not far from here! It's seven in total is my number! I'm very proud of it! Even if you want to see them, Namibia is a very good place to see them! They’re all over the place!

It's not as many predators around that seems to be the reason! Seems to be the reason! A friend of mine is out there! She's out in Swallowher Reserve out in the northern cape on the other side in the west of South Africa! Northwest!

And the other day, she, in one drive, saw two aardvarks and a Pangolin! I know she's very lucky! Very lucky! Very, very lucky indeed! And I can guarantee you Ralph Kirsten has got a lot to tell you about that part of the world, especially with pangolins and aardvarks!

Well, I have seen a few aardvarks in my life as well! It's basically down in the Eastern Cape! It seems like they are quite relaxed and not really worried about too much! And even the elephants are very pretty calm! Chilled out! I don’t know if it’s for some of the plants that grow in the area and they’ve been feeding on that!

I don't know, but the animals are rather relaxed down there! And the aardvarks, well, they're not shy, I would have to say! I'm often seeing them walking around during the day, which is incredible! Because I’ve had a couple of guiding friends that have spent many, many years out in the bush and never seen an aardvark! Just flying very fast on the side in the wind here is just an off there!

But difficult with the roof that we've got on to show you now! So I'm gonna keep my concentration on this hunt for Shadoul and Haku Mori, the two leopards that are almost nomadic! That keep coming in and then leaving before we can spend any real time with them! But I'm really still gonna put in a lot of effort to try and find him!

I saw some tracks a little bit further back of a male leopard! It's maybe a day or two old! And it looks like it might have been hooker Maurice! This is the area that he does like walking around! And he's got one time that the nail shows in the check! And so it looks like it's quite an extended toe and quite similar to his name, the hooker Marie—the hook on his child it fits quite nicely!

But I'm hitting now towards the gate on the northwestern corner of the Juma Traverse! And I'll then see if we can find any of their tracks! And I found Shadoul live here before, walking along here was right in the darker hours! Once the Sun had set!

And the kudu were alarm calling just ahead of us here! And they actually indicated that she was here! And then I raced around, and I was turning around in circles! Eventually, I found him! And when... when the animals do start alarm calling, it should do Lou, shishi runs away! She doesn’t like to be in a position to be given away!

Let's see! Are we gonna be lucky this evening? Are we gonna find some leopards? Well, I'll see what else we can find along the way as well! It’d be nice to find those leopards! All right, as we continue on the search, I think the other guys also in search of all sorts of things!

Yes, well, our fire talk continues, and we have found a beautiful little ant's nest! And we were talking about the aardvark and how important they are for creating ecosystems! Here is one of their food sources: ants! And out here in the savanna! And also in a number of other ecosystems!

And so, can I move that leaf there? And so, so important in the distribution of seeds, of grass seeds! Normally, and what they call that, they call that myrmecochory— the movements of seeds or distribution of seeds by ants!

And what the ants do is they actually take them in underground, where they're safe from fire and from rodents, and from whatever predators they might be on the ground surface looking for them! And a very important thing because that seed goes underneath the ground!

The fire comes along and cleans the entire top surface layer of all the other plant material! And then next time the rain comes, those seeds on the ground which provide a beautiful little sort of nutrient source for the ants, the seed themselves are not eaten because they’ve evolved that way! They provide the ants the food essentially, sort of the chaff!

And the wheat itself—the food source or the seed pot grows out of the ground! And because the ends have protected them underground, they're in a nutrient-rich area! The moisture gets in there and protected by the fire! They also protected by all sorts of predation!

And they come out and provide the creation of the grasslands once again! And if you just look out a little bit here is the leftovers! Here's the leftovers, Davi! I've sort of parts and puddle the past! Some of the seeds that have been eaten! And just the bits and pieces that have been dumped outside of the ant's nest!

And to take down there, use what they can! The seed gets planted, so to say! Some of them get eaten up short! And then eventually, but some pieces will come out in the form of new plants! Lily! And so, very, very cool!