Safari Live - Day 261 | National Geographic

This program features live coverage of an African safari and may include animal kills and carcasses. Viewer discretion is advised. The clouds are now starting to come close to each other; I can see that it might be overcasting any time soon here by the western side of the Kruger National Park, Ahjumma Game Reserve. My name is Sydney, former enemy coast, and I am traveling with Craig, who is my camera operator. This afternoon, we are going to try by all means to get you to see a lot of interesting animals. If you need our attention, you can easily follow us on Twitter, hashtag safari live. You can also follow us on the YouTube chat stream.

So my tracking is beginning now, and when the sun is very hot like this, it makes it very difficult for me to estimate the age of tracks, but I will try. I'm looking for Hosanna specifically this afternoon, but you know nature is unpredictable. We can go out now looking for Hosanna specifically and come across someone else. I saw Hosanna's tracks this morning, and they were very much fresh. So anytime soon, Mara will be joining us, and they are still busy having just a little bit of a technical problem, and sorry for the inconveniences.

So you can hear the wind is blowing too much by this direction where I'm heading to now, which is towards the treehouse. The treehouse is dry at the moment, but for the data's, they don't want to go away from it. They go and wait there still, just to see if animals are going to come and pass by. So at the treehouse, they've got quite a lot of trust. We are hoping for the same thing; we are hoping for the rain to come at any time here by the western side of the Kruger.

I've just seen some tracks here; I just want to be sure what animal was here and also to check maybe to try and check the size. Yeah, I can see that there is a leopard here. Hmm, these tracks, they don't look old; I can see these tracks look very, very, very fresh and he went somewhere deep in here. So at least now I have got a clue; I just want to try and see if maybe we can see it from the camera. I can see here, I'm gonna get off now and show you. I'm happy because the tracks I'm seeing are on top of the vehicle tracks from this morning, so the possibilities of finding a leopard, they are very much high.

Look at that, so you can see it was going that way. This is the track, so this track looks very, very much fresh. So you will see that if I disturb this track, what is going to happen? You can see that the amount of wind blowing has not yet blown this track, which means this track is fresh. Now, I just blew some air on it, but look at what is happening. It disappeared, so it means the chances for us to see a leopard in the area are very high. Although sightings are not guaranteed because these animals can hide, but I will try my best and see if we can find him right away. I pointed out the tracks; this is the area where this leopard went into the bushes.

So I'm just gonna go down through them and see if we cannot find everything there. Then I'm gonna check in this gully; we might be lucky here. It’s not easy to find their paths. So the thing is, if you find tracks, then at least it can give you a clue that you are gonna be looking at this area. It just gives you the possibilities, not probabilities. But when we are driving around in the afternoon, it’s not only one vehicle, so other people can also check the different areas. Leopards are not that very easy to find, but if you have seen it in the morning is when they are easy to find in the afternoon. But if we didn’t see it in the morning, then it becomes difficult.

So this area is the area where I'm going to go in and check. The paw prints can tell you if it's a young leopard or an old leopard; the size of the track will tell you mostly the young leopard tracks are very small and the old leopard tracks are very broad. Male and female tracks also don't look the same; female tracks are much thinner, and the male leopards are much broader. So this is the area I saw the tracks coming in, and there's even another road by the other side. If I don't find anything by this little gully, it means I'm gonna have to proceed and check if this leopard didn't cross to that side. But I can promise you the chances of us seeing this leopard are very much high, because the sun is very strong.

When the sun is strong like this, it does ground the activities of these big cats, so they don't really like it walking by the sun. The chances of a leopard to attack a human are very much high, but here in Juma, the leopards are still behaving their natural life, their behavior is not modified at all. What modifies the behavior of the animals is what is happening in the area of distribution. What is happening in the surroundings matters the most. If there is a lot of animal hunting in the area, then animals tend to be aggressive. Also, if there is too much translocation and game capturing, it modifies the animals as well. So here we don't have such problems; animals are still having that natural human fear.

So this is the area that tracks I saw came in, there's a little gully again there. I just have to check here very, very carefully. I can’t see the tracks on the ground, but here is a lot of green bushes which can be ideal for this kind of cats to hide in. So the squirrels are not making any noise, and they are my good friends. The squirrels are the ones who normally give me the updates; the leopards do like to hang up by the trees, but normally during the day you will find them lying down in gullies.

The gullies are this old dry riverbed, that is where they like it the most, because those kinds of areas are very much moist and humid; it’s not that hot as outside by the drainage line. There is quite a lot of green trees because it's where the water is flowing during the rain. There's still quite a lot of water underground, so what is growing by the drainage line you find most green trees. So by the trees, yes, they do go up mostly; when they've got a kill, that is where they hang up. Sometimes when a tree is too green and they need some shade up there, they can go up and use their spot to blend with the leaves in order to avoid detection as well.

So this leopard came here, and the leopards, they don't live in the den. But one can confuse where the leopards are living; it's also determined by what is happening at that time. For example, if it’s a female leopard having the little cubs, they can hide their cubs in the den. In other words, the leopards when they are still very young, they do stay in the dens. But as they are growing, then they are going to be exposed outside, and that is when you will find them hiding here under the trees. The old leopards, they stay here on the ground; they are more terrestrial than fossorial. They don't really go underground fossorial; those animals stay under the ground.

So here I have checked, and I didn't see anything, but it does not mean the leopard is not here. I might hear birds or any other animals giving alarm calls in the very same area. I have checked this ideal spot helps this health in order to hide. But the cats that I am thinking is the one responsible for the tracks, Hosanna doesn’t really hide away from us. When we are looking for him, he’s just natural; he just lives the way he wants.

I see he doesn’t have any potential to hide away from us. Sebastian, that is quite a lovely question. The leopards are not identical, yes they can be the leopards coming from the same gene pool, but they are not identical. Each one of them has got its own spots, so it’s like our fingerprints; our fingerprints are not the same, but they look more or less the same. So leopards too, it is so very quite here in terms of the warning calls. The squirrels are not even making any noise as well.

Yeah, I saw some other tracks here. Let me just verify. Yeah, the hyenas were also here, and hyenas, they always come after the leopards. But oh, I've got a strong belief that we’re going to find this animal here in this area. So now I am going to check this road to see if that leopard didn’t cross to this side. So if the tracks cross here, it means how much they have to carry on much more to the other side and check this block now. No, the leopards, they are much more active during the night, but you can see them during the day. Quite a lot of records will tell you they are active between dawn and dusk.

But if you come here, the practicality, you won't see them much more active. Adult leopards are just opportunistic, and when they are sleeping, now if anything comes here, he is not going to leave it. He will wake up and want to catch it. So the leopards, they can be active during the day. The weather condition also influences their movements. When it's overcast, they can walk around during the daytime. So according to the tracks I saw, they were heading much more this side. So if I don't see any tracks crossing here, it means he might still be somewhere in there.

Yeah, I am not seeing any tracks. Yes, so it means I must check this little gully from up here. Pretty, the leopards, they do get injured by their paws because of the thorn trees. I have seen that happening. You will see sometimes doing like this, and they take off the thorns there. So leopards, they are not like the baboons, which can be able to groom each other and help each other with thorns. They have got to use their teeth in order to get rid of those kinds of thorns whenever they step on it.

Oh, I got that sexy, and let me just check if the tracks are going that side. I think I saw that Rex somewhere. There are some tracks there, but these tracks I'm seeing now, these ones, they look old, and they are not as fresh as the tracks I saw earlier. So let me just drive around here on this road and see. So the tracks, oh now I'm not convinced, so I'm still sure that this leopard is stuck behind us.

So to make it simple, I'm just gonna go around here. Thank you very, very much to all the viewers who are wishing me all the best on this leopard search! I hope we can find him. I already saw some impalas here now, and these impalas are hitting much more towards the northeast side of the universe. Not a lot of antelopes have died, but the animals that we have lost, that we have seen here, it was quite a few nyalas.

So the nyalas have died, but it was not like as a result of the drought. So what kills the animals by this time of the year is the following. By the end of the dry season, or some other people they call it the drought season, the end of the dry season, the animals, they go through quite a lot of stress. Stress, like in humans, will cause you problems such as heart attacks and strokes. But here by these animals, when they are stressed, they do go through a problem of myopathy.

Myopathy is a kind of disease that affects their muscles. So when they are affected by the muscles, they cannot climb even a very small little hill because their joints and the muscles don’t support their weight, and you will see the symptoms such as fatigue, and then they've got problems with blood transport, and that is what kills the animals. So those kinds of nyalas that have been recorded dead, some of them have been taken for scientific investigation, and the results confirmed that it was indeed myopathy. That is why it is called a captured myopathy. A captured myopathy is also a stress that is posed by us humans when interfering with the animals during the game-capturing.

When we are capturing and translocating animals, this kind of sicknesses, which affect the muscles, do affect animals, and animals die. Another thing which causes the mortality of animals by the end of the dry season is the nutrition; nutrition which is by the trees, which is low, and failing to support the body of the animal to be strong enough in order to fight cold, in order to fight heat, and in order to fight against the animals' chemical reaction in the form of training, which a point which is a poison. Animals use chemicals; animals used at least to regulate browsing activities, so their bodies, by this time of the year, because of a dry season, are not strong enough in order to fight against simple problems.

So now is the time we can now cross over to the Maasai Mara where David is eager to take over from me at this stage. A very good afternoon, everybody, and welcome to our drive from the Mara Triangle in Kenya. We apologize for having not been online for a few months, but all good now. My name is David, and with me today is Bungay. A good afternoon, welcome everybody! My plans today are to look for some lions that recall the Roho Pride. I have not seen them for quite some time, but this could be a good day for me to look for them because Steve is not in this area; he has gone in a different direction.

Alright, remember this is a very interactive safari that we do, so your questions and comments are very welcome. I’m sure Sydney already told you about using hashtag safari live and that is on Twitter. So I'll first swing by the marsh area and then, um... sorry, I missed that question from Karen discussed and some blue goods there... Kalkaryn, sorry, I missed you.

Christian, you're asking if this is Africa. If that's your question, yes, the Mara Triangle Game Reserve is in a country called Kenya, and Kenya is in East Africa, and East Africa is in Africa. It's a good question. And cutting the fasting, I will show you today some baboons, and this type of baboons we call them the olive baboons. Baboons, just like primates, just like us, are omnivores, and they would eat both green and carnivores.

Green, I'm talking about, like they could be picking seeds. They could be picking any roots. They could also be picking an insect that they define on the way as they walk. One unique thing about the baboons, they go in groups. That one has a baby, Bungay! Very good job. Bungay is carrying a small little baby on the back. So it could be anything they are picking, and as I say, they're omnivores; it could be an insect like locusts, grasshoppers, you know, any beetles they get on the way, worms.

But here, our guests think they are picking more of grass seeds than anything else. We have another type of baboon in Kenya that's called a yellow baboon, but that's more of low elevation and drier areas. How nice, well raided on the back of that mother there! And that one at the back to me is so huge, and my guess is that might be a male. Yes, that is a male by virtue of his size.

Allen, happy to hear your name again, and you're asking whether I speak Swahili. I’ll tell you what, in Kenya, or rather in East Africa, the national language of the three countries of East Africa, Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania, is Swahili. So my national language is Swahili, and I don’t know how much Swahili you know, Allen, I’ll give you one word for today, and when I say hello to you next time, I am going to say "jambo" (J-a-m-b-o). So "jambo" is hello in Swahili, which is my national language.

I can as well say "jambo" to the baboons there! And they move with big groups that we call a troop, so you can easily see a troop of baboons or if you want, you can also say a congress of baboons. Both males and females as they move, and monkeys, that’s very intelligent. When you see them moving, in the area we come from, they come to the garden and they keep stealing our food.

Christine, you’d like to know if, as I move and leave with the baboons alone, are they aggressive? I would say no. What they'll do sometimes is see them come into the campgrounds, and when they come, they’ll just be looking for food and they come and browse whatever they can get. But sometimes when we get people being a bit careless and not disposing of, you know, some waste nicely, like potato peels or fruit peels, you’ll see them going through the garbage and trying to turn over the garbage basket and getting some food.

But in general, they are not aggressive to people. We have like a loop fence by the camp, and the fence is electric, and you’ll get them, the lead male, which we call the alpha male, coming with a stick, and they all come jumping in! And the last one to come in, second last, holds the stick for the other one also to go in – very intelligent! Oh, same monkeys are busy sometimes. Monkeys are very cheeky!

Now I got another brother of mine who got something different from my monkeys. Well, look at what we found! Good afternoon, everybody! We have found a beautiful male giraffe prancing through the open plains of the Mara Triangle! You can tell by the grass at its feet, it is extremely windy. Good afternoon! My name is Steve, I’m joined on camera by big James, and we are at the Mara Triangle.

It is windy and blustery, and there's a good chance we are going to see some animals or carnivores in there, for that matter, moving about. So we've decided to come in towards this scope and bread. We’re going to hug this all the way down and see who we come across along the way.

But back over to this beautiful black and white ostrich, a male ostrich indeed! Don’t see any ladies anywhere nearby; we rarely see them down in this dry area, but they are quite a common occurrence up here in the Mara, primarily due to the habitat being nice and open.

Such as do fall prey to large predators such as lion, cheetah, and leopard, so they need to be able to see where they’re going and what is approaching them. Very nice male ostrich today, introduces says the giraffe. I'm sure I said ostrich. James doesn't believe I said giraffe. Sorry, everybody, if I did. Well, it’s clearly not a giraffe; it is an ostrich!

Beautiful ostrich with the black and white plumage. So essentially, the reason why males are black and females are sort of rufous brown dusty colored is due to the fact that the males essentially incubate the eggs at nighttime, being more camouflaged at night with the blackness, and the females by day, and they take turns incubating their eggs, which one egg is equivalent to about 22 or 24 chicken eggs.

So an enormous amount of protein, and they are very, very well sought after by many an animal out on the open plains. What ornithologist would see an animal doing very, very well, rupy? Ostriches, well, they don’t mind being in groups; you often find them in groups, but ours here – well, there's not actually that many ostriches around to be honest.

But essentially, ostriches should be spending a lot of time out in the open plains, and they can be in small groups. They can be solitary like this male; maybe he doesn’t have a lady, but often they are seen with a male and female and their offspring, and the offspring can number anywhere from four to about seven or eight following mom and dad around. They are known as precocial, which means the eggs are laid very large.

As I said before, lots of protein in the egg, and that gives the chicks the ability to develop to a much more established edge, and there’s no parental care with regards to feeding; the chicks all hatch at the same time and then off they all follow mom and dad. So often you’ll find a group of them together; every now and again you find lonely guys; poor thing!

But in more favored habitats where the territory is maybe a little bit better or the food sources are better, you'll definitely find groups of seven or eight males trying to attract the attention of the females and so on. The bird that is completely given up flight for the ability to walk and run very, very quickly on the ground, the feathers and wings only being used for insulation, the wings for display and dancing, and also as intimidation when they run to chase a predator away, they’ll lift their wings out when you want a half.

And they lay eggs. Well, that's a great question! I would assume they would do it once a year, but I could be wrong. Being a large bird, they don't really have the time to incubate more than two clutches a year, but maybe in really good seasons, they might be able to lay more than one set. I'll have a quick little look. So essentially, they can lay through the year. You can get a total of 17 eggs in one nest, which is an incredible amount!

But generally, averaging eight to fourteen eggs, two to three are laid per day, and what happens is they'll lay the eggs and move away, lay the eggs and move away, and only incubating once all the eggs are laid. Through that period, basically all of the eggs will then hatch at the same time, called synchronistic hatching, so that you get all the babies coming out at the same time. So that the attention with one chick hatching doesn't attract the attention of predators to eggs that haven't yet hatched.

And they could not fly, regardless of their weight! So they've outdone it now; they don't have any barbs on their feathers. So essentially, I do apologize for the wind. Essentially, their feathers are loose. If you've ever had an ostrich feather, they are very, very useful for feather dusters. They don't have barbs! The barbs are essentially zips on the feathers which attach them together, almost like a zip would on a bag.

Except all the feathers of normal birds zip together and the ostrich has no barbs at all! So when they flap their wings, there's absolutely no downward pressure given; it’s just like flapping a loose cloth. The wind, there’s no attachment; there’s no physical boundary or barrier pushing down, which is essential for birds to be able to fly. The barbs in the wings; it’s why birds will preen regularly, cleaning their feathers and also re-tipping any feathers that have come unzipped so as to provide maximum thrust for when they fly around.

So ostriches have given it up altogether, and the feathers, as I say, are mainly there for insulation. The male and female for mate recognition. Oh yes, annihilator, the males do a very intricate dance of waving their wings around in circles and lowering their shoulders and really showing off to the ladies how it’s done.

Well, she's quite picky, and if the dance isn't done to her specifications, she will probably move on and pick a male who’s got some more dance moves, or some better dance moves, or maybe has harnessed the ability to dance even better, and maybe a younger male who really doesn’t have the rhythm. You know, not everybody's got the right rhythm, and well, ostriches, when they see a male, they want him to have the proper rhythm. It's all about technique, and this poor guy, well, he's all on his own!

I'm scanning in the distance, seeing if there maybe is a female nearby, but there's not! And you can tell that being on his own is quite risky because he's got to lower his head very low to the ground to feed, and each time he does that, he’s at risk of being snuck upon. So hence the fact that he's constantly raising his head and alerts awareness, very jumpy in the wind!

Anything could be trying to sneak up next to him as we speak. Wouldn't that be interesting to watch a cheetah coming out and know, pulling down the male because the leopard would really love to take down an ostrich? I'd love to see what Tingana would do to him! But talking about leopards, Sydney is on the search of the little chief; I wonder how he's getting along.

Still looking for this leopard here in the area, and Steve was talking about the leopard and ostrich. I have witnessed exciting many years ago a leopard catching an ostrich. Ostrich is the fastest two-legged animal on the ground. You can see the squirrel on the ground; the speed almost climbs a tree!

And try to help me find these leopards. When they're on the ground, they're not clear; they cannot see the leopard I'm looking for. So according to the tracks, this leopard is in this block I’m checking; another area here, this road, a border, just to see if he has not crossed to the private concession side.

The leopards and the domestic cats, they are all cats, and cats have got more or less the same kind of behavior. So the leopards, they sleep more because the leopards, they eat a lot more than the domestics, and eating too much needs to be given a lot of time. You have a beautiful kudu; this is a beautiful good look at that!

He's just, "Yeah, what a magnificent kudu!" This is a gorgeous kudu indeed, and it's not even worried about us here! You can see all he's doing is eating, just getting the fresh leaves coming from the tree. His body conditioning, you can see that he was getting thin, but now it’s time for him to regain again and look much better.

Those horns are so big; look at that! He completed the first, second; you can see that is one, two, three tree twists. So A1 is consisted of a bone and a keratin, so the black we’re seeing on the outside is the keratin, and this is what creates the difference between the horn and the ossicone for the giraffe. Giraffe doesn’t have this layer of keratin on the outside.

If you look on the face, the kudu has got every line; this gorgeous kudu has got a V line on the face! Gorgeous kudu! As per the viewers, so the gorgeous kudu has got the V line, which is there as an anti-predator strategy, so they can vibrate the skin here on the face, which there makes the predator, when looking at them, think that the kudu is dangerous, whereas it's not.

So the kudus can be able to jump very high from a standing position. He can jump 2 to 4 meters high, and that is too high! When it's running, it can easily jump! Sometimes they even try to jump over a vehicle acosta. The horns, I'm not too sure about the weight of these horns, but they cannot be very heavy. I have handled them before; it’s not a very heavy horn! So those kudus are some of those; those are some of those instruments people were using in order to create music during the olden days.

And now let’s cross over back to Steve in the Maasai Mara! Look at what we found! In the middle of the day, you can tell the wind is unbelievable! We've got an owl! It looks to be an African grass owl, and I think – I’m not a hundred percent sure if anybody can correct me there – you are most welcome to! But it is not enjoying this wind at all, and they're guarded as if it is the grass owl, which looks very familiar to me.

And it is a very uncommon resident in southern Africa and highly endangered due to the destruction of their natal grasslands, transformed into either agriculture or into residential areas, as they just live in the grass. This guy trying to find some shelter in the tree, and very, very well; it's not in the best spot. The wind is blowing him all over the place!

How interesting! So similar to the serval that we've spent some time with earlier this week, this would be a nocturnal predator of rodents in the long grass, as well as some birds and maybe some insects that they can catch. They can spend some time walking around, but they do have quite a large wingspan and that bowl-like face typical to the earless owls, such as the barn owl and the grass owl.

That bowl-like face actually is able to channel sounds of anything that are moving around in the grassland underneath, the smallest little rustle of a mouse on the grass as they fly over with enormous wings, very silent flight! We spoke earlier about the ostrich not having barbs on the wing, so they can't fly, while the owl with their small body weight to their enormous wingspan, most owls actually have a reversible zip on the wing on the feathers, which means that it doesn’t cause that downward friction motion.

If you've ever heard a small bird flying away, you can actually gather of the wings moving now on an owl, because they've got enormous wings for their body weights; it doesn't have that sound because the wings are very big to enable them to fly silently. And they don't have those barbs to enable that downward forcing pressure, and that together enables them to have silent flight. And with that bowl on their face, it actually funnels the sound of any movement, any moving rustle towards their ears, which are on the sides of their head, and their heads basically have ears that are a different level on each side.

So the bird is able to triangulate the slightest of movements in the pitch blackness! Cosider, yes, it is very similar to a barn owl, very, very similar indeed! It's just a bit darker in color, the barn owl is very creamy, but that looks similar with that same sort of face and the bowl face that they have. And no ear tufts that you can see! Normally when you see owls with what we call ear tufts, they’re not actually ears; they're ear tufts which are mainly designed for camouflage or also supposedly for mate recognition.

But the grass owl doesn’t really need camouflage because it nests in the ground or on the grass, whereas a barn owl also nests in sort of a cavity. Your three owls, such as the Giant spotted and the Scops, those sort of owls need ear tufts to blend in with the background; it kind of breaks up that rounded head.

But you can actually see the foot of the owl. We've got what we call zygodactyl feet on owls: two toes forward and two toes back! And Sydney was talking earlier about tracks; owls have got the coolest tracks, with basically a very nice sort of X in the sand or a K that they leave when they land!

Shamsong, this is number 160! That's fantastic! Fantastic to hear! But little owl is hiding at the moment! Just before the folks, I nearly jumped out of my seat because a peregrine falcon was flying in the air! That was impossible for James to capture it, because it was using this wind to its advantage to fly around and really move with some absolute speed!

And the owl is hiding in the shade of the tree, trying to avoid the wind! The peregrine falcon harnessing it! Zach, I'm not aware of any owls that migrate; invariably owls take on nocturnal prey, so most of it being rodents and the like, so they don't really need to migrate because there’s plenty of them throughout the year!

The reason, and the way they've eliminated the need to migrate, is by evading space or changing space and time, and being active by night when some of their competitors are not! So owls have no need to migrate that I know of. If anybody knows of an owl that migrates, please let me know; I've never heard of it!

Liam Chavez, I have no idea why it is not moving. Maybe he thinks he's in the best spot, or maybe he's having a proper sleep. They are normally sleeping in the daytime! You can see the wind is really pushing him around. It's not the most comfortable of positions, is it? Well, that's fantastic! Just spotted it as we came around the tree there!

Okay, well, it sounds like the runners are really being out and about the last couple of days, and David seems to have found one for himself this afternoon! Well, another right over here, and this is a black rhino trying to disappear! It’s going to smack him towards now! You can see they’re just spraying, and Oops! His big poop! What timing! Here, and they'll normally scratch the ground after they just drop the poop, and that is an indication of marking their territory.

And that's very characteristic of most rhinos, and most of the black rhinos. As he disappears there in the thickets, and as might have been mentioned before, this always very shy; very secretive of the two species of rhinos that you got in Africa, the black and white! Always browsers, preferring to remain in bushes, and slowly and surely trying to fade away.

Not sure why he got a ring on his bum. He will carefully go like a ring that you'd see on waterbucks; the waterbucks that we call the common waterbuck, they have like a white ring on the bottoms. And it's very strange to see something similar on that rhino that has slowly actually disappeared in the orange leaf croton.

It’s not going very deep in the thicket. Single, the Edge consumer you’re asking, are they strong as they all say rhinos are very strong, and out here in the bush, the two animals Phyllis tried to avoid are either rhinos and buffaloes because they don't have very good vision, but they smell very well and they hear very well.

So you don’t want to take a chance with a rhino in my village because we used to have them not very far from where I grew up. We were being told by our parents if you see a rhino coming on your way just stand near a tree or just beside the tree, and it's going to charge you full speed. And as soon as you get close to the tree or where you are, just move like two meters away, and it will just come and bash itself on that tree, and that should hurt it so much.

And by the time it is recovering, you’ll have taken off! Very good! Let’s see how we are gonna do with the big five today because Sydney in South Africa has found one of the big five! I managed to find Hosanna here after such a very long tracking. Hosanna is here and he seems to be doing some hunting at the moment! I can see that he is looking at something, so I am going to keep following so that you can have a better sighting!

He has been working deep in the thick bushes so we had to track and try by all means to search everywhere until we got lucky to meet him. So he was right on top of a termite mound here trying to scan this area to see. Far! We have just passed a pregnant baker somewhere here, so he might be now looking for a chance.

As we have shown you earlier that the weather is getting better, I can see that now it’s getting overcast, and this is going to influence this cat to hunt. So I can see that he is looking at something! Here, look at that! You can see how he's working.

And see that? Look at that! Thank you very, very much, Vicki, for such a lovely comment! Look at that; you can see that he’s looking at something! I cannot see what he’s looking at, so I am trying to check here what he is up to, but I am not seeing anything! He’s leaving the ground, and he’s stalking, and he doesn’t want to make noise! You can see he’s using the available cover, and he’s sniffing the ground again!

He’s checking something here from the ground! It's slowly moving in there, and this is thick bush, so I want to see when he comes out from that thick bush what is it that is...and, oh, he came out of that thick bush! Sorry! He's now watching it from the side! What I’m going to do is that I’m going to try and pull forward a little bit so that we can see!

But he is aiming! I’m just gonna drive a little bit; maybe we might be able to see what he is looking at! So he’s trying to get all the updates from the ground here, and he is looking everywhere! So the animals can be able to sniff! And the good news: Hosanna indeed! I didn't copy very well what you're saying, but I can promise you here now; Hosanna is checking something, and he’s using all the different kinds of senses.

He looks very hungry! So you can see he’s doing hunt during the day. That is telling you now it’s not about him lying down; something is coming for him to take. He is now out looking for something to eat! So all we are going to do now is to keep following until we get a better sighting! We don’t want to miss any action!

So now we are going to move again and see if we can find him nicely! Now let’s cross over to the Maasai Mara where Steve is having the striped animal. Well, welcome back! We are with some plains zebra out in the open plains. The bite is just gorgeous! Respect the moment; they’re a little bit edgy just like that ostrich! But at least they’ve got some friends!

Where’s Windy? Look, it's a really, really tough time for most animals with its pumping! It’s very hard! Well, eliminate there! They set to hearing sped away! Can hear the approach of anything, and they know there's a lot of danger - and out on these, there's a little bit of animosity there! Whoopsie! What's good?

Would like to have seen some zebra! Well, here we go! I managed to find you a nice group! There’s probably two breeding herds here, but there's a number...it's quite a large herd if it was just one stallion! But what does happen from time to time, due to the fact that male zebra will defend their consorts against the male line or against the lions?

They’ll actually turn against the lion and end up getting killed themselves! And what happens is that they then leave their...inaya pepper or harem of females alone! And what happens from time to time is that a male with a group of ladies himself will just acquire them, sort of take them in under his wing and look after them as he would some of his own!

Okay, well, let's quickly go back down to the little chief who's on the meat! I am here still following the little chief of Juma, who is now trying to stalk the prey at the moment. But now I still can’t see what is aiming! It has been long distance; he is keep following and following. I can't see what exactly he is following!

So what I'm doing is just to keep guided by his interest – and the ears and concentration there is looking somewhere far! I can see there is now looking at something which is very far! So the problem is he is hunting, and he is hunting moving diagonally much more towards the private concession! So I hope he’s not gonna cross, or he will catch something before he gets to the border!

So he’s still going further! You can see he doesn’t want to hurry anything; he's not very much patient! About two, three months ago, he was impatient. Now he's gaining a lot of experience! I can see that he doesn’t want to rush; he’s taking it easy! He’s got a strong belief in himself now!

So, Vanessa, I didn’t copy your question nicely! This is Hosanna! Hosanna is very popular by the name the little chief! He is just about to get three years old next year, February! He'll be three years! He’s still a youngster, not responsible for any territory at the moment, so he’s staying together in the same area with his father by the name of Tingana, who is the territorial holder!

These two, they interact a lot, so I can see now he is very much settled. But he is looking forward, and he is raising his head up! He’s not lying down completely, so it means his prey might be still on a distance! Smith, asana is one of those leopards who lost their mothers while they were still very young!

And these cats, I can promise you, might have experienced quite a lot of difficulties! That is why he is so skillful while still very young! So if they lose their mothers while they’re still young, leopards, they can be very much solitary, and they've got to do everything just by themselves!

So with the help of the mother, they can stay together with the mother until they get to 18 to 22 months, and that is when they become independent. But if the mother dies at the earliest age, then it means he must have to do everything by himself!

That is why he has got quite a lot of confidence in himself because he has been alone for quite a long time! So now, I'm going to throw you back to the Maasai Mara in a few seconds; you will be in the Maasai Mara to swap!

Alright, welcome back! And we are watching some antelopes here! Let me just position myself, Lesley, and tell me, Bungay, where to stop! Keep calm! Good, O’Reilly! Look at some huge antelopes here that we call the Topi! And together with another different species, sometimes difficult to see!

Sorry, Bungay! I caught you off guard there, but beautiful lights we got! And this reminds me of the Sesa base that you see in South Africa! Or, guess their cousins, and to me, the Sesa is a little darker than the Topis here!

The one bitter thing about the Topi is if you happened to see closely inside the ears, the ears are so beautiful; they are lined up! It looks like a leaf! The inner part of the ear, and you see the gray on the legs which makes them look very unique! And like all the other antelopes, the Sesa have more uniformity on the colors like the Topis because you can see the dark brown, the light brown, and they are the bigger brown, you know, main brown on the part of the body!

And also just like there would be, there will be going for short grass! Now, let's go to the Grant's gazelle! And that one is a female. Great! Very good question! How long does the dry season last in Kenya?

Let me see; we got two seasons of rainfall here in Kenya. We got the long rains and the short rains! Now, rain! What we expect him to get now are the short rains, which haven’t come through as yet! And in the meantime, let’s first take your clothes off to Sydney because Sydney got something that could be going for a hunt!

So Hosanna at this stage is just keeps looking and moving a little bit further and focusing! After some time, he is doing the same thing and focusing, but still, I can't see what he is aiming at! He has gone past very close to the warthogs; there are four warthogs right now!

So I’m just going to check with you, maybe if he gets the chance! Oh, the hyena is there as well! Now the hyena has arrived! The hyena can smell that something is going to happen here! I can see their eye now is now behind at the moment! So this is maybe can be about to snare the leopard! I can see that the leopard is not comfortable with the hyena following!

You will see, you will see it now! You will see that the leopard is here and the hyena is here! And this hyena is following! You will see! The leopard you can see; the leopard is on the other side on the right! So this leopard is hunting!

And the hyena presented itself! Now if the leopard catches, there will be a drama here! So you can see now there’s a tree with its residence of the hyena at the moment! So they’re, you know, will also spoil the chances of this cat to take something! So the hyena is now moving away from Hosanna in the moment!

Asana is just now lying down there! Maybe this might be the end of him hunting or he might still hit it on hunting! So I’m just gonna pull forward a little bit so that you can see him! So you can see that now it’s nice and clear! He’s just lying down there! But the hunting interest is still there; you can see the movement of the head and the ears' concentration is telling us now he has not yet given up!

He still wants to carry on hunting, the warthogs notice on his favor! Kelly! The hyenas, they don't have predators when they are old! When they are still new after birth, they also left heightened by the dense unattended, which is very much dangerous when it comes to the predators, such as the wild dogs!

Wild dogs, when they come to the den, they can eat! But when the hyenas are old enough to defend themselves, they don’t really have the data! The chances of them being killed by the other predators are high! Not long time ago, we have seen a big fight between the matriarch Koki and one of the vocal males just by the Juma den, and fortunately Koki narrowly escaped as that lion was too big and was biting Koki like crazy!

So, if you look at a husan at the moment, you can see that he is demoralized a little bit by the hyena, which just came here earlier! Maybe now he wants the hyena to go away and carry on hunting! So I’m not very far away from the hyena den!

So shortly, I’m gonna go and make a turn by the hyena den and just to see what’s happening there! As I can see now that Hosanna is very much relaxed! And with this little bit of time left, we might be lucky and see something interesting!

There is quite a lot of pressure given by David! I'm going to try that, but the chameleons I haven't seen any at the moment! So maybe I'll be lucky! Who knows; they are here! Oh, you can see this! You can see the hyena! It's just now lying down in front of the vehicle! You see right there!

So this is showing you that this hyena, they are here, and they are prepared! They are prepared for whatever comes out for Hosanna for tonight! To have a share! So they are here to have a share! So now let’s quickly go back to David! And see what David is looking for!

Well Sydney, you can smell anything you want to smell, but I’ll only be happy if you smell a chameleon! What animals could we see here that we do not see in the Mara? I do not know, but we got a hyena because we have arrived at the hyena den.

And that is, uh, Waffles herself! And if you carefully, she got a collar on her neck, and she is the commander-in-chief of the North clan of hyenas! Let’s Harden, but in lieu, carefully, she doesn’t seem to be feeding in the den! Because the dens are meant to be small, just take these Cubs in and protect them from would-be predators!

See them coming in! The North clan has about 70 plus hyenas altogether! And all these juniors then the caps, I mean, I’ll tell you, Lee, you like to know how long they can survive without nourishment!

I wouldn’t say it... they’ll survive for a long time! In general, most Cubs of cannibals are wing very early, but the hyenas and most of the spotted hyenas will keep noting their cubs for almost one and a half years! And to me, that's a very long time to keep nothing in their cubs!

So I would say if they will not have, say for example, their mothers or aunties or anybody else to get the meat, then definitely they will not be able to hunt for themselves! Out, maybe guess they’ll have no chance of survival! This has spotted hyenas! We got three types of hyenas or species of hyenas in Africa: the brown hyenas and the striped hyenas!

Do you think they can recognize leaders of different clans? And I would say yes! Because, and the leaders will always carry themselves in a particular way! But more from the north, they made sure they do not criss-cross or overlap the boundaries! So for example, where we are sitting now, this is the territory of the North clan!

And the female you see there in the den, that is Tofus! That's Hallam! And they’ll always try and keep in their territory and not going in other territories! We have seen once in a while, for example, if a hyena here, because the old ones hunt for themselves!

Should one of them decide to go and hunt and she sees a prey, call it a zebra for example, and chase it! And the zebra enters in a different territory which is not part of the territory, the predator, the chaser would stop at that point!

It’s like a dead stop simply because she doesn’t want to get into trouble by going in a different territory! But just to ask your question, yes, they'll tell because the leaders killed himself in a particular way! One that was here because hyenas are very much shriek!

We just found out waffles here did not come out through the lineage! Is there something moving on the right there? Hopefully, her calves will come out at one point! Child of the universe, what would happen if two kinds of hyenas fight over title that has been seen once in a while, but that would only happen if they meet at a feeding site?

And we are trying to snatch or steal food from each other! That’s the only time you get hyenas fighting! But the bigger clan, in general, will win! Not very far from where we are, there's another clan that could be happy as zebra clan! They’re not as many in numbers as this, and the one or two few times we have seen them having a conflict, the North clan always wins!

This morning we saw a predator, lions, that you call or we know had made a kill! And we had the harpies of Rockland very close to them! And this sat there for over an hour, and they did not get anywhere close to them! If the lions or the, you know, pretty lions would go and hunt as we try to find out what’s moving!

So close to me! Oh, very good! Thank you, Bungay! If no hunt, I’ll tell you the North plan are very aggressive, and the laura's get the food from the lions! So, of course, if they would win out, say the winner would be determined by the number in the clan.

I'm not sure how many are in the Harpy's zebra clan, but in the North clan, we have known because you're following for quite some time. They're over 70 of them! Yesterday the cubs came out of the den, and they’re very playful!

It’s a bit cold for them! Oh, as you have seen, Waffles were just like staying on the door on the entrance, making sure maybe they don’t come out! It’s just so quiet and pitch black! The two hyenas moving there, I don't know what they want to do!

But all these are youngsters! And I'm just hoping these cubs will come out! But now can we give Sydney last or one more pressure for the chameleon, please? I am still here struggling to find the small nocturnal animals such as the bush babies and the chameleons! And I know a lot of you must be asking themselves such questions as why are we not on SA ABC 3 tonight!

This is due to the Muslims' Super League cricket! We will be with you again on SA ABC 3 at 6:30 p.m. as from the 23rd of December 2018. I’m trying to go and check around the Calico pen area and maybe we might be lucky here! But the wind is blowing too much!

I can't hear even if there’s a lion roar; the wind is blowing too much! So now that the wind is blowing, my ears are... and I can hear! Let me rather take you back to David! Maybe he's quiet by the Maasai Mara! Sorry, Sydney for too much wind, but I hope that is not an excuse to get a chameleon!

But just look at how still the air is here; those leaves or bushes near the den of Waffles, they’re not even moving! But Leah, the wind was very strong, but things have slowed down now! All those hyenas that you see, they’re just showing submission to Waffles!

Waffles is the one in that den, and you’re saying what was fought our way through? Up to the ladder! And I was saying, “Ihyenas very much real calm,” and if you’re born from a high-ranking female and you’re born a female cub, you get the same status!

But Waffles, hurry up! There she currently got two cubs, which I think she has instructed them to stay in! They’re not come out for return! She knows better! And if one of them turns out to be a female, she’ll be, of course, getting the same ranking or very high status just like the mother!

So hyenas are just like elephants where they are led by females, trying to sleep on that one! This has been a very great afternoon! But we may apologize for having started rather late in the Mara Triangle! We had a bit of technical issues, and also we lost Steve over at one point when he developed some technical issues with his camera!

So things that will always happen once in a while! But I think me and Sydney have been able to pull through and end the drive with a hyena! I think it’s pretty special having seen Hosanna as much as I would see! As Sydney has let me down by not spotting a chameleon, me having done my bit harvesting in a scrub, I want to say or thank everybody for having been with us!

On behalf of Sydney, Steve, Oval, and myself and camera operators, we thank you all very much! Join us tomorrow morning, and goodbye!