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 at 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 you can find now the wind
is a little bit too much here let’s now
go to Ralph and see what’s Ralph is up
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 camera this morning in the
crow’s nest I’ve got Fergus
hello figures 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 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 that 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 and the as I say
the 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 to 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 our chair 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 is 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 of the
see what we can find and see how the
plants are starting to recover again
after that little bit of burning they’ve
done last night we had a very small
spattering of rain which is very strange
because there’s 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 the Mar
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
and 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 wooden conditions but let’s go over
Sydney I believe is on the trail of a
yeah this is the beginning of my
tracking and on the ground so far the
only evidence I have 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 it 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 heiner track and it’s not a fresh
track you can see that the track is very
sticked is showing that this was shortly
after some little bit of rain it is not
that very fresh yeah 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 fresh tracks so we
we are going to be looking for a general
game at the moment until I pick up any
of the evidences 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
yeah we can now go to Ralph is also
looking for some lipids on inside well
we are always looking for leopards lions
and everything else in between and look
what we’ve spotted an a lock Siddhanta
or free corner 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
window sort of bloodstream is circling a
little bit it’s going directly towards
him but I think part of a herd that is
moving through here as well now that’s
moving down towards them wotty and 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 have or give us a
little bit of precipitation and we just
him going to be protecting all the
equipment I think I’m gonna spin around
and just hit 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 them with the wind like this you
can have a lot of the animals being
rather nervous from the antelope Impala
and kudu to Rana there are extremely
skittish in this kind of weather and to
elephants they can also be a little bit
nervous as well and even the cats and so
on they can also just put themselves in
a 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 sutured so the elephants
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 I did sort
you know 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 them little
wotty
and it’s just go down a bit further here
and see if maybe one of them is made is
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 with 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 Ellie’s 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 and we’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 on one of
them yeah we are let’s see might be some
more around I saw – a little bit of a
head shake hello and you 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
class look there it’s 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
the youngest female that 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 to
our lifts and are they starting to show
themselves but this one that we’re
watching 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 on a mission they’re
not moving and sort of stop and feed and
sometimes just walk 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
it’s amazing how quickly they disappear
in the thick bush such a massive animal
and I can walk almost couldn’t complete
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
you can see how much wind is as well
with the brush rustling they’re not
rarely always looks I relaxed with my
feeding and I really do seem to enjoy
feeding as well
I always think elephants are quite bush
connaissez they sort of grabbing it all
Isobella
looking at this individual here I think
it’s a female it’s got a it’s quite a
lot bigger than the other one I might be
wrong and I would I would put this in
you know sort of mid 20s to to early 30s
it’s not an extremely old individual
it’s 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 the
French being in the World Cup final
tonight and the soccer so this L fall is
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 we this
is the best site 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 is the
animals are going to retreat into sort
of the cover with his lots of bushes
is that the 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
they’re kind of making a line towards
Gallagher a pan it’s possible there
might be going to go and drink but it’s
also possible because there’s some
Impala 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 that’s
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 – yeah
why they have their stripes I believe
one of the the theories of one of the
original theories of thermoregulation
has been sort of booted out some people
think that there’s 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 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 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
tailmon it’s something that did a lot of
research on is that the stripes the
black and white stripes apparently fend
off the titty fly the biting horse fly
that is very wise it was very prevalent
in southern Africa many many years ago
and the very very nasty bites they can
give there suck the blood and they wants
to transmit certain diseases and what
Sciences did that 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 all of they dragged 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
have been electrocuted and fallen onto
the bottom grid and they found that the
white was quite high in bytes the black
was was less I believe I’m not sure
which one actually was the worse the
black of the white but black and white
combined had the fewest incidences of of
TT fly trying to land on them so that is
another theory that seems to ring quite
my world your music indeed we love
seeing the Zebras Anna Taylor was
commenting as well
the Makoti hoodie she’s nappin the Mara
so she’s gonna have a full of zebras up
there but we almost seen 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 bath salts 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 you 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
well this I was wrong in the six of that
animal it’s a young bull that is
obviously following on with his head now
they are all making the 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 hit 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
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 heart got 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 then for
instance hyenas hyenas you you almost
cannot see when they’re pregnant now I
just did that
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 a this sort
of path I’m just watching you see how
the tail guy 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 there 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 in the drainage
line in the similar Watty 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 him she’s sort of circling back a
little bit towards us and you always
should need elephants 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 let’s 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 to you
because mommy’s will react accordingly
with the youngsters regardless in the
animal kingdom means from humans to do
elephants everybody going to be
protecting the youngsters and you see
how that little one now it 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
trunklid they get to use it at about a
year’s year’s age and when they start to
work it out so I would so between one
and two years old maybe about one and a
half it’s still struggling not quite
adept at all those muscles and there are
a lot of them in there chunk really
struggling a bit to get the grass nicely
in its mouth but getting there you see
maybe a grab on Turton and also uses
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
and use his foot you see they’re coming
through there we go
good not done but then losing nice
diversion the wind chef’s gonna wake a
little bit harder for the same amount of
food is the adults alright I think I’m
gonna try and get us a little bit of a
bit of you 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 is
trying to feed there is something very
interesting I found about these doves
and pigeons there so the darn 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 the
produced milk 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 be
able to regulate
their own body temperature so apart from
that they don’t have anything in common
with the mammals so the 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 they can be able to break down
the epithelial parts of the crop and
then they regurgitate it and give that
milk to their little ones that milk it
has been recorded very very rich in
terms of the 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 it is produced by
the same prolactin hormone
which is the very same producing the
milk when it comes to lactation period
of the Marmara sea and if you can check
they are going to even suspend feeding
for about a week
just when having the little ones the
first week or two they are going to
suspend feeding because they don’t want
to contaminate the the milk with the
seeds because they know very well their
little ones are too small cannot easily
they cannot digest the seeds at all so
you can see that this bed they are very
much well gifted and very much
interesting and if if they’ve got X and
one of the X falls the bow is gone okay
when when when they’ve got some X is
very much interesting if one of the X
falls this is what is going to happen
they 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 2x so now when
there’s only one cheek available then it
means that chick has got a lot of a lot
of milk to feed on alone so let’s get it
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 science and the bushes 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 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 of yeah 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 cuz when you
don’t have fingers oh that actually
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 a
man do it when they can’t reach that
itch on their back in there on the side
of the cavity or something in the the
look that’s often on the person’s face
is quite some
that of a dog when you get them just
some that right spot on the belly here
you’ve 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 spent looking for
the Ashton looking for the fresh flush
that’s what we hoping we’re going to
find Tony you want to know about 1/4
crackers ends at the resort it was the
type of zebra the quacker it is not not
alive anymore extinct it was a species
of zebra I’m not I think it was actually
the scientific name had quokka in it I’m
not kind of sure but it was shot at a
very long time ago there’s definitely a
species of of zebra but I need to
double-check that I think it was before
before my time but it is the name we
know very very well one of my favorite
rugby players is the got a very funny
looking nose thing is he broken about 15
times his name is what is his actual
nickname but everyone calls him quater
certain people name but I’m not sure
when the last quote was around but it’s
probably over a hundred years ago and it
was shot at is probably down in the Cape
where the settlers that live down there
just basically just 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 cave including
elephants that no longer exist classic
example of human colonization really
around the world okay well well I kicked
this elephant dung along the way down
this part where we go through the
drainage line to the other side of his
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 and
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 reasonably
young bull but his adult and mature and
that’s nice to see them very calmly
moving through just feeding as the guy
I’m pretty sure there are making them I
slowly towards twin dams and I 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
now torture while elephants they’ll 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 they’re 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’t have a little bit less time in
between I just see mommy will she’ll
breastfeed for you know almost on two
years and as a as coughs well be you
know from the gestation two years in
another two years and even on to about
three years before she has another one
see that hole in his ear he’s got a big
one and then there’s a little one below
it and wonder what happened there if he
got caught on a thorn tree or it’s quite
a big hole that 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
nicely Mohandas i directly behind the
eye very big yeah opening there it is
you see all the little scratches on him
as well as 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 and I
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 actually such them quite
it to a large extent with
thermoregulation because it makes the
surface of the 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 the warmth and if it was trying
to cool down all there 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 temperature for them I’ll take
care I’m pretty sure that the pressure
that they’re applying on to 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 purse 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 with looking
at the circumference of the the bottom
area or surface area of the foot and
divided by how many feet on the ground
also with the 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 all onto that particular spot
now another to measure pressure in you
know different pressures in in in
different units and if you got your
pressure in your tire for instance
you’re normally looking at those KPIs
and so it’s all down to like if we look
at the barometric pressure what is that
you’re normally going between about
2,000 KP A’s and I think it’s about 500
on an atmospheric pressure but you know
that those acronyms are 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
and they do have special sponges in them
that assist with obviously the pressure
that is being exerted because otherwise
they would 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 any assist
in 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
for fall abut over a communication
receptor I have heard that the elephants
can actually communicate a little bit
through the ground with their 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 and then it would do in
air so elephants are very much similar
communication and that whales have in
the ocean with their very long or
capabilities of long-distance
communication and I heard a story about
in the 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 we’re picking up
that message so it’s quite incredible
you know that was an amazing a
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 is it’s one of those
interesting markings here so look here
we’ve got some of the of the droppings
hanging up by this tree here I know a
lot of people is very difficult to tell
from what animal is this also here on
the ground you can see is even some of
the evidence is showing that some of the
droppings they fell on the ground
so these droppings big this is from the
third-largest landmark is 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 he for 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 are doing they come here
and then they leave their droppings as
they excreting their droppings
they must be waving the tail at the same
time their tail is going to disperse the
droppings at the same time and they mark
on these trees so reason for them to
mark is for the territorial purposes so
hippopotamus if you check in there what
do they eat this animals are staying by
the dams whereby they they are fish and
is even crocodiles do they eat those
fish and crocodiles definitely no the
hippopotamus they only eat grass so they
come out and gold
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 Democratic
their territories so the hippopotamus
they come here they excrete the
droppings and disperse these droppings
in order to show father of creation
about the evidence he’s got in the
droppings 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
all in order 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 of
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 too far any for half
kilometres square but once this mark is
marked extension of the territory is
difficult because if other areas has
already been marked it means there is
going to be lot of fighting and
Fighting’s amongst these animals can be
very much vicious some of the animals
during this territorial fight they lose
their lives so now we are going to carry
on and see if you can find something
so now we can go to a tea steve is on
bush walk at the moment and see what he
thanks Sydney well an animal let it
escape the wind or the night 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 a little bit
soon you inside there beautiful fluffy
normos 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
Francis you have half correct when you
say it’s a scrubby it is the scrub his
tail sorry you did get it right there
France as well done so that is all that
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 it might come through and
as beautiful furs or keeps 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
survived the cold of the night on 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 signers back I doubt it was him
maybe coulda been shadaloo but it’s
obvious is the unnecessary part that
wouldn’t have gone
done 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 that is broken off that
little bone piece there it’s broken
how it was broken very hard to say oh
yeah everyone’s feeling sorry it’s okay
though they are multitudes of scrub
hairs 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 diets in the predator
hierarchy here and we wonder harmonise
rubbers actually get eaten well I wasn’t
expecting that right sure
is not just a scrub here 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 Bora moths have started here so
nothing goes to waste touch yeah that’s
a buffalo I think it’s a buffalo they’re
young buff only hard to say on Bora
moths have started a little cocoon
process as they feed on the the keratin
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 metamorphosizing into a
beautiful moth to go and then decompose
another horn somewhere else at this all
part of nature folks or part and parcel
of the circle of life our chair the
scrub here forms the the meal for for
many of the smaller medium-sized
predators including ours and then the
larger predators take the bigger sort of
animals it’s all part and parcel what
goes our own Archer 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 the Mara
Plains at the moment that is probably
burning lots of is burning and it is a
fire climax cross 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 our
own including zebra they’re like this a
lot
but so all the buffalo and even the
impala and all of the 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 air you’re gonna
go up there and see exactly what has
transpired up then if any changes have
happened but in the meantime it seems
like Ralph is finally lifted elephants
let’s go series up to him 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 shadaloo
because after twin dams I’m gonna head
waist because Sydney is going to be
covering the eastern side where Dundee
was spotted as well as the sana
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
Road to what you said you were doing on
your plan and then sometime
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
abusive 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 another I want to say all
the same stories all over again but one
of one of the most fascinating and one
of our favorite stories was we were 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 involved with a couple of them
but in this particular area is
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’re out there there’s nothing
there except a little clearings within
the
you know in 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 a bit of an
underground flow as well so there is
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 and it’s
very hot as well obviously being in the
desert so there’s an icicle showers and
long drop toilets and it’s all they have
no hot water but you don’t need it
because you 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 reads you know in a circle
around the tree with with the showerhead
coming out of that and she screamed and
I and I went running and from a distance
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
shower head and was literally sucking
the water as it was coming out and so
she was busy washing and all of a sudden
the shower wind 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 God as much as a
fright as she did and it sort of backed
up and then the sauntered off but it 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
that I did have one of my favorite 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 torture when my totem talks
about the elephant trunk so we are part
of the elephants because the elephants
are part of those very powerful animal I
come from the real family and all these
real families they’re inventor are
so the elephants they 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
mullah tree and tell you more stories
about the Marvella tree as I’m driving
so now say I get one so we 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 it doesn’t have all the powers
is not fully in charge the person who is
responsible to give orders is the
matriarch
Here I am referring to the oldest ant
and is the one who decides homas they
have to take over if she’s not happy
with someone who has been decided to
take over the the crown if she says no
nothing is going to happen because is
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 there it’s
so let’s see what Steve has got by the
bushwalk maybe it’s got something
interesting yes I think City were just
getting into the burnt area now we got a
little depression and I found some very
nice scribe here dung and obviously that
connects to the scrub here we saw before
but clear this was done by one that was
still alive the purpose for it is I
wanted to just show your 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 here 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 and really
protected them 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
too constant they need to be done
somewhere where they can protect
themselves so we’ve just arrived and
walk 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 oftener a little
flash of the green that comes through on
grass is called winter flash that can
happen it’s not ideal for for grass
because it makes it user 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 is 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 over
grazing there’s a dam watering hole not
far away from here and over grazing
trampling by animals lots of feet on the
grass these open patches which decreases
this sort of intensity of the fires
mark I’m sure we could find some
scorpion holes that’s 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 once or
thermoregulation up here even a scrub
hay 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 least
overgrazing leads to a lower increase in
fire that Pierce’s ruff is on his way
towards a watching help watching a hole
and that watering hold be 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 soak away below the
water hole there and then it goes across
out of our boundary down in that
direction there with all those big lead
woods they’re off in the distance but
these elephants haven’t made their ways
who as as quickly as I would have liked
let’s just stop and have a quick look
here looks like there’s a great 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 they’re fake pretty big it’s
what you come down for a drink not very
good on the ground or they’re great go
away busy and you can see how the wind
is are putting his crest up as well and
it’s quite choppy in the water there
goes the shame we can’t see him drinking
is being just bad that little round of
mud what are we getting nasty protected
there from the wind
a little bit of a backwater or Eddy and
a little three-banded clever coming into
view as well see how much bigger the
gray Louie as we used to call him a
great girl 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’s 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 the hashtag Safari
laughs on Twitter and on the YouTube
live chat whichever one you want
let’s hear it which birds have actually
got gallons now there we’ve got the
black collared Bob at well spotted Ferg
very very pretty birds and they’re cool
that 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
song now not enough zone a lid would
excuse me it’s a very silly mistake I
made but I was thinking late wood and my
masters if not sewn but
beautiful birds and very similar to the
crested Bartlett’s in what they can do
but yes so they call too badly too badly
too badly in do it or black colored
black colored black colored black
colored oh 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 is very pretty black
coloured Barbet and everybody agreeing
now francis 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 the 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’re gonna lift the heads up I would
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
come on guys send in your answers which
very pretty lifting the head up and then
swallowing and what’s that bow 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 stalk not quite
sure on the stalk they might do but I
haven’t heard of them having them
Michelle you say Turkey no a turkey
doesn’t have a gullet it has to also
drink and put its head up so do ducks
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 Bordelon I think they
don’t have a gullet
Arthur now I didn’t hear who but
somebody said ostrich know 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
are 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 the parrots don’t have a gullet
they also have to put the head down and
Kathy you say flamingos flamingos also
don’t have a gullet when they put their
head down and their falter feeding that
when they get something I want to drink
water they still need to raise their
head and actually use gravity rather
than an organ to literally swallow down
so the birds that do have gullets what
you will see them do is when they drink
they’ll put their head down and they’ll
swallow at the same time so they’ve got
that non-return valve whereas the other
birds don’t they’ve got to literally
pour it down there to death right
whereas there’s a couple of birds that
do have a gullet and it’s wonderful to
watch them when they drink that they
keep their head down and swallow the
whole time but actually more efficient
in that sense and I wonder what their
Vantage’s are pros and cons of having a
gullet but the birds are lemme you say
pigeon 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
endemic and not that word as well but
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 etosha national park and so you can
often see them next to the water halls
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
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 our chair 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 secret
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 that the
termite mounds provide 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 it to
roost and to nest and to whatever they
do underground in holes created by
aardvark so very very important as
important as the elephant in the
creation of habitat the beautiful holes
creates barred Vox 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
Pizza you want to know which animals
benefit most about control bills well
first of all this control boon is
primarily put in as a firebreak I mean
we’re at on they’re 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 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
that’s one of the management tools is
protection of life and of property but
if you burn large areas like what’s
happening up in the mire Arnon happens
in much bigger areas in Kruger is 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 is
rain they’re just going to come if I had
to add moisture here immediately well
not not like a magic trick but it would
within days come out and to be flashing
and be green the grass absent he loves
the fire so you remove a lot of that
organic material a lot of the dead Mauri
burned 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 our
chair I’m 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 that get
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 percent of safety burn but
it’s nice to walk
to see exactly what we can find in and
around 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 okay giving
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
yeah I’ve got one of the very beautiful
bear that you can see there that’s the
folktale Drogo if you look at the tail
is like a fork you know the folktale
drama reminds me of some of the bed
which can only learn the course from
their fathers and their neighbors so
this one dr. drum is like me is like
Sydney because here in South Africa we
have got about 11 different languages
this folk children can speak quite a lot
of different languages I speak about
eight of South African languages I speak
Vanda I speak Shangaan I speak Swan as
pick parry
I speak Sutra I speak Zulu English and
Afrikaans so Africans a little bit of so
you can see that the folktale Drogo
when is imitating the other calls he is
leading quite a lot of other different
calls
so this bed they go after these animals
but from walking together with these
animals is only the folktale drawn who
does get 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 drone was getting
benefits and the world of this is not
you can see there that the turd
wrong when they are moving were the
Beast he is also moving trying to catch
some insects in other words these were
the Beast
they are just waking up insects for this
children go to eat so they were the
Beast one of those very interesting
animals yes they’ve got some poor
eyesight that is why people they see
them together with the other animals I
have been only a very interesting
sighting of the world at least before
way by I saw 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 on
this world abyss
it’s just that they caught one
wildebeest and the remaining were the
Beast keep coming to investigate what
happened to their friend and the lands
took the second one took the third one
and took the fourth one and they 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 all well the beasts were
all eaten by this other different kind
of scavengers and these days I have seen
they’ve got a tendency of running away
and come back to more or less the same
kind of the area where they departed
from so this animals a lot of them died
already not because of the lion hunting
them they died because of a certain kind
of sickness is called a attaining
disease here is whereby there is an
insect that normally lays their eggs
inside the nose of this world abased and
the lava sometimes can go up to the
brain and disturb the sense of balance
as a result of that the world a beast is
going to just start turning turning
get existed falls over in dice 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 they’ve got dark color
on their forehead that is how you can
you can easily distinguish between the
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 they repeat the question for
me yes I’m not that very sure what is
happening by the East Africa but there
is about two types of where the beasts
we’ve got the black and in 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 at the
side of the 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
so now I am going to move on and see if
listen now move on to a Ralph and see if
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 a behind this a 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 stars 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
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 sort
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 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 efference 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
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 and I’m
also hired in occurrences of fire and I
suppose we could even go in there for
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 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 feeding on termites
so much an end to being around a long
time so if you’ve specialized in that
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 I’m 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 be
money in my hip and this plants has
survived the fire so that’s what happens
are 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 barkya
the fires managed to get in there but
elsewhere along here the bark is still
very 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 odd rocks 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 elephant damaged this bark
they allow a fire in and that’s how
bigger trees can be killed by something
that evolved to survive against but or
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 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 have you’ve 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 a 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 friend of
mine is out there she’s out in swallow
her reserve out in the northern cape on
the other side in the west of South
Africa Northwest and the other day she
in onedrive saw two odd box 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 penguins and odd
well um I have seen a few odd fox in my
life as well it’s basically down in the
Eastern Cape it seems like there they
are like a lot of the other animals down
in that province the people as well the
quite 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
the animals are rather relaxed down
there and the art fox well they’re not a
shy I would have to say I’m you often
see them walking around during the day
as well which is incredible because I’ve
had a couple of guarding friends that
have spent many many years out in the
bush and never seen an odd fog just
flying very fast on Assad 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 shadaloo
and Haku Mori the two leopards that
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 checks 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 is
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 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 north western
corner of the Juma Traverse and I’ll
then see if we can find any of their
tracks and I found should do live here
before walking along here was right in
the 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 his circles eventually I
found him and when when the animals do
start alarm calling it should do Liu
shishi runs away she doesn’t like to be
position to be given away let’s see are
we gonna be lucky this evening are we
gonna find some lipids well I’ll see
what else we can find along the way as
well it’d be nice to find those lipids
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 ants 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
Savannah 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 my America quarry the
movements of seeds were 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 the 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 it
cleans the entire top surface layer of
all the other plant material and then
next time a rain comes those seeds on
the ground which have provided 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 answer the food
essentially sort of the chaff and the
wheat itself the food source or the 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 of past some of the
seeds that have been eaten and just the
bits and pieces that have been dumped
outside of the ants nest and to take a
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 saw very very cool
and there’s probably more ants biomass
on the planet than there are any other
mammal species so that is very or total
biomass of mammals so that is a very
interesting thing to think about and
underneath the ground here there is
probably an enormous network and we just
found this little sort of trail along
the ground and that almost worked as its
own fire break and the ants are busy
doing their thing and they don’t stop
working in the social colony the
community all enter their own non-stop
moving and feeding and looking after the
Queen throwing the rubbish art which is
descent she dis organic material and at
the same time providing the ecological
role of seed distribution and primary
food source for a number of species
including the Pangolin penguins quite
enjoy ants they’re very long tongue the
penguin walk along here got this
enormous long tongue it’s apparently
almost as long as the body I’ve only
ever seen one who’s very cool LED bail
to stick their tongue in there it’s a
very long sticky tongue it’ll go all the
way down into those holes and then come
back covered in ants very funny very
specialized but very funny to steam okay
well we’re going to move on from our
ants on the ground and it seems like
Sydney’s make its it should go down
let’s see if he’s going to find those
let me tell you something here where I
am the weather is changing is getting
very windy with the wind is accelerating
and is getting very very very cold now
let me just wear my JC I am here by a
cheetah dam now hoping to go into the
siting of the Lions some Lions has been
spotted earlier on in the area here so
I’m just on standby to see what is going
to happen so but if you can check here
there are some of the very interesting
animals I am I am watching her so it’s
very very cold here you can see one of
the animal is just a very relaxed day
that is the water back it’s quite on a
very long distance that is the male
water back you can see it’s very much
less and if you look at this water back
look at the hairs you can see that the
hairs are very much fluffy so this
animal has been designed in order to
survive by the cold climates but you
know these animals are not even a party
it’s very interesting to see that these
animals are very much well equipped to
survive the cold climate but they are
not living there so they watch our backs
reason for them to have this kind of
fluffy has is that they are feeding next
to the water holes not because they go
down to the water holes and see more
anything
Raziel for them to have this kind of s
as an equipment is that when they are
threatened by the predator such as
leopard lion
there are most targets for safety is the
waterhole so they go quickly down into
the water holes and they know the Lions
and the vapors are very much in luck
sense when it comes to getting wet so
that is how they outrun the Lions so now
I am going to go down a little bit and
see if this any other activities taking
place right in the dam because now when
approaching the dam the only animal I
have noticed is the water back but they
apart from the water back
I hope this other animal see a theory so
let’s see what you’re going to find next
yes the I didn’t get the name of the
viewer just as the question now but the
answer is yes these waters here are very
much natural here is the word I’m
so the the water that we are seeing here
they are all natural waters collected
during the rainy season said half thank
so I’m just trying to see if I’m gonna
find some crocodiles yeah
and look we have got something very very
very very beautiful it’s quite a very
beautiful sighting here look there I got
something for you here relax not doing
anything that is quite a very beautiful
animal yeah you can see this is quite a
a very beautiful animal just very next
they’re not doing anything very big look
at that it is very very surprising to
see that in such a very cold weather
like this
the crocodile closed his mouth because
mostly crocodiles the relaxed with the
mouth open and a reason for them to open
the mouth is to get the Sun to burn the
inner parts of the mouth so that they
can cool the whole body temperature so
look at those teeth coming out the
crocodiles they’ve got quite a lot of
this day they’ve got over 60 teeth in
that mouth and those teeth they don’t
stop growing they never stop growing
whenever they break any they are going
to recover it it will come back that is
why the crocodiles can be able to
survive for many years and what I like
about the crocodiles is that when
they’ve got something they catch they
eat and they can also be able to
regulate the body temperature they can
be able to slow down the metabolism
sorry they can be able to slow down the
metabolism in order to conserve the
energy so that they don’t waste quite a
lot of energy when it’s cold the
eyesight is not very bad and they can be
yeah thank you very much for the comment
with regards to the smile
so this crocodiles they don’t even got
time to chew the the meat all they do is
to just cut piece of chunks and sort of
them the way they are as they are they
so when opening the mouth you must check
the crocodile doesn’t have a tongue
ideas intervention at all so sometimes
they open their mouth to attract insects
instead such as the the Flies they get
they get obstructed they come there and
when they come they get stick by the
different kind of sa saliva very it’s
like a glue their saliva is like a glue
where they stick this insects and other
insects when seeing the other ones
attach the inside they think they are
feeding and that is what they are what
attracts more insects to come and they
these animals can jump and they can also
run it’s just that they don’t run for a
long distance so they can be able to run
for a distance of about 20 to 30
kilometers at high speed but after that
they are going to get tired so
crocodiles I’ve got a question from from
Paula who would like to know the life
expectancy of the crocodiles due to the
fact that the crocodiles got the teeth
which keep growing it gives them a
chance to survive much longer because a
lot of animals they die as they start
losing their teeth so the crocodiles can
be able to survive for approximately
hunt at 150 to 200 years so this is one
of the animals with your very long
you can see they it looks dead here it’s
like a big log or something yeah let’s
go to a Ralph Ralph is but something to
talk to us about the Impala and this is
a very nice big herd of Impala here we
don’t often see them in such a big group
there’s one or two younger males there
and but also a nice big one too
those are just youngsters with it first
little loop they haven’t there comes a
nice big male I’m sure he’s the dominant
male here and he’s got a very nice big
herd of females see maybe he’s been
fighting
maybe they constantly running around and
trying to keep all the girls and chick
and chasing off other males you see ie
that the young male get quite scared of
him but he definitely does have a little
limp it’s probably from all this
shenanigans chasing the girls and the
other males away there’s lots of them
yeah lots of females and then very nice
light that’s the moment we about 45
minutes away from sunset off an hour 45
minutes so we into that golden hour it’s
only gonna get better from here
there’s a couple of clouds around it’s
gonna make for all sorts of different
colors and is in parlor you can see a
little bit of the hair rise they are
feeling the cold a little bit already in
the wind and they raise that here trap
the warm air on the inside there and
selves nice and warm
but the colors are very sharp at the
moment it’s very pretty as I move
through there are mixed feeders so
they’ll feed on grass and leaves and and
everything in between
fully vegetarian now herbivores but they
do that’s what one of the reasons why
they’re all so successful because they
can eat on a range of different
vegetable matter not specialists are
they more generalists and it’s very
important actually for the as a prized
species not that that’s the only thing
that they’re good for there we go
there’s an ox picker and one of them
lots of them over there as well and we
sleeve good habitat for them to be
accessing you see how they’re combing
through the hair there and looking for
it seems like the viewers and all of you
agree with me on the beautiful light it
is very pretty now everything is very
sharp very crisp you can see all the
different contrasts many white belly
it’s a little bit of a funny color and
then almost brown on top and it’ll took
black tips on the ears and those black
markings on the ramp and on the tail
whoo something you have never a bit of a
fright there Sam I would never want to
now Bobby yeah they do look a little bit
scared when they tuck the tails in like
that I think it’s at the moment they’re
a little bit cold and what’s the wound
as well that’s why they were but AG
everything sort of making them jump so
very easily spooked and when it’s 1d
everybody not knowing which way to look
or listen must be so it’s very scary for
them they’re always on edge day and
night never get a chance to rest and
that’s why when the male’s also when I
start fighting with each other in the
rutting season they also get very easily
taken down by the leopards you see them
hanging you and all the trees all over
the place like Christmas trees there’s a
young males there once again just got
that one little cool and their horns so
even though we see lots of Impala all
the time it’s always nice tea set with
them a little bit I think they’re very
often overlooked and in the maybe AB you
get the very end or special and endemic
black faced Impala found nowhere else in
the world and in Namibia and they’re
slightly bigger than these Impala as
well so that’s one to look up if you
guys want to look at a different species
or never look at the black faced Impala
found in in the media and have a look at
that very interesting look identical
except for the facial markings and there
Matt and these ones just happily feeding
now apart from that little scared at
their head
I should plant be the last one for this
afternoon they’re gonna get scared of
all sorts of things well I think it’s
now time to continue on the search we
have for those lipids sukumari and
shadaloo and while I wonder if Sydney’s
yeah I am still waiting still waiting to
see what is going to happen here by the
Lions yes apparently the Lions they are
somewhere very stationary in the area
I have already entered the area where
they are so I’m just waiting to get a
chance for a sighting
so what apart from the lion sighting yes
I’ve got something very interesting to
show you here huh let me just get off my
vehicle a little bit and show you what
is here so you can see here we’ve got a
a demolition point so this is not the
only way the animals are using in order
to mark their territory sometimes you
will see other animals doing like this
when they’re using the facial glands and
sometimes you see some they’ve got some
of the black dots here on the side of
the face whereby they come and stick
some of the fluid out for demolition
purposes but some of these animals they
do the following they come here and do
something which is called pasting and
pasting I want to warn you about this
because I know that pasting a lot of
people they cannot recognize it when
they see it on this grass is some of
these are animals like they highness
they come and secrete some of the fluids
through the underpass ages and they
stick them on this grasses and you will
see the two markings one will be dark
and another one is going to be very very
light so those markings they can be very
much detrimental to your health to the
people who profess to come and use grass
as toothpicks you are going to enjoy it
to ingest a lot of problems because this
kind of markings are coming through the
underpass edges meaning that they come
out with quite a lot of diseases I have
seen a lot of people doing this they
come and break the grasses after eating
and they use the grass at a toothpick
and I can promise you
exercise is not nice especially if the
animals such as hyenas civet and
Mongoose because those animals eat them
they Democrat their territories makers
of the anal glands so you must have to
avoid using classes as toothpicks so now
I am just going to see if I can radio in
the people who are already in the area
your any station by the lion sighting
coming so just to see if we can we can
get some updates yeah the wind is too
much here the wind is too much here we
way I am even to here what is going on
in the area this afternoon is not easy
to hear the best course is not easy yeah
I Sydney I’m standing by I said yeah I
am betting to hear that can you please
okay copy copy that please give me the
direction if possible I am here now by
the damn wall a cheater damn yes I’m
just trying to get hold of some of the
directions and yes I think is my chair
now to go in now we can go to Ralph and
I’m just trying to keep myself warm in
this wintry blaster e-jelly weather and
while I’m doing that I’m also on the
lookout for these lipids so yeah I got
my hands on as fergus’s do you
definitely help keep the extremities
warm so I’m going to do a little bit of
a looping system now I’m gonna go past
sandy pitcher then I’m gonna go down or
breeze rides up Galago Galago wrote and
now I’ll stop in at that little pan and
then I’ll make my way over to we husana
and Tandy will all see I’ll have a look
marry that’s a good question I’m just
trying to remember my taxonomy is a art
Fork is an odd Fork related to an
armadillo I think there might be I think
they might be related I think they might
be they might be in the same family if
I’m not mistaken which I quite possibly
could be I think there are in the same
family yes I don’t think it’s in the
Swede I that’s the pigs the bush pig and
warthog I’m just trying to think what is
the family of the aardvark not forgotten
I’m gonna have to look in my book my
book up and while I’m having a look
let’s do that I’m gonna stop you and
just get us a view and then I’m gonna
check in my book and answer that
question properly I’ll have to take my
Sarika mehgan’s I say that again what
okay I’m not getting that as the sorry
Eden kata is that the that you’re
talking about the binomial nomenclature
the the genus and the now my brain is
freezing everyone the genus and the
species but I’m looking for the family
so you guys have gone all the way to the
end of the line you’re not getting the
one before that because if we look at
taxonomy we say that King Phillip came
over for good son so that means that
it’s Kingdom and King Phillip came over
for good son that’s how we always
remember it
so it’s kingdom phylum King Phillip
class order family genus species so
that’s how it goes so we’re talking just
one up from the genus it’s the family
not the genus or the species and now
Meghan I’m getting not much Craig says
they’re not in the same order is that
Batman Batman which order order in we’re
not talking orders we’re talking
families Oh James not bad bad okay let’s
stop there for a little quick view we
here near to Sydney’s dam and I want you
to have a nice little view here oh
there’s an elephant of Lee in the
distance as well and it’s always nice to
stop here because if we hear these
monkeys calling just off in the distance
they it’s a good point just to stop
and while we are just looking at the
view I’ll quickly access my wildlife
book just got all sorts of different
things in us and you guys can enjoy the
view while I just try and get my ducks
in a row
for my art Fox and my armadillos Nancy
James is they not and I definitely will
believe him but I just wanted to look at
it for myself one seven six okay
Vee I think the the Pangolin and the art
Fork I’m pretty close to each other but
they’re not tangle and now I’m also just
seeing the genus and species I’m not
kidding the family’s here my very
general book so I’m gonna have to look
that one up
so anyway James that was the answer in
the short and sweet of it no they’re not
in the same family but I just wanted to
get a little bit deeper in to it the net
but I don’t have enough resource with me
right here so we’ll just then continue
on enjoying the view you just don’t see
how much wind is blowing through and
these clouds now that have arrived on
mass I’m sure sooner or later we’re
gonna get a little bit of rain as well
the cold front has hit but as you might
know any of you weather gurus out there
generally the rain sort of comes post
the front making itself through an area
or moving through an area and then it’s
sort of widespread rain after the front
goes through
so we’re experiencing the cold front now
and further south and east along the
coastline and all down is sort of below
the interior now or the high felt down
towards the coast is now experienced
very widespread rain and a lot of it
and is very welcome because we have been
in the grips of quite a devastating
drought so that is very welcome these
clouds coming in mr. Nam you say this
always looks like a painting it
definitely does African sunsets are
always beautiful and they are very
beautiful sunsets all around the world
but here in this particular area it is
definitely one of those beautiful spots
they stop and look I like coming here to
Sandy patch at this time of the day and
I’m not sharing any monkeys alarm
calling unfortunately it’s not taking
away from the beautiful view we have
yeah Fergus doing his best impression of
a an alarming monkey they in the back
all right let’s head off and see if we
can find ourselves something with spots
that’s what I would like to do and while
I continue on the search seems like
Sidney has found us some big cats yes
I’ve got quite a very beautiful sighting
here you can see the majestic cat is
just very relaxed on top of the termite
mound there beautiful life some I’m not
just too sure if he’s the only one day
concentrating a lot there because this
some of the best making noise on that
side where she’s concentrating is a
little bit of noise but they’re just all
bet calls you know that when it comes to
cats they they get very much concerned
they don’t trust kids so the Lions they
spend much of their time during the day
sleeping so they can sleep as much as 18
hours but now after dark is when they do
a lot of workings and also early in the
look at that beautiful that I’m so happy
to see that people are so excited about
finding this lie on there yeah but it
was not easier so but here we are
the wind is not that very much compared
to that side of humor this afternoon
yeah there is a little bit of wind here
but it’s not too much earlier on it was
too windy the female lions is the ones
that can be very much dangerous because
is the one who knows very well all the
hunting tactics males the they don’t do
these hunting activities unless they the
males are kicked off from the head and
now from the pride and become solitary
they don’t have a chance it means that
so there’s some elephants as well in the
area so you can see the concentration of
that lioness on the elephant I can hear
yeah okay you’re right a beautiful cat
indeed look at that
so that cat looks very smaller when is
there but if you can stand now you see
that is quite a very big big animal so
if you look there on top of the ice the
Lions they’ve got some markings when
they close the eyes it’s like they’ve
got false eyes they’re on top of their
they’re not even worried about us being
yes Paula I didn’t copy the question
very well but I just hear that the
yeah the Lions you can you can check you
know when they are still very young they
little male and females is quite very
difficult to tell because that is when
is before the develop the mane but once
we grow and start to go to reach
majorities when the males are gonna
start to develop has the on the neck and
that is how you can then start to
distinguish between the male and females
I just want to try to see if there’s
only one lion here all these more lions
here we are is there’s no other movement
yeah let me just try and drive around
here and see if we can find more just to
check how many because you can see now
this one is just by yourself and is very
much relaxed so now let’s go to Steve
and see what Steve has got on the other
side while I’m trying to see how many
and what’s going on in there yeah nice
love thanks Sydney how interesting what
lions authors that you’ve got very very
interesting well sorry about our us
being down for a while and we have some
technical issues that have been resolved
but there is Dave and his gorilla
colonel with the seeds inside what are
we gonna do we’re gonna eat them first
of all we need an anvil of some sort
here we found a perfect log of a red
bush willow nice and hard and I found
myself a very nice rock and now boys and
girls if there’s any boys and girls
watching don’t do this at home
because this can be quite painful if you
miss I’m just going to smash it a little
bit harder than that
there we go there’s the little lid the
cap that comes off of the seed there’s
another cap over there this is often
what we find the squirrels that munch
out and then if I clear you see the
white white inside that is what we’re
looking for
yeah there’s the money right there
there’s the many little bit coming out
now I got this very nice little thorn
here that thorn is gonna help us to pop
these seeds out very nice and oily very
nice and oily and that is very tasty
obviously I’ve hits it a bit hard so the
see doesn’t come out very nicely but
very edible very tasty and there’s some
here for Davey – if you like toffee now
you can make a very nice oil out of this
the way to to make oil Arts of products
of things is to to basically boil them
and then let the water cool and then the
the oil separates from from the liquid
you just scoop it off the top and you
can use it as a very nice lip balm lip
balm probably a little bit better than
then stiffs snail balm from this morning
if you’re watching that I believe it
looked quite interesting still find
himself was rubbing snail oil all over
his lips there we go beautiful beautiful
nuts for Darby to eat this tab any the
taste is it’s it’s nothing like a
macadamia I can tell you a little bit
like a walnut little bit hey Darby we
already had one we we were down for a
while yeah Darby this is for you to your
hand xiri losing it so you can tell how
strong the wind is there folks we nearly
lost half the nut very nice very nice
and it’s an acetal lots of protein also
very very healthy for you and as I said
the oil very nice this time of year
especially in wind like this we get
quite chapped lips from the wind and
that’s why Steph was rubbing his lips
this morning I’ve got a couple more of
those and maybe I’m going to be making
some of that oil for the medicinal
I’ve got a whole handful of them at home
while we’re walking off oh no I have
lost mastic well I’m gonna have to make
a plan for that
in the meantime miss coder alpha was
well my plan as I said before I’m
heading straight towards that little
Galago pan which is behind the gonna go
Lodge we’re gonna go and check there and
just see if maybe ting gonna pops up its
gonna stop there for a little while this
is about the time of evening that he
might be a little bit of rasping and or
sewing or chuffing any of those noises
or description of the lipid pool some of
that would be perfect because we had
know exactly where he is so maybe
they’re just popping and the clouds are
now starting to change all sorts of
colors was that Sun starting to sit down
towards the horizon I’m very glad that
some Sydney was able to find those lions
that’s fantastic haven’t seen lions for
a little while and yeah it’d be nice if
they might be way down here on Jeju ma
there’s been a few tracks around but
very intermittently haven’t seen them
regularly at all but that’s pretty much
the same with who Comorian should do Lu
when did I see sh abdullah so about ten
days ago I would say and was very quick
so in the morning followed it around for
a couple of hours and then she left the
these crested Franklin are doing a
lovely Jewett day kitchen squat
strange sometimes you only hear one of
the couple doing a call almost like the
other one is either meet a nun likely
death or it’s just not willing to call
with its partner having a bit of a tough
way you just share g-g-gee and is no and
there’s no chill
but more we’re gonna have a very
artistic shot Jeff ugh this is gonna be
good
never look at that beautiful yeah son
really going down now and you can see
how moody the sky looks with that dead
tree in front really making for a lovely
sitting look at that that is a sunset of
night Wow and the colors are changing
that should be by the second
there’s orange and pinks and blues and
and and some of the clouds are really
also changing color and the Sun he would
almost watch as it goes I won’t be long
what is it I heard is it about 70 70
seconds that when the Sun sets that it
has actually set 7 is 70 seconds I can’t
remember sheesh I’m losing all my more
books of knowledge in my head and
because obviously the the the lot takes
a certain amount of time to get from the
Sun to the earth and so when we see that
the Sun is set it’s actually set quite a
substantial amount of time before that
and that lot takes that time to reach us
but at this time of year definitely does
go down rather quickly and you can
actually watch it as it disappears now
I’m going down behind those sticks and
those branches won’t be long and it will
be completely gone and then the colors
will change drastically once again um I
still get a lot of reflection oh it’s
going purple now those clouds in the
background
I really are looking pretty you see that
really going down fast as we see the
wooden blowing for those colors look at
that getting ever more Moody and then
we’ve got like the glowing honeypot at
the base of that tree of the purple sky
and the clouds helping the colors show
themselves who ever would have thought a
dead chick could look so pretty okay I
think that’s a perfect little stop and
now you know that the Sun is setting
once again here in Africa and now it’s
time for predators yeah look at that
predator hey it’s just a very much
relaxed I was trying to check around
here just to see if maybe these other
Lions in the area but it seems like it’s
not alone I have not yet noticed any
still looking maybe one of them is gonna
come out anytime soon
yeah it’s quite a beautiful sight in
so look at that see when the the
temperature is down like this it doesn’t
bother these animals the cats they enjoy
it lion I always call them lie on
because they spend much time just lying
down look at that that poor day so the
yeah a question from George about the
age of this lion I’m not very sure about
the age of this lion is this is my
fastest fighting on this family so I’m
not too sure but I know Lions can
survive about 13 to 15 years and to me
these Lions the females when they have
got cups they must have to go and
isolate themselves they must isolate
himself and hide them somewhere far away
because if they don’t do that they will
be risking the chances of their little
ones to survive so Lions Lions they’ve
yeah
there’s a question from Angie I didn’t
get that question very well but it seems
like it’s about the identification of
different lines in the area so they lie
on stays in in prize and this prize they
don’t mingle together so it’s very much
easy when coming across these lines to
identify this pride is the kuma pride
and this is the Africa Avoca males so we
can be able to easily identify that but
because because of working together with
them every day
we end up like becoming part of the
ecosystem she’s just trying to
that maybe she’s gonna lead us to where
the others are all the other ones might
come to where she is
but he is not interested in a lot of
there is a question from Isabella about
the lions males and females if they’re
both territorial they lie on the females
they can also defend their territory
because if you can check the Lions when
they are staying as a pride these
females they always make sure that they
don’t get other females coming from the
other groups so they always make sure
that they defend their families so they
don’t want they are they don’t want the
membership to change they only accept
the changes with regards to the
membership of the feminists only when
there’s a death or when they say Beth so
apart from that they defined so females
can be very much protected by a
protective and aggressive in these
territories
so how Lyons a Democrat tortoids is
interesting they use scent markings you
will see sometimes they stand upright
against these trees and pull some of the
facial glands that is when they are
trying to leave behind their sensor so
lions they they can be very strict when
there’s an intruder if the intruder will
define he knows something about the
females mostly the female lions when
they’re under stress is when the
pituitary gland from the brain kick
starts a lot of hormones which will then
drive the female to go back on hit let’s
see if maybe there is any other changes
so no much is happening now it’s just
very let’s let’s go to a Steve and see
what is got on the other side by the
bushwalk Thank You Sidney who is that
cat slowly heading back and look at the
wind down in the depression very very
soft very low this is where you expect
to find animals trying to hide away in
the drainage lines away lots of thick
bush lots of sort of cover for them and
just coming down and you just feel the
immediate sort of buffering effect that
this vegetation has and the Sun has set
in the West as Rob says it the sins very
quickly this time of year and you feel
the change in the temperature
immediately super glad I brought this
Jill that’s a good question probably a
lot of animals can get more than one day
I mean we can go for about two weeks I
suppose I don’t know if we will do very
well now two weeks is a bit long I don’t
know
Jill I really don’t know I think a lot
of certain animals have got the ability
to to sort of get moisture out of the
environment but no animals really want
to so they’ve got the adaptational
question how many can go I fell drink if
I can but some animals can go along with
in others and I don’t really have a
definitive answer for you because
there’s a lot of animals out there
giraffe for example don’t need to drink
all the time they concentrate their
urine so as they they give a much lower
sort of water our take our birds don’t
need to drink too much they probably
drink more than we think but they give
out uric acid silica a solid mass of
urea rather than the actual ammonia that
comes out in in our urine so that and
frogs or reptiles they all absorb all
the moisture in their body and they’re
certain small rodents and things that
can do the same thing but most animals I
mean you see elephants when they urinate
they drop a huge amount of water most
mammals need a lot of water for for
survival we’ve come from a placenta
we’ve come from a an environment of
water and we are completely committed to
it and dependence on it for the rest of
our lives there’s not a single mammal
that can go for a long period of time
without water but the exact degree of
that is hard to say we could probably go
a couple days without water but then we
would really really struggle some of our
sort of more specialized herbivore
animals such as some of the specialized
herbivore animals are more sort of water
independent than others but then they do
get a lot of moisture from the
environment it doesn’t mean if they
don’t get any water they get it from off
their drink they lick do for example
they don’t have to go long distance to
drink steel mock or one of them and
watch you’re watching whole and there’s
a couple of birds just on the side
they’re coming in to drink so animals
will choose to drink if they can but
animals that live in the desert
obviously aren’t able to all the time
Hemme Spock have the ability to go for a
while with that moisture
but then they can dig in bring up bulbs
and sort of cucumber like fruit but
they’ll feed on to get lots of moisture
and a lot of birds also get moisture
from the insects that they eat this a
fork-tailed ronger who’s enjoying the
wind and as we came out of that
depression you can see how the wind is
picked up again just by the way that
okay well the bushwalk team is slowly
hitting back due to the darkness and
with regards to medicinal Monday’s I’m
off in the morning tomorrow due to the
rotation we have but we’ll be doing it
on Tuesday morning
do not worry do not fear but from the
bush Hawk team it is going to be a very
good evening to you and let’s go back
over to Ralph goodbye Steve and to the
rest of the bushwalk team thanks guys
make your way back home safely I’m sure
you will be able to find your way
hopefully before it gets dark
I don’t think they were too far from
Kent so they should be fine I hope but
now we’re coming up towards where Tandy
and claw lumber was spotted yesterday so
I’m just gonna go in there because
Sidney went to the Lions which is out on
chitwa so I think I’ve chipped the
western side so I’m coming back east to
check whether the leopards
well yesterday so I’m just gonna go and
have a look hopefully we can see them
maybe walking on the road that would be
the easiest they’ve been in this block
yeah and it’s very thick very thick so
unless they do come out on the road or
they walking as we can pass from the
entail is killed up you’ll see that
master fluffy white color it’s almost
impossible to spot him so it’s always
was just a lucky dip lucky draw we come
past syllable shawls off on saying
Alaina blue have to put it in there
although I’m back in Croatia I think
this evening cuz they’re the underdogs
and there’s only four million people
that lives there so it would be
fantastic it would almost be like
Namibia winning the World Cup one of
these days one of these days maybe South
Africa will make it to the finals once
again we haven’t made it since what does
it 1998 or something when you add and
2010 because who we were hosting it
anyway I’m going to now look for these
leopards but let’s hit John back to
you know is quite a lovely fighting
amazing I have just now discovered that
this lion is not alone there are two
females working together it says that
the other one is quite very difficult to
have a sighting from here where I am I I
would try again and see if we can have a
good sighting I saw that the second one
just stood up earlier on she’s somewhere
in this thick bushes so maybe she’s
gonna come back again look at that
so the kids are very much cleaner yes I
I didn’t copy that
Kathy you can see now the activities
yeah the the males they tend to form
their own groups the correlations for
safety reasons yes that is true I just
want to try and reverse and see if I can
have a better sighting since that female
so let me science if we can find here
from this side here so can easily get
just so they very relaxed looking at me
we can see that she is she’s not even
worried about anything so let me try and
see if we can have we might better fight
can see there you can see her they she’s
trying to walk much more towards the
let’s see if we can have a better
sighting from here and see if is after
something because I can see this
yeah I think she is trying to
investigate something here so he can see
she has been thinking and thinking it
yeah the liens can have three curves
here three cuffs so pizza they can have
three cups and now we can we can go to
look at that so it seems like she is the
obstruction by something here I’m just
trying to see what is that trucker here
in this dog you know these animals can
see better than we do and they can also
hear better than we do but I saw that
yeah while still trying to check what
she’s up to
let’s go through rough while everyone
I’m moving in the area around before
damn we’re gonna come out there
soon and this is where Tandy salamba and
I think on sauna also was spotted in
this general vicinity yesterday so for
Sona the youngster has returned on to
Juma the young leopard young male
leopard seems like while setting to
Tristan last night oniy he thinks that
that’s just the typical dispersal
behavior of of of a young leopard he may
be come back a few more times and his
circles gonna get a little bit bigger
and you know eventually then stay off in
some other area and he went down all the
way down to gondolas II and he was
spotted there so some photographs online
of him with some impalas I forgot the
tree I think he was also in the Kruger
Park he’s been all over the place do you
see a little light up ahead that is from
maybe another vehicle here
never fear so yeah he’s definitely been
wandering around he’s a little bit
younger than hookah Maurice it’s also
quite a bit smaller than him as well so
he wouldn’t be challenging anyone just
yet
for a Terauchi especially not hookah
mori just watch and let this vehicle
now scenic yes I’m just letting a
vehicle girl posture hello everyone
hello la it’s very quiet
I mean elephants down in them low wotty
okay all right sorry guys but we are
live at the moment is that a right oh no
no no um be in LA don’t worry hey have a
good evening
I wish you all the best of luck okay and
all right scenic set C flies they do
transmit disease and the one the famous
one is that of sleeping sickness so
that’s it see flowers will bite people
and antelope kettle I’m pretty sure on a
kettle do you get it there are some
animals that are immune to it
excuse me but it does have a very
debilitating effect on animals and as
the name suggests it makes very
lethargic and eventually just want to
sleep all day and eventually you can die
from it so that’s a bad one that set see
flies carry and in a lot of areas in
southern Africa as you go north northern
southern Africa they do you have a lot
of sort of set C flock control points
and I spray and you’ve got to get out
and walk with your feet in in some of
the insecticide etc now just come up to
before soap dam here or waterhole and
let’s see if this is Scuba Steve I think
it might be mr. Scuba Steve looks like
he’s all on his iron again there he is
on his lonesome in the water there
just enjoying the lapping water around
his eyes and looking at us looks rather
sad doesn’t he maybe got left maybe he’s
just not a very nice person I don’t know
what do you think fig he’s boring is
gravel so maybe visiting girls here but
it seems like he can’t keep them around
maybe he’s just a bit boring hmm scuba
Steve he does look a bit boring doesn’t
he
it’s other bored or boring one of the
tea that was the water like that lapping
at your face I must get quite irritating
sooner or later this evening is gonna go
out and do a bit of feeding maybe he’ll
you’ll meet up have a bit of a blonde
died to somebody out here who knows but
he seems to definitely have commandeered
this water hall as his and I don’t think
he’s getting much competition for it
it’s just really strange that he’s on
his own again Paula you think that he
just likes the single life well and he
doesn’t seem to like that and figure
whatever you said team he definitely
insulted him oh my head sorry he did
okay what you saying sorry big well
Adam he’s not liking that Raveena’s off
to him here he’s on the move nice
putting himself out there a little bit
more so we can see it but more of him I
love the way they they shake the ears he
he’s actually really showing off now as
me
hey I think you’re really cool Scuba
Steve they just don’t understand you I
think that’s the case I really like
coming out here and seeing him I mean
previously he used to just show us his
nostrils he was really shy
uncle nervous when you came yeah
this chest his nostrils just breathe
that through them and and stand of the
water various because of what is a bit
too cold nice but but now you would
never make do a show like that so he’s
definitely calmed down with us around
for now he’s disappeared I think let’s
do the same I’m sorry for the head once
again I’m sorry my nose is also starting
to run a little bit now and so let’s
continue on the search for those cats
and from one big animal called Scuba
yeah look at that
it is too quite a lovely sighting but
there’s no sign of any other intention
from relaxing there’s no sign of any
they splitted a little bita the other
one is maybe about a distance of about
now 50 to 70 meters deep in these thick
bushes so this one is just on top of
this termite mound and is the one who
was shown some interest on something
that for the past few minutes
nothing has been happening she’s very
much a relaxed year you can see they can
hide very easily look at that she’s very
much come off leash they’re not easy to
so the Lions begin weigh a lot up to a
hundred in over 100 160 hundred and
seventy kilograms here they can weigh a
now you can see now she’s she’s sleeping
very relaxed so these are the animals
which are associated with the call of
Africa the roar of the lion in the
morning is fascinating it makes you feel
that you are in the world you are in
Africa yes Kevin I’m not very sure when
it comes to the weight between exactly
the weight between the male and the
female but obviously the male’s the way
much bigger than the females because of
the size the male’s there.we their
this animals have got a very good
eyesight
so when the Lions are not happy they
will show you their canines but now he
was just yuning there he was not up to
and about the wind makes it very
difficult for the Lions because remember
these animals such as praise they learn
to identify the scent of their predators
so the Lions when they are hunting they
they also consider wind direction so
look at that this is beautiful snare now
I am NOT going to talk loud I’m going to
whisper because I can see that she’s
nice and close and I don’t want to
disturb her she’s disappearing now
towards the thick bushes there yeah I
just got disappeared so I’m going to try
and see if if we’re gonna have the
better sighting again after this lovely
sighting of one of the females I’m just
gonna go around and see if I can find
the second one and the second one when I
saw her earlier I think in terms of the
size she was a little bit much bigger
than this one so now we can go to Ralph
there we go everyone the lights are out
and the Sun is gone so now it’s shifting
focus to purely predators we’re not
going to be looking at any of the diatom
animals unless we see something really
special
and the moon has also come out now I
think it’s a first quarter it has been
dark the last couple of evenings I think
now Paula one of the most dangerous
insects in the bush well let’s think
about that is here comes another vehicle
think it might be the same one
yep it is just slide past them neutral
posture most dangerous insects in the
bush has it gone off now as well yeah
we’ll just wait for him to pass I’m just
thinking now what is so much time this
insect in the bush artifacts hey let me
think
we’ve got blister beetles which I’m not
dangerous but they can definitely really
make you full of blisters good spider
wasps wasps that can sting very badly
I’ve been stung by a spider wasp not on
my forehead I was showing some students
some different leaves and things and I
pulled on a branch and out from this
bush came a spider wasp and he stung me
Roddy and then it’ll track had been in a
bar fight the next day
both my eyes swelled up and I went blue
and yeah so that was quite nasty and
what else you know obviously we’re not
talking about arachnids there between
your scorpions and your spiders and this
stage we speaking bees the African
honeybee can be quite dangerous
especially to somebody that might be
allergic there’s lots of people that die
but only that are allergic to bees
now what’s quite interesting about
energy or energies like that as well you
can have an allergic reaction on any
given one time and sometimes it can just
be as a result of getting an overload of
the venom because my mother she I mean
she’s been stung her whole life
basically by honeybees and never even
you know worried about it yes of course
you get a you know quite a big swelling
wherever it depends on where it stings
you
and so I think at the time she was about
60 years old she was minding the lawn on
a sit on lawn mower and she went below
one of our apricot trees and there was a
swarm of bees that attacked her and she
got stung must have been about twenty or
twenty-five tomczak watch quite
excessive anyway she went inside she got
rid of all the stings you know because
with honeybees there it literally pulls
out half the abdomen with that venom
sick that comes with it and actually
died immediately after that so she
pulled out all of these well scraped him
out with the back of an laughs because
you don’t want to press those venom sacs
because then you press all the venom
into you so you want to scrape it out to
the back of a knife so she got them all
out the ones that she could find or
whatever and she went back to mining the
lawn and an hour later an hour or so
later she felt that her tongue was
getting really bigger or like heavy and
within ten minutes from that she was
struggling to breathe and she raised up
she got in the car she raced up to the
chemist which was just up the road from
us and the lady there took one look at
her and she said get in the car I’ll
Drive it to the hospital which was about
another 15 minutes away and by the time
they got there they had to give her
adrenaline and the doctors sort of said
another 10 15 minutes and she would have
been dead and my mom couldn’t believe it
she was sorrowful installment our life
he said while you’ve been stung now
quite a few times and this was obviously
brought on an allergic reaction so since
then she’s had to have an EpiPen for
with adrenaline too – in case that she’s
been stung but she’s been stung
subsequently and nothing has happened so
it’s you can have it actually an
allergic reaction on a specific point
like that as well so I would have to say
so that’s just something interesting
about allergies to these insects but I
would have to say that the honeybees
probably or a big cause or one of the
bigger cause you know
in terms of insects and you know close
calls with death or even death itself a
lot of the times also when you get very
big thunderstorms they can they can
become quite aggressive and when it’s
extremely hot they can also be a little
bit aggressive and once they sort of
start or they target an individual you
know they sort of give off the little
dance and I don’t know if it’s pheromone
related as well and they just literally
attack and even I’ve heard stories of
kids being attacked and they went and
jumped in the farm damn they swarm above
the dam and as soon as the guys come up
they start stinging them again so it can
be I’m sure quite scary in that kind of
being attacked I think in America I
think the the African honeybees is
actually might be way over there and I
call our African honeybees killer bees
if I’m not mistaken and they are exotic
I think you also do get some other
killer bees but the the African honeybee
honor is also termed that in America but
obviously it does have devastating
effects on on some of the other bees
because they don’t have well they’re
bigger they’re more aggressive and so
even on a small scale we have these
exotic alien invaders you know where
they normally naturally occur they
perfect and I’ve got the Predators and
is their balance and but when you
introduce them to other areas I’m sure
it would have been because of the honey
and the very good wax that they make as
well you know you start getting all
sorts of problems because you’ve upset
the balance and then you don’t have
natural predators etc so I think they’re
getting a little bit out of handy but
that’s something interesting so wasps
paper wasps as well it can be quite
scary when they’ve get these swarms of
or you know nests of paper wasps and
they also get quite big they’re brown
and you can get you know from 50 to 50
of them on a little nest I remember we
were fishing one day on this school best
like South of Gehenna
mr. Radha bikes down name and the water
is crystal clear and it’s an old man
quarry and water crystal clear so we
used to stand up on the on the cliffs
and we could see these massive best but
he’s swimming past and so is to lob our
plastic worms at him and while we were
fishing one day two of us next to each
other and these swarms of wasps came out
from underneath the cliff and we both
got stung and my friend he he ran and
jumped on his bark and ran
I jumped through the swarm into the into
the dam and they they chased him on his
bicycle and they kept stinging him I
could hear him going all the way up the
hill screaming this in the water they
left me alone and they went off to him
he was literally the bait and then I
carried on fishing anyway it was quite
dangerous but also quite funny
in hindsight now I’m gonna carry on
searching but let’s head on back to the
ever-present lions some activities are
taking place there has been some little
bit of development as one of these
lionesses led us to a caucus you can see
now she’s trying to feed this lion
we are watching now is not the one we
have seen earlier the one we have seen
earlier moved up north this is the
second one which was hiding by the time
we had the initial sighting so it’s just
two of them it means they assisted each
yeah the Lions they have got to eat
quite a lot because you know they don’t
eat every day
so they’re going to eat now and they
will spend about four to six days
without the next meal until the whole
digestive system takes place and eat
everything so the Predators for them to
go and hunt and they must have to be
motivated by they must have to be
motivated by hunger if they are not
hungry
they don’t really worry much about
the only thing here is disloyal crashing
and then put very strong Chi there you
can see now listen to that you can hear
that lion crushing balls that was too
so these lions are going to be eating
here and they will eat a lot of programs
listen to the surfer their stomachs they
are going to get full very easily
because when they’re eating they eat and
they also take some of the bones in
there
so in terms of the wage they can be able
to eat now and consume up to 40 /
approximately 40 kilograms that is a lot
yes yes Tony and that is true because I
saw the other female that we saw earlier
we saw a little bit of a sign of a blood
on on her as she was moving result that
Lions when they catch they just got
blood everywhere but they’ve got a
strategy in order to get rid of the
blood you will see the leak their legs a
lot when they are letting the legs they
are trying to take off all the DT and
all the blood from the legs as if they
don’t do that that is going to spoil the
chances of them taking down the next
prey because all these armors they will
yeah let’s say go to Ralph and see what
I’ve got the trees blowing in the wind
and I’ve now decided to come up towards
quarantine which is right near to our
camp but very often at this time of the
evening you can have the Valda biased
and the zebra and Impala oh there’s all
sorts of lots of eyes I think Megan is
trying to tell me something but I’m not
quite getting it okay well there we are
it’s not important let’s go and have a
look here
so lots of eyes on quarantine I know
it’s all antelope and son so I won’t be
putting a lot on them I think we are
going to probably change into infrared
light now because then we’ll be able to
look and see what these animals are so
there we go we’re into infrared which is
the night vision and then once I get a
little bit closer here we can just have
a look I think there’s lots of Impala
there might be some Valle de beast and
lots of Impala here so let’s just stop
here on quarantine and have a little
listen as well it’s a good idea let’s
so you getting a picture that is quite a
lot different to what we actually see
with the naked eye Vegas is just trying
to you know it’s not actually popping on
so the light itself is not working is
that it rage okay so we just into
black-and-white in everyone not extent
infrared okay so we’re gonna try and
work this infrared art in our technology
it’s great when it works and rubbish
when it doesn’t so it seems like Sydney
at least has in has his infrared wood
yeah now we have got another neurones
coming to join for the dinner so they
are all helping each other in order to
have something now there’s quite a
little bit of competition taking place
this is what is called the intraspecific
competition when the animals of the same
species challenging each other for the
same food source but it seems like these
two got a very good combination because
there has not been any sign of
aggression by the one which got there
so these liens they have not been
intimidated by the scavengers here
because they were all very far away from
this caucus the distance between the
caucus and where they were it was maybe
approximately 250 meters so you can see
that they were not bothered by any of
this courageous it was quite interesting
to see that yeah I’m not too sure what
this caucus which from which animal this
caucus is yeah I can just see the a
little bit of some hooves but not clear
yeah it has been quite a very great
afternoon with a lot of cats and other
activities taking place and thank you
very very much for all your comments and
your questions until tomorrow morning let’s meet tomorrow at 6 o’clock
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 at 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 you can find now the wind
is a little bit too much here let’s now
go to Ralph and see what’s Ralph is up
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 camera this morning in the
crow’s nest I’ve got Fergus
hello figures 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 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 that 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 and the as I say
the 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 to 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 our chair 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 is 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 of the
see what we can find and see how the
plants are starting to recover again
after that little bit of burning they’ve
done last night we had a very small
spattering of rain which is very strange
because there’s 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 the Mar
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
and 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 wooden conditions but let’s go over
Sydney I believe is on the trail of a
yeah this is the beginning of my
tracking and on the ground so far the
only evidence I have 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 it 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 heiner track and it’s not a fresh
track you can see that the track is very
sticked is showing that this was shortly
after some little bit of rain it is not
that very fresh yeah 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 fresh tracks so we
we are going to be looking for a general
game at the moment until I pick up any
of the evidences 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
yeah we can now go to Ralph is also
looking for some lipids on inside well
we are always looking for leopards lions
and everything else in between and look
what we’ve spotted an a lock Siddhanta
or free corner 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
window sort of bloodstream is circling a
little bit it’s going directly towards
him but I think part of a herd that is
moving through here as well now that’s
moving down towards them wotty and 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 have or give us a
little bit of precipitation and we just
him going to be protecting all the
equipment I think I’m gonna spin around
and just hit 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 them with the wind like this you
can have a lot of the animals being
rather nervous from the antelope Impala
and kudu to Rana there are extremely
skittish in this kind of weather and to
elephants they can also be a little bit
nervous as well and even the cats and so
on they can also just put themselves in
a 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 sutured so the elephants
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 I did sort
you know 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 them little
wotty
and it’s just go down a bit further here
and see if maybe one of them is made is
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 with 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 Ellie’s 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 and we’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 on one of
them yeah we are let’s see might be some
more around I saw – a little bit of a
head shake hello and you 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
class look there it’s 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
the youngest female that 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 to
our lifts and are they starting to show
themselves but this one that we’re
watching 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 on a mission they’re
not moving and sort of stop and feed and
sometimes just walk 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
it’s amazing how quickly they disappear
in the thick bush such a massive animal
and I can walk almost couldn’t complete
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
you can see how much wind is as well
with the brush rustling they’re not
rarely always looks I relaxed with my
feeding and I really do seem to enjoy
feeding as well
I always think elephants are quite bush
connaissez they sort of grabbing it all
Isobella
looking at this individual here I think
it’s a female it’s got a it’s quite a
lot bigger than the other one I might be
wrong and I would I would put this in
you know sort of mid 20s to to early 30s
it’s not an extremely old individual
it’s 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 the
French being in the World Cup final
tonight and the soccer so this L fall is
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 we this
is the best site 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 is the
animals are going to retreat into sort
of the cover with his lots of bushes
is that the 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
they’re kind of making a line towards
Gallagher a pan it’s possible there
might be going to go and drink but it’s
also possible because there’s some
Impala 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 that’s
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 – yeah
why they have their stripes I believe
one of the the theories of one of the
original theories of thermoregulation
has been sort of booted out some people
think that there’s 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 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 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
tailmon it’s something that did a lot of
research on is that the stripes the
black and white stripes apparently fend
off the titty fly the biting horse fly
that is very wise it was very prevalent
in southern Africa many many years ago
and the very very nasty bites they can
give there suck the blood and they wants
to transmit certain diseases and what
Sciences did that 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 all of they dragged 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
have been electrocuted and fallen onto
the bottom grid and they found that the
white was quite high in bytes the black
was was less I believe I’m not sure
which one actually was the worse the
black of the white but black and white
combined had the fewest incidences of of
TT fly trying to land on them so that is
another theory that seems to ring quite
my world your music indeed we love
seeing the Zebras Anna Taylor was
commenting as well
the Makoti hoodie she’s nappin the Mara
so she’s gonna have a full of zebras up
there but we almost seen 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 bath salts 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 you 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
well this I was wrong in the six of that
animal it’s a young bull that is
obviously following on with his head now
they are all making the 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 hit 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
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 heart got 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 then for
instance hyenas hyenas you you almost
cannot see when they’re pregnant now I
just did that
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 a this sort
of path I’m just watching you see how
the tail guy 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 there 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 in the drainage
line in the similar Watty 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 him she’s sort of circling back a
little bit towards us and you always
should need elephants 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 let’s 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 to you
because mommy’s will react accordingly
with the youngsters regardless in the
animal kingdom means from humans to do
elephants everybody going to be
protecting the youngsters and you see
how that little one now it 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
trunklid they get to use it at about a
year’s year’s age and when they start to
work it out so I would so between one
and two years old maybe about one and a
half it’s still struggling not quite
adept at all those muscles and there are
a lot of them in there chunk really
struggling a bit to get the grass nicely
in its mouth but getting there you see
maybe a grab on Turton and also uses
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
and use his foot you see they’re coming
through there we go
good not done but then losing nice
diversion the wind chef’s gonna wake a
little bit harder for the same amount of
food is the adults alright I think I’m
gonna try and get us a little bit of a
bit of you 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 is
trying to feed there is something very
interesting I found about these doves
and pigeons there so the darn 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 the
produced milk 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 be
able to regulate
their own body temperature so apart from
that they don’t have anything in common
with the mammals so the 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 they can be able to break down
the epithelial parts of the crop and
then they regurgitate it and give that
milk to their little ones that milk it
has been recorded very very rich in
terms of the 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 it is produced by
the same prolactin hormone
which is the very same producing the
milk when it comes to lactation period
of the Marmara sea and if you can check
they are going to even suspend feeding
for about a week
just when having the little ones the
first week or two they are going to
suspend feeding because they don’t want
to contaminate the the milk with the
seeds because they know very well their
little ones are too small cannot easily
they cannot digest the seeds at all so
you can see that this bed they are very
much well gifted and very much
interesting and if if they’ve got X and
one of the X falls the bow is gone okay
when when when they’ve got some X is
very much interesting if one of the X
falls this is what is going to happen
they 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 2x so now when
there’s only one cheek available then it
means that chick has got a lot of a lot
of milk to feed on alone so let’s get it
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 science and the bushes 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 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 of yeah 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 cuz when you
don’t have fingers oh that actually
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 a
man do it when they can’t reach that
itch on their back in there on the side
of the cavity or something in the the
look that’s often on the person’s face
is quite some
that of a dog when you get them just
some that right spot on the belly here
you’ve 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 spent looking for
the Ashton looking for the fresh flush
that’s what we hoping we’re going to
find Tony you want to know about 1/4
crackers ends at the resort it was the
type of zebra the quacker it is not not
alive anymore extinct it was a species
of zebra I’m not I think it was actually
the scientific name had quokka in it I’m
not kind of sure but it was shot at a
very long time ago there’s definitely a
species of of zebra but I need to
double-check that I think it was before
before my time but it is the name we
know very very well one of my favorite
rugby players is the got a very funny
looking nose thing is he broken about 15
times his name is what is his actual
nickname but everyone calls him quater
certain people name but I’m not sure
when the last quote was around but it’s
probably over a hundred years ago and it
was shot at is probably down in the Cape
where the settlers that live down there
just basically just 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 cave including
elephants that no longer exist classic
example of human colonization really
around the world okay well well I kicked
this elephant dung along the way down
this part where we go through the
drainage line to the other side of his
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 and
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 reasonably
young bull but his adult and mature and
that’s nice to see them very calmly
moving through just feeding as the guy
I’m pretty sure there are making them I
slowly towards twin dams and I 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
now torture while elephants they’ll 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 they’re 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’t have a little bit less time in
between I just see mommy will she’ll
breastfeed for you know almost on two
years and as a as coughs well be you
know from the gestation two years in
another two years and even on to about
three years before she has another one
see that hole in his ear he’s got a big
one and then there’s a little one below
it and wonder what happened there if he
got caught on a thorn tree or it’s quite
a big hole that 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
nicely Mohandas i directly behind the
eye very big yeah opening there it is
you see all the little scratches on him
as well as 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 and I
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 actually such them quite
it to a large extent with
thermoregulation because it makes the
surface of the 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 the warmth and if it was trying
to cool down all there 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 temperature for them I’ll take
care I’m pretty sure that the pressure
that they’re applying on to 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 purse 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 with looking
at the circumference of the the bottom
area or surface area of the foot and
divided by how many feet on the ground
also with the 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 all onto that particular spot
now another to measure pressure in you
know different pressures in in in
different units and if you got your
pressure in your tire for instance
you’re normally looking at those KPIs
and so it’s all down to like if we look
at the barometric pressure what is that
you’re normally going between about
2,000 KP A’s and I think it’s about 500
on an atmospheric pressure but you know
that those acronyms are 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
and they do have special sponges in them
that assist with obviously the pressure
that is being exerted because otherwise
they would 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 any assist
in 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
for fall abut over a communication
receptor I have heard that the elephants
can actually communicate a little bit
through the ground with their 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 and then it would do in
air so elephants are very much similar
communication and that whales have in
the ocean with their very long or
capabilities of long-distance
communication and I heard a story about
in the 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 we’re picking up
that message so it’s quite incredible
you know that was an amazing a
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 is it’s one of those
interesting markings here so look here
we’ve got some of the of the droppings
hanging up by this tree here I know a
lot of people is very difficult to tell
from what animal is this also here on
the ground you can see is even some of
the evidence is showing that some of the
droppings they fell on the ground
so these droppings big this is from the
third-largest landmark is 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 he for 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 are doing they come here
and then they leave their droppings as
they excreting their droppings
they must be waving the tail at the same
time their tail is going to disperse the
droppings at the same time and they mark
on these trees so reason for them to
mark is for the territorial purposes so
hippopotamus if you check in there what
do they eat this animals are staying by
the dams whereby they they are fish and
is even crocodiles do they eat those
fish and crocodiles definitely no the
hippopotamus they only eat grass so they
come out and gold
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 Democratic
their territories so the hippopotamus
they come here they excrete the
droppings and disperse these droppings
in order to show father of creation
about the evidence he’s got in the
droppings 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
all in order 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 of
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 too far any for half
kilometres square but once this mark is
marked extension of the territory is
difficult because if other areas has
already been marked it means there is
going to be lot of fighting and
Fighting’s amongst these animals can be
very much vicious some of the animals
during this territorial fight they lose
their lives so now we are going to carry
on and see if you can find something
so now we can go to a tea steve is on
bush walk at the moment and see what he
thanks Sydney well an animal let it
escape the wind or the night 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 a little bit
soon you inside there beautiful fluffy
normos 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
Francis you have half correct when you
say it’s a scrubby it is the scrub his
tail sorry you did get it right there
France as well done so that is all that
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 it might come through and
as beautiful furs or keeps 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
survived the cold of the night on 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 signers back I doubt it was him
maybe coulda been shadaloo but it’s
obvious is the unnecessary part that
wouldn’t have gone
done 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 that is broken off that
little bone piece there it’s broken
how it was broken very hard to say oh
yeah everyone’s feeling sorry it’s okay
though they are multitudes of scrub
hairs 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 diets in the predator
hierarchy here and we wonder harmonise
rubbers actually get eaten well I wasn’t
expecting that right sure
is not just a scrub here 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 Bora moths have started here so
nothing goes to waste touch yeah that’s
a buffalo I think it’s a buffalo they’re
young buff only hard to say on Bora
moths have started a little cocoon
process as they feed on the the keratin
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 metamorphosizing into a
beautiful moth to go and then decompose
another horn somewhere else at this all
part of nature folks or part and parcel
of the circle of life our chair the
scrub here forms the the meal for for
many of the smaller medium-sized
predators including ours and then the
larger predators take the bigger sort of
animals it’s all part and parcel what
goes our own Archer 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 the Mara
Plains at the moment that is probably
burning lots of is burning and it is a
fire climax cross 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 our
own including zebra they’re like this a
lot
but so all the buffalo and even the
impala and all of the 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 air you’re gonna
go up there and see exactly what has
transpired up then if any changes have
happened but in the meantime it seems
like Ralph is finally lifted elephants
let’s go series up to him 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 shadaloo
because after twin dams I’m gonna head
waist because Sydney is going to be
covering the eastern side where Dundee
was spotted as well as the sana
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
Road to what you said you were doing on
your plan and then sometime
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
abusive 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 another I want to say all
the same stories all over again but one
of one of the most fascinating and one
of our favorite stories was we were 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 involved with a couple of them
but in this particular area is
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’re out there there’s nothing
there except a little clearings within
the
you know in 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 a bit of an
underground flow as well so there is
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 and it’s
very hot as well obviously being in the
desert so there’s an icicle showers and
long drop toilets and it’s all they have
no hot water but you don’t need it
because you 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 reads you know in a circle
around the tree with with the showerhead
coming out of that and she screamed and
I and I went running and from a distance
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
shower head and was literally sucking
the water as it was coming out and so
she was busy washing and all of a sudden
the shower wind 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 God as much as a
fright as she did and it sort of backed
up and then the sauntered off but it 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
that I did have one of my favorite 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 torture when my totem talks
about the elephant trunk so we are part
of the elephants because the elephants
are part of those very powerful animal I
come from the real family and all these
real families they’re inventor are
so the elephants they 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
mullah tree and tell you more stories
about the Marvella tree as I’m driving
so now say I get one so we 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 it doesn’t have all the powers
is not fully in charge the person who is
responsible to give orders is the
matriarch
Here I am referring to the oldest ant
and is the one who decides homas they
have to take over if she’s not happy
with someone who has been decided to
take over the the crown if she says no
nothing is going to happen because is
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 there it’s
so let’s see what Steve has got by the
bushwalk maybe it’s got something
interesting yes I think City were just
getting into the burnt area now we got a
little depression and I found some very
nice scribe here dung and obviously that
connects to the scrub here we saw before
but clear this was done by one that was
still alive the purpose for it is I
wanted to just show your 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 here 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 and really
protected them 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
too constant they need to be done
somewhere where they can protect
themselves so we’ve just arrived and
walk 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 oftener a little
flash of the green that comes through on
grass is called winter flash that can
happen it’s not ideal for for grass
because it makes it user 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 is 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 over
grazing there’s a dam watering hole not
far away from here and over grazing
trampling by animals lots of feet on the
grass these open patches which decreases
this sort of intensity of the fires
mark I’m sure we could find some
scorpion holes that’s 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 once or
thermoregulation up here even a scrub
hay 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 least
overgrazing leads to a lower increase in
fire that Pierce’s ruff is on his way
towards a watching help watching a hole
and that watering hold be 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 soak away below the
water hole there and then it goes across
out of our boundary down in that
direction there with all those big lead
woods they’re off in the distance but
these elephants haven’t made their ways
who as as quickly as I would have liked
let’s just stop and have a quick look
here looks like there’s a great 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 they’re fake pretty big it’s
what you come down for a drink not very
good on the ground or they’re great go
away busy and you can see how the wind
is are putting his crest up as well and
it’s quite choppy in the water there
goes the shame we can’t see him drinking
is being just bad that little round of
mud what are we getting nasty protected
there from the wind
a little bit of a backwater or Eddy and
a little three-banded clever coming into
view as well see how much bigger the
gray Louie as we used to call him a
great girl 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’s 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 the hashtag Safari
laughs on Twitter and on the YouTube
live chat whichever one you want
let’s hear it which birds have actually
got gallons now there we’ve got the
black collared Bob at well spotted Ferg
very very pretty birds and they’re cool
that 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
song now not enough zone a lid would
excuse me it’s a very silly mistake I
made but I was thinking late wood and my
masters if not sewn but
beautiful birds and very similar to the
crested Bartlett’s in what they can do
but yes so they call too badly too badly
too badly in do it or black colored
black colored black colored black
colored oh 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 is very pretty black
coloured Barbet and everybody agreeing
now francis 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 the 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’re gonna lift the heads up I would
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
come on guys send in your answers which
very pretty lifting the head up and then
swallowing and what’s that bow 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 stalk not quite
sure on the stalk they might do but I
haven’t heard of them having them
Michelle you say Turkey no a turkey
doesn’t have a gullet it has to also
drink and put its head up so do ducks
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 Bordelon I think they
don’t have a gullet
Arthur now I didn’t hear who but
somebody said ostrich know 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
are 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 the parrots don’t have a gullet
they also have to put the head down and
Kathy you say flamingos flamingos also
don’t have a gullet when they put their
head down and their falter feeding that
when they get something I want to drink
water they still need to raise their
head and actually use gravity rather
than an organ to literally swallow down
so the birds that do have gullets what
you will see them do is when they drink
they’ll put their head down and they’ll
swallow at the same time so they’ve got
that non-return valve whereas the other
birds don’t they’ve got to literally
pour it down there to death right
whereas there’s a couple of birds that
do have a gullet and it’s wonderful to
watch them when they drink that they
keep their head down and swallow the
whole time but actually more efficient
in that sense and I wonder what their
Vantage’s are pros and cons of having a
gullet but the birds are lemme you say
pigeon 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
endemic and not that word as well but
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 etosha national park and so you can
often see them next to the water halls
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
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 our chair 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 secret
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 that the
termite mounds provide 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 it to
roost and to nest and to whatever they
do underground in holes created by
aardvark so very very important as
important as the elephant in the
creation of habitat the beautiful holes
creates barred Vox 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
Pizza you want to know which animals
benefit most about control bills well
first of all this control boon is
primarily put in as a firebreak I mean
we’re at on they’re 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 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
that’s one of the management tools is
protection of life and of property but
if you burn large areas like what’s
happening up in the mire Arnon happens
in much bigger areas in Kruger is 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 is
rain they’re just going to come if I had
to add moisture here immediately well
not not like a magic trick but it would
within days come out and to be flashing
and be green the grass absent he loves
the fire so you remove a lot of that
organic material a lot of the dead Mauri
burned 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 our
chair I’m 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 that get
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 percent of safety burn but
it’s nice to walk
to see exactly what we can find in and
around 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 okay giving
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
yeah I’ve got one of the very beautiful
bear that you can see there that’s the
folktale Drogo if you look at the tail
is like a fork you know the folktale
drama reminds me of some of the bed
which can only learn the course from
their fathers and their neighbors so
this one dr. drum is like me is like
Sydney because here in South Africa we
have got about 11 different languages
this folk children can speak quite a lot
of different languages I speak about
eight of South African languages I speak
Vanda I speak Shangaan I speak Swan as
pick parry
I speak Sutra I speak Zulu English and
Afrikaans so Africans a little bit of so
you can see that the folktale Drogo
when is imitating the other calls he is
leading quite a lot of other different
calls
so this bed they go after these animals
but from walking together with these
animals is only the folktale drawn who
does get 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 drone was getting
benefits and the world of this is not
you can see there that the turd
wrong when they are moving were the
Beast he is also moving trying to catch
some insects in other words these were
the Beast
they are just waking up insects for this
children go to eat so they were the
Beast one of those very interesting
animals yes they’ve got some poor
eyesight that is why people they see
them together with the other animals I
have been only a very interesting
sighting of the world at least before
way by I saw 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 on
this world abyss
it’s just that they caught one
wildebeest and the remaining were the
Beast keep coming to investigate what
happened to their friend and the lands
took the second one took the third one
and took the fourth one and they 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 all well the beasts were
all eaten by this other different kind
of scavengers and these days I have seen
they’ve got a tendency of running away
and come back to more or less the same
kind of the area where they departed
from so this animals a lot of them died
already not because of the lion hunting
them they died because of a certain kind
of sickness is called a attaining
disease here is whereby there is an
insect that normally lays their eggs
inside the nose of this world abased and
the lava sometimes can go up to the
brain and disturb the sense of balance
as a result of that the world a beast is
going to just start turning turning
get existed falls over in dice 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 they’ve got dark color
on their forehead that is how you can
you can easily distinguish between the
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 they repeat the question for
me yes I’m not that very sure what is
happening by the East Africa but there
is about two types of where the beasts
we’ve got the black and in 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 at the
side of the 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
so now I am going to move on and see if
listen now move on to a Ralph and see if
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 a behind this a 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 stars 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
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 sort
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 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 efference 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
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 and I’m
also hired in occurrences of fire and I
suppose we could even go in there for
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 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 feeding on termites
so much an end to being around a long
time so if you’ve specialized in that
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 I’m 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 be
money in my hip and this plants has
survived the fire so that’s what happens
are 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 barkya
the fires managed to get in there but
elsewhere along here the bark is still
very 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 odd rocks 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 elephant damaged this bark
they allow a fire in and that’s how
bigger trees can be killed by something
that evolved to survive against but or
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 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 have you’ve 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 a 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 friend of
mine is out there she’s out in swallow
her reserve out in the northern cape on
the other side in the west of South
Africa Northwest and the other day she
in onedrive saw two odd box 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 penguins and odd
well um I have seen a few odd fox in my
life as well it’s basically down in the
Eastern Cape it seems like there they
are like a lot of the other animals down
in that province the people as well the
quite 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
the animals are rather relaxed down
there and the art fox well they’re not a
shy I would have to say I’m you often
see them walking around during the day
as well which is incredible because I’ve
had a couple of guarding friends that
have spent many many years out in the
bush and never seen an odd fog just
flying very fast on Assad 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 shadaloo
and Haku Mori the two leopards that
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 checks 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 is
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 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 north western
corner of the Juma Traverse and I’ll
then see if we can find any of their
tracks and I found should do live here
before walking along here was right in
the 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 his circles eventually I
found him and when when the animals do
start alarm calling it should do Liu
shishi runs away she doesn’t like to be
position to be given away let’s see are
we gonna be lucky this evening are we
gonna find some lipids well I’ll see
what else we can find along the way as
well it’d be nice to find those lipids
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 ants 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
Savannah 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 my America quarry the
movements of seeds were 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 the 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 it
cleans the entire top surface layer of
all the other plant material and then
next time a rain comes those seeds on
the ground which have provided 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 answer the food
essentially sort of the chaff and the
wheat itself the food source or the 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 of past some of the
seeds that have been eaten and just the
bits and pieces that have been dumped
outside of the ants nest and to take a
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 saw very very cool
and there’s probably more ants biomass
on the planet than there are any other
mammal species so that is very or total
biomass of mammals so that is a very
interesting thing to think about and
underneath the ground here there is
probably an enormous network and we just
found this little sort of trail along
the ground and that almost worked as its
own fire break and the ants are busy
doing their thing and they don’t stop
working in the social colony the
community all enter their own non-stop
moving and feeding and looking after the
Queen throwing the rubbish art which is
descent she dis organic material and at
the same time providing the ecological
role of seed distribution and primary
food source for a number of species
including the Pangolin penguins quite
enjoy ants they’re very long tongue the
penguin walk along here got this
enormous long tongue it’s apparently
almost as long as the body I’ve only
ever seen one who’s very cool LED bail
to stick their tongue in there it’s a
very long sticky tongue it’ll go all the
way down into those holes and then come
back covered in ants very funny very
specialized but very funny to steam okay
well we’re going to move on from our
ants on the ground and it seems like
Sydney’s make its it should go down
let’s see if he’s going to find those
let me tell you something here where I
am the weather is changing is getting
very windy with the wind is accelerating
and is getting very very very cold now
let me just wear my JC I am here by a
cheetah dam now hoping to go into the
siting of the Lions some Lions has been
spotted earlier on in the area here so
I’m just on standby to see what is going
to happen so but if you can check here
there are some of the very interesting
animals I am I am watching her so it’s
very very cold here you can see one of
the animal is just a very relaxed day
that is the water back it’s quite on a
very long distance that is the male
water back you can see it’s very much
less and if you look at this water back
look at the hairs you can see that the
hairs are very much fluffy so this
animal has been designed in order to
survive by the cold climates but you
know these animals are not even a party
it’s very interesting to see that these
animals are very much well equipped to
survive the cold climate but they are
not living there so they watch our backs
reason for them to have this kind of
fluffy has is that they are feeding next
to the water holes not because they go
down to the water holes and see more
anything
Raziel for them to have this kind of s
as an equipment is that when they are
threatened by the predator such as
leopard lion
there are most targets for safety is the
waterhole so they go quickly down into
the water holes and they know the Lions
and the vapors are very much in luck
sense when it comes to getting wet so
that is how they outrun the Lions so now
I am going to go down a little bit and
see if this any other activities taking
place right in the dam because now when
approaching the dam the only animal I
have noticed is the water back but they
apart from the water back
I hope this other animal see a theory so
let’s see what you’re going to find next
yes the I didn’t get the name of the
viewer just as the question now but the
answer is yes these waters here are very
much natural here is the word I’m
so the the water that we are seeing here
they are all natural waters collected
during the rainy season said half thank
so I’m just trying to see if I’m gonna
find some crocodiles yeah
and look we have got something very very
very very beautiful it’s quite a very
beautiful sighting here look there I got
something for you here relax not doing
anything that is quite a very beautiful
animal yeah you can see this is quite a
a very beautiful animal just very next
they’re not doing anything very big look
at that it is very very surprising to
see that in such a very cold weather
like this
the crocodile closed his mouth because
mostly crocodiles the relaxed with the
mouth open and a reason for them to open
the mouth is to get the Sun to burn the
inner parts of the mouth so that they
can cool the whole body temperature so
look at those teeth coming out the
crocodiles they’ve got quite a lot of
this day they’ve got over 60 teeth in
that mouth and those teeth they don’t
stop growing they never stop growing
whenever they break any they are going
to recover it it will come back that is
why the crocodiles can be able to
survive for many years and what I like
about the crocodiles is that when
they’ve got something they catch they
eat and they can also be able to
regulate the body temperature they can
be able to slow down the metabolism
sorry they can be able to slow down the
metabolism in order to conserve the
energy so that they don’t waste quite a
lot of energy when it’s cold the
eyesight is not very bad and they can be
yeah thank you very much for the comment
with regards to the smile
so this crocodiles they don’t even got
time to chew the the meat all they do is
to just cut piece of chunks and sort of
them the way they are as they are they
so when opening the mouth you must check
the crocodile doesn’t have a tongue
ideas intervention at all so sometimes
they open their mouth to attract insects
instead such as the the Flies they get
they get obstructed they come there and
when they come they get stick by the
different kind of sa saliva very it’s
like a glue their saliva is like a glue
where they stick this insects and other
insects when seeing the other ones
attach the inside they think they are
feeding and that is what they are what
attracts more insects to come and they
these animals can jump and they can also
run it’s just that they don’t run for a
long distance so they can be able to run
for a distance of about 20 to 30
kilometers at high speed but after that
they are going to get tired so
crocodiles I’ve got a question from from
Paula who would like to know the life
expectancy of the crocodiles due to the
fact that the crocodiles got the teeth
which keep growing it gives them a
chance to survive much longer because a
lot of animals they die as they start
losing their teeth so the crocodiles can
be able to survive for approximately
hunt at 150 to 200 years so this is one
of the animals with your very long
you can see they it looks dead here it’s
like a big log or something yeah let’s
go to a Ralph Ralph is but something to
talk to us about the Impala and this is
a very nice big herd of Impala here we
don’t often see them in such a big group
there’s one or two younger males there
and but also a nice big one too
those are just youngsters with it first
little loop they haven’t there comes a
nice big male I’m sure he’s the dominant
male here and he’s got a very nice big
herd of females see maybe he’s been
fighting
maybe they constantly running around and
trying to keep all the girls and chick
and chasing off other males you see ie
that the young male get quite scared of
him but he definitely does have a little
limp it’s probably from all this
shenanigans chasing the girls and the
other males away there’s lots of them
yeah lots of females and then very nice
light that’s the moment we about 45
minutes away from sunset off an hour 45
minutes so we into that golden hour it’s
only gonna get better from here
there’s a couple of clouds around it’s
gonna make for all sorts of different
colors and is in parlor you can see a
little bit of the hair rise they are
feeling the cold a little bit already in
the wind and they raise that here trap
the warm air on the inside there and
selves nice and warm
but the colors are very sharp at the
moment it’s very pretty as I move
through there are mixed feeders so
they’ll feed on grass and leaves and and
everything in between
fully vegetarian now herbivores but they
do that’s what one of the reasons why
they’re all so successful because they
can eat on a range of different
vegetable matter not specialists are
they more generalists and it’s very
important actually for the as a prized
species not that that’s the only thing
that they’re good for there we go
there’s an ox picker and one of them
lots of them over there as well and we
sleeve good habitat for them to be
accessing you see how they’re combing
through the hair there and looking for
it seems like the viewers and all of you
agree with me on the beautiful light it
is very pretty now everything is very
sharp very crisp you can see all the
different contrasts many white belly
it’s a little bit of a funny color and
then almost brown on top and it’ll took
black tips on the ears and those black
markings on the ramp and on the tail
whoo something you have never a bit of a
fright there Sam I would never want to
now Bobby yeah they do look a little bit
scared when they tuck the tails in like
that I think it’s at the moment they’re
a little bit cold and what’s the wound
as well that’s why they were but AG
everything sort of making them jump so
very easily spooked and when it’s 1d
everybody not knowing which way to look
or listen must be so it’s very scary for
them they’re always on edge day and
night never get a chance to rest and
that’s why when the male’s also when I
start fighting with each other in the
rutting season they also get very easily
taken down by the leopards you see them
hanging you and all the trees all over
the place like Christmas trees there’s a
young males there once again just got
that one little cool and their horns so
even though we see lots of Impala all
the time it’s always nice tea set with
them a little bit I think they’re very
often overlooked and in the maybe AB you
get the very end or special and endemic
black faced Impala found nowhere else in
the world and in Namibia and they’re
slightly bigger than these Impala as
well so that’s one to look up if you
guys want to look at a different species
or never look at the black faced Impala
found in in the media and have a look at
that very interesting look identical
except for the facial markings and there
Matt and these ones just happily feeding
now apart from that little scared at
their head
I should plant be the last one for this
afternoon they’re gonna get scared of
all sorts of things well I think it’s
now time to continue on the search we
have for those lipids sukumari and
shadaloo and while I wonder if Sydney’s
yeah I am still waiting still waiting to
see what is going to happen here by the
Lions yes apparently the Lions they are
somewhere very stationary in the area
I have already entered the area where
they are so I’m just waiting to get a
chance for a sighting
so what apart from the lion sighting yes
I’ve got something very interesting to
show you here huh let me just get off my
vehicle a little bit and show you what
is here so you can see here we’ve got a
a demolition point so this is not the
only way the animals are using in order
to mark their territory sometimes you
will see other animals doing like this
when they’re using the facial glands and
sometimes you see some they’ve got some
of the black dots here on the side of
the face whereby they come and stick
some of the fluid out for demolition
purposes but some of these animals they
do the following they come here and do
something which is called pasting and
pasting I want to warn you about this
because I know that pasting a lot of
people they cannot recognize it when
they see it on this grass is some of
these are animals like they highness
they come and secrete some of the fluids
through the underpass ages and they
stick them on this grasses and you will
see the two markings one will be dark
and another one is going to be very very
light so those markings they can be very
much detrimental to your health to the
people who profess to come and use grass
as toothpicks you are going to enjoy it
to ingest a lot of problems because this
kind of markings are coming through the
underpass edges meaning that they come
out with quite a lot of diseases I have
seen a lot of people doing this they
come and break the grasses after eating
and they use the grass at a toothpick
and I can promise you
exercise is not nice especially if the
animals such as hyenas civet and
Mongoose because those animals eat them
they Democrat their territories makers
of the anal glands so you must have to
avoid using classes as toothpicks so now
I am just going to see if I can radio in
the people who are already in the area
your any station by the lion sighting
coming so just to see if we can we can
get some updates yeah the wind is too
much here the wind is too much here we
way I am even to here what is going on
in the area this afternoon is not easy
to hear the best course is not easy yeah
I Sydney I’m standing by I said yeah I
am betting to hear that can you please
okay copy copy that please give me the
direction if possible I am here now by
the damn wall a cheater damn yes I’m
just trying to get hold of some of the
directions and yes I think is my chair
now to go in now we can go to Ralph and
I’m just trying to keep myself warm in
this wintry blaster e-jelly weather and
while I’m doing that I’m also on the
lookout for these lipids so yeah I got
my hands on as fergus’s do you
definitely help keep the extremities
warm so I’m going to do a little bit of
a looping system now I’m gonna go past
sandy pitcher then I’m gonna go down or
breeze rides up Galago Galago wrote and
now I’ll stop in at that little pan and
then I’ll make my way over to we husana
and Tandy will all see I’ll have a look
marry that’s a good question I’m just
trying to remember my taxonomy is a art
Fork is an odd Fork related to an
armadillo I think there might be I think
they might be related I think they might
be they might be in the same family if
I’m not mistaken which I quite possibly
could be I think there are in the same
family yes I don’t think it’s in the
Swede I that’s the pigs the bush pig and
warthog I’m just trying to think what is
the family of the aardvark not forgotten
I’m gonna have to look in my book my
book up and while I’m having a look
let’s do that I’m gonna stop you and
just get us a view and then I’m gonna
check in my book and answer that
question properly I’ll have to take my
Sarika mehgan’s I say that again what
okay I’m not getting that as the sorry
Eden kata is that the that you’re
talking about the binomial nomenclature
the the genus and the now my brain is
freezing everyone the genus and the
species but I’m looking for the family
so you guys have gone all the way to the
end of the line you’re not getting the
one before that because if we look at
taxonomy we say that King Phillip came
over for good son so that means that
it’s Kingdom and King Phillip came over
for good son that’s how we always
remember it
so it’s kingdom phylum King Phillip
class order family genus species so
that’s how it goes so we’re talking just
one up from the genus it’s the family
not the genus or the species and now
Meghan I’m getting not much Craig says
they’re not in the same order is that
Batman Batman which order order in we’re
not talking orders we’re talking
families Oh James not bad bad okay let’s
stop there for a little quick view we
here near to Sydney’s dam and I want you
to have a nice little view here oh
there’s an elephant of Lee in the
distance as well and it’s always nice to
stop here because if we hear these
monkeys calling just off in the distance
they it’s a good point just to stop
and while we are just looking at the
view I’ll quickly access my wildlife
book just got all sorts of different
things in us and you guys can enjoy the
view while I just try and get my ducks
in a row
for my art Fox and my armadillos Nancy
James is they not and I definitely will
believe him but I just wanted to look at
it for myself one seven six okay
Vee I think the the Pangolin and the art
Fork I’m pretty close to each other but
they’re not tangle and now I’m also just
seeing the genus and species I’m not
kidding the family’s here my very
general book so I’m gonna have to look
that one up
so anyway James that was the answer in
the short and sweet of it no they’re not
in the same family but I just wanted to
get a little bit deeper in to it the net
but I don’t have enough resource with me
right here so we’ll just then continue
on enjoying the view you just don’t see
how much wind is blowing through and
these clouds now that have arrived on
mass I’m sure sooner or later we’re
gonna get a little bit of rain as well
the cold front has hit but as you might
know any of you weather gurus out there
generally the rain sort of comes post
the front making itself through an area
or moving through an area and then it’s
sort of widespread rain after the front
goes through
so we’re experiencing the cold front now
and further south and east along the
coastline and all down is sort of below
the interior now or the high felt down
towards the coast is now experienced
very widespread rain and a lot of it
and is very welcome because we have been
in the grips of quite a devastating
drought so that is very welcome these
clouds coming in mr. Nam you say this
always looks like a painting it
definitely does African sunsets are
always beautiful and they are very
beautiful sunsets all around the world
but here in this particular area it is
definitely one of those beautiful spots
they stop and look I like coming here to
Sandy patch at this time of the day and
I’m not sharing any monkeys alarm
calling unfortunately it’s not taking
away from the beautiful view we have
yeah Fergus doing his best impression of
a an alarming monkey they in the back
all right let’s head off and see if we
can find ourselves something with spots
that’s what I would like to do and while
I continue on the search seems like
Sidney has found us some big cats yes
I’ve got quite a very beautiful sighting
here you can see the majestic cat is
just very relaxed on top of the termite
mound there beautiful life some I’m not
just too sure if he’s the only one day
concentrating a lot there because this
some of the best making noise on that
side where she’s concentrating is a
little bit of noise but they’re just all
bet calls you know that when it comes to
cats they they get very much concerned
they don’t trust kids so the Lions they
spend much of their time during the day
sleeping so they can sleep as much as 18
hours but now after dark is when they do
a lot of workings and also early in the
look at that beautiful that I’m so happy
to see that people are so excited about
finding this lie on there yeah but it
was not easier so but here we are
the wind is not that very much compared
to that side of humor this afternoon
yeah there is a little bit of wind here
but it’s not too much earlier on it was
too windy the female lions is the ones
that can be very much dangerous because
is the one who knows very well all the
hunting tactics males the they don’t do
these hunting activities unless they the
males are kicked off from the head and
now from the pride and become solitary
they don’t have a chance it means that
so there’s some elephants as well in the
area so you can see the concentration of
that lioness on the elephant I can hear
yeah okay you’re right a beautiful cat
indeed look at that
so that cat looks very smaller when is
there but if you can stand now you see
that is quite a very big big animal so
if you look there on top of the ice the
Lions they’ve got some markings when
they close the eyes it’s like they’ve
got false eyes they’re on top of their
they’re not even worried about us being
yes Paula I didn’t copy the question
very well but I just hear that the
yeah the Lions you can you can check you
know when they are still very young they
little male and females is quite very
difficult to tell because that is when
is before the develop the mane but once
we grow and start to go to reach
majorities when the males are gonna
start to develop has the on the neck and
that is how you can then start to
distinguish between the male and females
I just want to try to see if there’s
only one lion here all these more lions
here we are is there’s no other movement
yeah let me just try and drive around
here and see if we can find more just to
check how many because you can see now
this one is just by yourself and is very
much relaxed so now let’s go to Steve
and see what Steve has got on the other
side while I’m trying to see how many
and what’s going on in there yeah nice
love thanks Sydney how interesting what
lions authors that you’ve got very very
interesting well sorry about our us
being down for a while and we have some
technical issues that have been resolved
but there is Dave and his gorilla
colonel with the seeds inside what are
we gonna do we’re gonna eat them first
of all we need an anvil of some sort
here we found a perfect log of a red
bush willow nice and hard and I found
myself a very nice rock and now boys and
girls if there’s any boys and girls
watching don’t do this at home
because this can be quite painful if you
miss I’m just going to smash it a little
bit harder than that
there we go there’s the little lid the
cap that comes off of the seed there’s
another cap over there this is often
what we find the squirrels that munch
out and then if I clear you see the
white white inside that is what we’re
looking for
yeah there’s the money right there
there’s the many little bit coming out
now I got this very nice little thorn
here that thorn is gonna help us to pop
these seeds out very nice and oily very
nice and oily and that is very tasty
obviously I’ve hits it a bit hard so the
see doesn’t come out very nicely but
very edible very tasty and there’s some
here for Davey – if you like toffee now
you can make a very nice oil out of this
the way to to make oil Arts of products
of things is to to basically boil them
and then let the water cool and then the
the oil separates from from the liquid
you just scoop it off the top and you
can use it as a very nice lip balm lip
balm probably a little bit better than
then stiffs snail balm from this morning
if you’re watching that I believe it
looked quite interesting still find
himself was rubbing snail oil all over
his lips there we go beautiful beautiful
nuts for Darby to eat this tab any the
taste is it’s it’s nothing like a
macadamia I can tell you a little bit
like a walnut little bit hey Darby we
already had one we we were down for a
while yeah Darby this is for you to your
hand xiri losing it so you can tell how
strong the wind is there folks we nearly
lost half the nut very nice very nice
and it’s an acetal lots of protein also
very very healthy for you and as I said
the oil very nice this time of year
especially in wind like this we get
quite chapped lips from the wind and
that’s why Steph was rubbing his lips
this morning I’ve got a couple more of
those and maybe I’m going to be making
some of that oil for the medicinal
I’ve got a whole handful of them at home
while we’re walking off oh no I have
lost mastic well I’m gonna have to make
a plan for that
in the meantime miss coder alpha was
well my plan as I said before I’m
heading straight towards that little
Galago pan which is behind the gonna go
Lodge we’re gonna go and check there and
just see if maybe ting gonna pops up its
gonna stop there for a little while this
is about the time of evening that he
might be a little bit of rasping and or
sewing or chuffing any of those noises
or description of the lipid pool some of
that would be perfect because we had
know exactly where he is so maybe
they’re just popping and the clouds are
now starting to change all sorts of
colors was that Sun starting to sit down
towards the horizon I’m very glad that
some Sydney was able to find those lions
that’s fantastic haven’t seen lions for
a little while and yeah it’d be nice if
they might be way down here on Jeju ma
there’s been a few tracks around but
very intermittently haven’t seen them
regularly at all but that’s pretty much
the same with who Comorian should do Lu
when did I see sh abdullah so about ten
days ago I would say and was very quick
so in the morning followed it around for
a couple of hours and then she left the
these crested Franklin are doing a
lovely Jewett day kitchen squat
strange sometimes you only hear one of
the couple doing a call almost like the
other one is either meet a nun likely
death or it’s just not willing to call
with its partner having a bit of a tough
way you just share g-g-gee and is no and
there’s no chill
but more we’re gonna have a very
artistic shot Jeff ugh this is gonna be
good
never look at that beautiful yeah son
really going down now and you can see
how moody the sky looks with that dead
tree in front really making for a lovely
sitting look at that that is a sunset of
night Wow and the colors are changing
that should be by the second
there’s orange and pinks and blues and
and and some of the clouds are really
also changing color and the Sun he would
almost watch as it goes I won’t be long
what is it I heard is it about 70 70
seconds that when the Sun sets that it
has actually set 7 is 70 seconds I can’t
remember sheesh I’m losing all my more
books of knowledge in my head and
because obviously the the the lot takes
a certain amount of time to get from the
Sun to the earth and so when we see that
the Sun is set it’s actually set quite a
substantial amount of time before that
and that lot takes that time to reach us
but at this time of year definitely does
go down rather quickly and you can
actually watch it as it disappears now
I’m going down behind those sticks and
those branches won’t be long and it will
be completely gone and then the colors
will change drastically once again um I
still get a lot of reflection oh it’s
going purple now those clouds in the
background
I really are looking pretty you see that
really going down fast as we see the
wooden blowing for those colors look at
that getting ever more Moody and then
we’ve got like the glowing honeypot at
the base of that tree of the purple sky
and the clouds helping the colors show
themselves who ever would have thought a
dead chick could look so pretty okay I
think that’s a perfect little stop and
now you know that the Sun is setting
once again here in Africa and now it’s
time for predators yeah look at that
predator hey it’s just a very much
relaxed I was trying to check around
here just to see if maybe these other
Lions in the area but it seems like it’s
not alone I have not yet noticed any
still looking maybe one of them is gonna
come out anytime soon
yeah it’s quite a beautiful sight in
so look at that see when the the
temperature is down like this it doesn’t
bother these animals the cats they enjoy
it lion I always call them lie on
because they spend much time just lying
down look at that that poor day so the
yeah a question from George about the
age of this lion I’m not very sure about
the age of this lion is this is my
fastest fighting on this family so I’m
not too sure but I know Lions can
survive about 13 to 15 years and to me
these Lions the females when they have
got cups they must have to go and
isolate themselves they must isolate
himself and hide them somewhere far away
because if they don’t do that they will
be risking the chances of their little
ones to survive so Lions Lions they’ve
yeah
there’s a question from Angie I didn’t
get that question very well but it seems
like it’s about the identification of
different lines in the area so they lie
on stays in in prize and this prize they
don’t mingle together so it’s very much
easy when coming across these lines to
identify this pride is the kuma pride
and this is the Africa Avoca males so we
can be able to easily identify that but
because because of working together with
them every day
we end up like becoming part of the
ecosystem she’s just trying to
that maybe she’s gonna lead us to where
the others are all the other ones might
come to where she is
but he is not interested in a lot of
there is a question from Isabella about
the lions males and females if they’re
both territorial they lie on the females
they can also defend their territory
because if you can check the Lions when
they are staying as a pride these
females they always make sure that they
don’t get other females coming from the
other groups so they always make sure
that they defend their families so they
don’t want they are they don’t want the
membership to change they only accept
the changes with regards to the
membership of the feminists only when
there’s a death or when they say Beth so
apart from that they defined so females
can be very much protected by a
protective and aggressive in these
territories
so how Lyons a Democrat tortoids is
interesting they use scent markings you
will see sometimes they stand upright
against these trees and pull some of the
facial glands that is when they are
trying to leave behind their sensor so
lions they they can be very strict when
there’s an intruder if the intruder will
define he knows something about the
females mostly the female lions when
they’re under stress is when the
pituitary gland from the brain kick
starts a lot of hormones which will then
drive the female to go back on hit let’s
see if maybe there is any other changes
so no much is happening now it’s just
very let’s let’s go to a Steve and see
what is got on the other side by the
bushwalk Thank You Sidney who is that
cat slowly heading back and look at the
wind down in the depression very very
soft very low this is where you expect
to find animals trying to hide away in
the drainage lines away lots of thick
bush lots of sort of cover for them and
just coming down and you just feel the
immediate sort of buffering effect that
this vegetation has and the Sun has set
in the West as Rob says it the sins very
quickly this time of year and you feel
the change in the temperature
immediately super glad I brought this
Jill that’s a good question probably a
lot of animals can get more than one day
I mean we can go for about two weeks I
suppose I don’t know if we will do very
well now two weeks is a bit long I don’t
know
Jill I really don’t know I think a lot
of certain animals have got the ability
to to sort of get moisture out of the
environment but no animals really want
to so they’ve got the adaptational
question how many can go I fell drink if
I can but some animals can go along with
in others and I don’t really have a
definitive answer for you because
there’s a lot of animals out there
giraffe for example don’t need to drink
all the time they concentrate their
urine so as they they give a much lower
sort of water our take our birds don’t
need to drink too much they probably
drink more than we think but they give
out uric acid silica a solid mass of
urea rather than the actual ammonia that
comes out in in our urine so that and
frogs or reptiles they all absorb all
the moisture in their body and they’re
certain small rodents and things that
can do the same thing but most animals I
mean you see elephants when they urinate
they drop a huge amount of water most
mammals need a lot of water for for
survival we’ve come from a placenta
we’ve come from a an environment of
water and we are completely committed to
it and dependence on it for the rest of
our lives there’s not a single mammal
that can go for a long period of time
without water but the exact degree of
that is hard to say we could probably go
a couple days without water but then we
would really really struggle some of our
sort of more specialized herbivore
animals such as some of the specialized
herbivore animals are more sort of water
independent than others but then they do
get a lot of moisture from the
environment it doesn’t mean if they
don’t get any water they get it from off
their drink they lick do for example
they don’t have to go long distance to
drink steel mock or one of them and
watch you’re watching whole and there’s
a couple of birds just on the side
they’re coming in to drink so animals
will choose to drink if they can but
animals that live in the desert
obviously aren’t able to all the time
Hemme Spock have the ability to go for a
while with that moisture
but then they can dig in bring up bulbs
and sort of cucumber like fruit but
they’ll feed on to get lots of moisture
and a lot of birds also get moisture
from the insects that they eat this a
fork-tailed ronger who’s enjoying the
wind and as we came out of that
depression you can see how the wind is
picked up again just by the way that
okay well the bushwalk team is slowly
hitting back due to the darkness and
with regards to medicinal Monday’s I’m
off in the morning tomorrow due to the
rotation we have but we’ll be doing it
on Tuesday morning
do not worry do not fear but from the
bush Hawk team it is going to be a very
good evening to you and let’s go back
over to Ralph goodbye Steve and to the
rest of the bushwalk team thanks guys
make your way back home safely I’m sure
you will be able to find your way
hopefully before it gets dark
I don’t think they were too far from
Kent so they should be fine I hope but
now we’re coming up towards where Tandy
and claw lumber was spotted yesterday so
I’m just gonna go in there because
Sidney went to the Lions which is out on
chitwa so I think I’ve chipped the
western side so I’m coming back east to
check whether the leopards
well yesterday so I’m just gonna go and
have a look hopefully we can see them
maybe walking on the road that would be
the easiest they’ve been in this block
yeah and it’s very thick very thick so
unless they do come out on the road or
they walking as we can pass from the
entail is killed up you’ll see that
master fluffy white color it’s almost
impossible to spot him so it’s always
was just a lucky dip lucky draw we come
past syllable shawls off on saying
Alaina blue have to put it in there
although I’m back in Croatia I think
this evening cuz they’re the underdogs
and there’s only four million people
that lives there so it would be
fantastic it would almost be like
Namibia winning the World Cup one of
these days one of these days maybe South
Africa will make it to the finals once
again we haven’t made it since what does
it 1998 or something when you add and
2010 because who we were hosting it
anyway I’m going to now look for these
leopards but let’s hit John back to
you know is quite a lovely fighting
amazing I have just now discovered that
this lion is not alone there are two
females working together it says that
the other one is quite very difficult to
have a sighting from here where I am I I
would try again and see if we can have a
good sighting I saw that the second one
just stood up earlier on she’s somewhere
in this thick bushes so maybe she’s
gonna come back again look at that
so the kids are very much cleaner yes I
I didn’t copy that
Kathy you can see now the activities
yeah the the males they tend to form
their own groups the correlations for
safety reasons yes that is true I just
want to try and reverse and see if I can
have a better sighting since that female
so let me science if we can find here
from this side here so can easily get
just so they very relaxed looking at me
we can see that she is she’s not even
worried about anything so let me try and
see if we can have we might better fight
can see there you can see her they she’s
trying to walk much more towards the
let’s see if we can have a better
sighting from here and see if is after
something because I can see this
yeah I think she is trying to
investigate something here so he can see
she has been thinking and thinking it
yeah the liens can have three curves
here three cuffs so pizza they can have
three cups and now we can we can go to
look at that so it seems like she is the
obstruction by something here I’m just
trying to see what is that trucker here
in this dog you know these animals can
see better than we do and they can also
hear better than we do but I saw that
yeah while still trying to check what
she’s up to
let’s go through rough while everyone
I’m moving in the area around before
damn we’re gonna come out there
soon and this is where Tandy salamba and
I think on sauna also was spotted in
this general vicinity yesterday so for
Sona the youngster has returned on to
Juma the young leopard young male
leopard seems like while setting to
Tristan last night oniy he thinks that
that’s just the typical dispersal
behavior of of of a young leopard he may
be come back a few more times and his
circles gonna get a little bit bigger
and you know eventually then stay off in
some other area and he went down all the
way down to gondolas II and he was
spotted there so some photographs online
of him with some impalas I forgot the
tree I think he was also in the Kruger
Park he’s been all over the place do you
see a little light up ahead that is from
maybe another vehicle here
never fear so yeah he’s definitely been
wandering around he’s a little bit
younger than hookah Maurice it’s also
quite a bit smaller than him as well so
he wouldn’t be challenging anyone just
yet
for a Terauchi especially not hookah
mori just watch and let this vehicle
now scenic yes I’m just letting a
vehicle girl posture hello everyone
hello la it’s very quiet
I mean elephants down in them low wotty
okay all right sorry guys but we are
live at the moment is that a right oh no
no no um be in LA don’t worry hey have a
good evening
I wish you all the best of luck okay and
all right scenic set C flies they do
transmit disease and the one the famous
one is that of sleeping sickness so
that’s it see flowers will bite people
and antelope kettle I’m pretty sure on a
kettle do you get it there are some
animals that are immune to it
excuse me but it does have a very
debilitating effect on animals and as
the name suggests it makes very
lethargic and eventually just want to
sleep all day and eventually you can die
from it so that’s a bad one that set see
flies carry and in a lot of areas in
southern Africa as you go north northern
southern Africa they do you have a lot
of sort of set C flock control points
and I spray and you’ve got to get out
and walk with your feet in in some of
the insecticide etc now just come up to
before soap dam here or waterhole and
let’s see if this is Scuba Steve I think
it might be mr. Scuba Steve looks like
he’s all on his iron again there he is
on his lonesome in the water there
just enjoying the lapping water around
his eyes and looking at us looks rather
sad doesn’t he maybe got left maybe he’s
just not a very nice person I don’t know
what do you think fig he’s boring is
gravel so maybe visiting girls here but
it seems like he can’t keep them around
maybe he’s just a bit boring hmm scuba
Steve he does look a bit boring doesn’t
he
it’s other bored or boring one of the
tea that was the water like that lapping
at your face I must get quite irritating
sooner or later this evening is gonna go
out and do a bit of feeding maybe he’ll
you’ll meet up have a bit of a blonde
died to somebody out here who knows but
he seems to definitely have commandeered
this water hall as his and I don’t think
he’s getting much competition for it
it’s just really strange that he’s on
his own again Paula you think that he
just likes the single life well and he
doesn’t seem to like that and figure
whatever you said team he definitely
insulted him oh my head sorry he did
okay what you saying sorry big well
Adam he’s not liking that Raveena’s off
to him here he’s on the move nice
putting himself out there a little bit
more so we can see it but more of him I
love the way they they shake the ears he
he’s actually really showing off now as
me
hey I think you’re really cool Scuba
Steve they just don’t understand you I
think that’s the case I really like
coming out here and seeing him I mean
previously he used to just show us his
nostrils he was really shy
uncle nervous when you came yeah
this chest his nostrils just breathe
that through them and and stand of the
water various because of what is a bit
too cold nice but but now you would
never make do a show like that so he’s
definitely calmed down with us around
for now he’s disappeared I think let’s
do the same I’m sorry for the head once
again I’m sorry my nose is also starting
to run a little bit now and so let’s
continue on the search for those cats
and from one big animal called Scuba
yeah look at that
it is too quite a lovely sighting but
there’s no sign of any other intention
from relaxing there’s no sign of any
they splitted a little bita the other
one is maybe about a distance of about
now 50 to 70 meters deep in these thick
bushes so this one is just on top of
this termite mound and is the one who
was shown some interest on something
that for the past few minutes
nothing has been happening she’s very
much a relaxed year you can see they can
hide very easily look at that she’s very
much come off leash they’re not easy to
so the Lions begin weigh a lot up to a
hundred in over 100 160 hundred and
seventy kilograms here they can weigh a
now you can see now she’s she’s sleeping
very relaxed so these are the animals
which are associated with the call of
Africa the roar of the lion in the
morning is fascinating it makes you feel
that you are in the world you are in
Africa yes Kevin I’m not very sure when
it comes to the weight between exactly
the weight between the male and the
female but obviously the male’s the way
much bigger than the females because of
the size the male’s there.we their
this animals have got a very good
eyesight
so when the Lions are not happy they
will show you their canines but now he
was just yuning there he was not up to
and about the wind makes it very
difficult for the Lions because remember
these animals such as praise they learn
to identify the scent of their predators
so the Lions when they are hunting they
they also consider wind direction so
look at that this is beautiful snare now
I am NOT going to talk loud I’m going to
whisper because I can see that she’s
nice and close and I don’t want to
disturb her she’s disappearing now
towards the thick bushes there yeah I
just got disappeared so I’m going to try
and see if if we’re gonna have the
better sighting again after this lovely
sighting of one of the females I’m just
gonna go around and see if I can find
the second one and the second one when I
saw her earlier I think in terms of the
size she was a little bit much bigger
than this one so now we can go to Ralph
there we go everyone the lights are out
and the Sun is gone so now it’s shifting
focus to purely predators we’re not
going to be looking at any of the diatom
animals unless we see something really
special
and the moon has also come out now I
think it’s a first quarter it has been
dark the last couple of evenings I think
now Paula one of the most dangerous
insects in the bush well let’s think
about that is here comes another vehicle
think it might be the same one
yep it is just slide past them neutral
posture most dangerous insects in the
bush has it gone off now as well yeah
we’ll just wait for him to pass I’m just
thinking now what is so much time this
insect in the bush artifacts hey let me
think
we’ve got blister beetles which I’m not
dangerous but they can definitely really
make you full of blisters good spider
wasps wasps that can sting very badly
I’ve been stung by a spider wasp not on
my forehead I was showing some students
some different leaves and things and I
pulled on a branch and out from this
bush came a spider wasp and he stung me
Roddy and then it’ll track had been in a
bar fight the next day
both my eyes swelled up and I went blue
and yeah so that was quite nasty and
what else you know obviously we’re not
talking about arachnids there between
your scorpions and your spiders and this
stage we speaking bees the African
honeybee can be quite dangerous
especially to somebody that might be
allergic there’s lots of people that die
but only that are allergic to bees
now what’s quite interesting about
energy or energies like that as well you
can have an allergic reaction on any
given one time and sometimes it can just
be as a result of getting an overload of
the venom because my mother she I mean
she’s been stung her whole life
basically by honeybees and never even
you know worried about it yes of course
you get a you know quite a big swelling
wherever it depends on where it stings
you
and so I think at the time she was about
60 years old she was minding the lawn on
a sit on lawn mower and she went below
one of our apricot trees and there was a
swarm of bees that attacked her and she
got stung must have been about twenty or
twenty-five tomczak watch quite
excessive anyway she went inside she got
rid of all the stings you know because
with honeybees there it literally pulls
out half the abdomen with that venom
sick that comes with it and actually
died immediately after that so she
pulled out all of these well scraped him
out with the back of an laughs because
you don’t want to press those venom sacs
because then you press all the venom
into you so you want to scrape it out to
the back of a knife so she got them all
out the ones that she could find or
whatever and she went back to mining the
lawn and an hour later an hour or so
later she felt that her tongue was
getting really bigger or like heavy and
within ten minutes from that she was
struggling to breathe and she raised up
she got in the car she raced up to the
chemist which was just up the road from
us and the lady there took one look at
her and she said get in the car I’ll
Drive it to the hospital which was about
another 15 minutes away and by the time
they got there they had to give her
adrenaline and the doctors sort of said
another 10 15 minutes and she would have
been dead and my mom couldn’t believe it
she was sorrowful installment our life
he said while you’ve been stung now
quite a few times and this was obviously
brought on an allergic reaction so since
then she’s had to have an EpiPen for
with adrenaline too – in case that she’s
been stung but she’s been stung
subsequently and nothing has happened so
it’s you can have it actually an
allergic reaction on a specific point
like that as well so I would have to say
so that’s just something interesting
about allergies to these insects but I
would have to say that the honeybees
probably or a big cause or one of the
bigger cause you know
in terms of insects and you know close
calls with death or even death itself a
lot of the times also when you get very
big thunderstorms they can they can
become quite aggressive and when it’s
extremely hot they can also be a little
bit aggressive and once they sort of
start or they target an individual you
know they sort of give off the little
dance and I don’t know if it’s pheromone
related as well and they just literally
attack and even I’ve heard stories of
kids being attacked and they went and
jumped in the farm damn they swarm above
the dam and as soon as the guys come up
they start stinging them again so it can
be I’m sure quite scary in that kind of
being attacked I think in America I
think the the African honeybees is
actually might be way over there and I
call our African honeybees killer bees
if I’m not mistaken and they are exotic
I think you also do get some other
killer bees but the the African honeybee
honor is also termed that in America but
obviously it does have devastating
effects on on some of the other bees
because they don’t have well they’re
bigger they’re more aggressive and so
even on a small scale we have these
exotic alien invaders you know where
they normally naturally occur they
perfect and I’ve got the Predators and
is their balance and but when you
introduce them to other areas I’m sure
it would have been because of the honey
and the very good wax that they make as
well you know you start getting all
sorts of problems because you’ve upset
the balance and then you don’t have
natural predators etc so I think they’re
getting a little bit out of handy but
that’s something interesting so wasps
paper wasps as well it can be quite
scary when they’ve get these swarms of
or you know nests of paper wasps and
they also get quite big they’re brown
and you can get you know from 50 to 50
of them on a little nest I remember we
were fishing one day on this school best
like South of Gehenna
mr. Radha bikes down name and the water
is crystal clear and it’s an old man
quarry and water crystal clear so we
used to stand up on the on the cliffs
and we could see these massive best but
he’s swimming past and so is to lob our
plastic worms at him and while we were
fishing one day two of us next to each
other and these swarms of wasps came out
from underneath the cliff and we both
got stung and my friend he he ran and
jumped on his bark and ran
I jumped through the swarm into the into
the dam and they they chased him on his
bicycle and they kept stinging him I
could hear him going all the way up the
hill screaming this in the water they
left me alone and they went off to him
he was literally the bait and then I
carried on fishing anyway it was quite
dangerous but also quite funny
in hindsight now I’m gonna carry on
searching but let’s head on back to the
ever-present lions some activities are
taking place there has been some little
bit of development as one of these
lionesses led us to a caucus you can see
now she’s trying to feed this lion
we are watching now is not the one we
have seen earlier the one we have seen
earlier moved up north this is the
second one which was hiding by the time
we had the initial sighting so it’s just
two of them it means they assisted each
yeah the Lions they have got to eat
quite a lot because you know they don’t
eat every day
so they’re going to eat now and they
will spend about four to six days
without the next meal until the whole
digestive system takes place and eat
everything so the Predators for them to
go and hunt and they must have to be
motivated by they must have to be
motivated by hunger if they are not
hungry
they don’t really worry much about
the only thing here is disloyal crashing
and then put very strong Chi there you
can see now listen to that you can hear
that lion crushing balls that was too
so these lions are going to be eating
here and they will eat a lot of programs
listen to the surfer their stomachs they
are going to get full very easily
because when they’re eating they eat and
they also take some of the bones in
there
so in terms of the wage they can be able
to eat now and consume up to 40 /
approximately 40 kilograms that is a lot
yes yes Tony and that is true because I
saw the other female that we saw earlier
we saw a little bit of a sign of a blood
on on her as she was moving result that
Lions when they catch they just got
blood everywhere but they’ve got a
strategy in order to get rid of the
blood you will see the leak their legs a
lot when they are letting the legs they
are trying to take off all the DT and
all the blood from the legs as if they
don’t do that that is going to spoil the
chances of them taking down the next
prey because all these armors they will
yeah let’s say go to Ralph and see what
I’ve got the trees blowing in the wind
and I’ve now decided to come up towards
quarantine which is right near to our
camp but very often at this time of the
evening you can have the Valda biased
and the zebra and Impala oh there’s all
sorts of lots of eyes I think Megan is
trying to tell me something but I’m not
quite getting it okay well there we are
it’s not important let’s go and have a
look here
so lots of eyes on quarantine I know
it’s all antelope and son so I won’t be
putting a lot on them I think we are
going to probably change into infrared
light now because then we’ll be able to
look and see what these animals are so
there we go we’re into infrared which is
the night vision and then once I get a
little bit closer here we can just have
a look I think there’s lots of Impala
there might be some Valle de beast and
lots of Impala here so let’s just stop
here on quarantine and have a little
listen as well it’s a good idea let’s
so you getting a picture that is quite a
lot different to what we actually see
with the naked eye Vegas is just trying
to you know it’s not actually popping on
so the light itself is not working is
that it rage okay so we just into
black-and-white in everyone not extent
infrared okay so we’re gonna try and
work this infrared art in our technology
it’s great when it works and rubbish
when it doesn’t so it seems like Sydney
at least has in has his infrared wood
yeah now we have got another neurones
coming to join for the dinner so they
are all helping each other in order to
have something now there’s quite a
little bit of competition taking place
this is what is called the intraspecific
competition when the animals of the same
species challenging each other for the
same food source but it seems like these
two got a very good combination because
there has not been any sign of
aggression by the one which got there
so these liens they have not been
intimidated by the scavengers here
because they were all very far away from
this caucus the distance between the
caucus and where they were it was maybe
approximately 250 meters so you can see
that they were not bothered by any of
this courageous it was quite interesting
to see that yeah I’m not too sure what
this caucus which from which animal this
caucus is yeah I can just see the a
little bit of some hooves but not clear
yeah it has been quite a very great
afternoon with a lot of cats and other
activities taking place and thank you
very very much for all your comments and
your questions until tomorrow morning let’s meet tomorrow at 6 o’clock
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