WildEarth - Sunrise - 11 December 2020

[Music] so um so so [Music] um [Music] [Music] um this program features live coverage of an african safari and may include animal kills and carcasses viewer discretion is advised good morning everybody and a very warm welcome to you all from wherever you'll be watching what we have here is a motherliness and two cubs good morning everybody so plans for this morning is we heard lions that were calling west of camp this morning so i headed out and this is where we kind of left these three last night full baileys didn't think they were going to be going too far we heard a couple of impalas alarm calling so we came up and followed here but welcome to wild earth everybody and welcome to your very own live safari from the african bush [Music] which [Music] welcome to end beyond gala everybody and what an amazing start this is i mean the sun has just risen the birds are all calling lions are moving around and playing what an amazing start and this mother actually try and move back a little bit she's gonna just move behind us this mother is incredible she's doing an awesome job good morning everybody my name is dan i'll be your guide for the day and on the camera we've got bk and i was hoping to find lions this morning with lots of calling we heard of west of camp she's also been calling pretty frequently as well and it is still nice and cool look at the little one with the big log in its mouth trying to show mom how strong it is and i wonder i mean the calls that we heard initially i'm sure it was from that male that we were with last night or maybe his brother calling still further west of where we are and she has been replying actually to him not terribly loudly but still loud enough to carry her at least a few kilometers and if he would want to come and find her he would be able to very easily but it doesn't look like that's her plan i mean if she really wanted she just be able to get up and take her cubs towards him have a look at that full belly still from yesterday i mean they've got no reason to move around this morning or move too far from last night they are still in an open area they must have been pestered by impalas and zebras and volubias last night with their alarm calls but it seems that they're not too disturbed or too fussed about it actually that little one the brother i mean he's slightly lighter and he's got quite a bit of a bigger head he's a male and a female the two little cubs this is the young male i don't know if he just saw his sister playing with that log and got a little bit jealous and decided that he wants to play with the log now particularly after she lost interest in it let me move is he gonna bring it this side or am i gonna need to reverse a bit to show you this let's see if i'm going to reverse just a tad that seems a bit better now we can kind of see if you might turn around and play with that log some more have a look how the light is illuminating the grass and how these lines are just lying down there taking it very easy very content in fact full bellies not a worry in the world for now nice and open look at these two they're super cute i wonder if they're not gonna play for us a little bit more this morning particularly conserving all their energy last night there's a little one just watching her mom's also keeping that ever watchful protective eye over them so i'm gonna spend a little bit more time here um try and see if we can't hear other lions calling a little bit further away in which case we're going to head towards them but in the meantime i'm going to send you to tristan who's also found some lines this morning well we do have a lioness that is busy watching a whole bunch of impalas and of wildebeest it seems as though quarantine is the place to be today um it seems as though there is a lot going on and i'll tell you why in a short little bit before we get into all of that let me say hello and tell you who i am and what is going on this part of the world my name is tristan on camera i've got johan and like i said it's a very warm welcome to juma this morning and this particular open area for those of you that don't know is called quarantine and like i say it is the place to be this morning this morning we have three different predators on this particular clearing so we have the lioness there's tengana who is probably about 300 meters 400 meters to the south of where she is and then there's a whole bunch of hyenas that are milling about as well so there's a lot happening on quarantine this morning at this stage she doesn't know about tingana and tangana doesn't know about her and they're far enough apart to not be in visual range they're both kind of hugging the the edge thicket of the clearing on the western side um and kind of watching out over quarantine now this lioness is particularly watching these baby wildebeest and impala lambs but it's going to be very very difficult for her to get anywhere near them and that's purely based of the fact that they are sitting in the most open parts of quarantine and so for her to get anywhere close to the 60 odd impala and a whole bunch of wildebeest is going to be very very very tricky she potentially is going to be spotted quite easily now i haven't had a good enough look at her to be honest with you as to recognize which female it is just yet i haven't even looked at my binaries um and i didn't want to go too close because um i didn't want to get between her and the potential prey items that are around as well as looks like the nikktia line is doesn't it from the kuma pride that's what it looks like i might be wrong a lot of you will know the lines a lot bits i haven't seen the inquiry pride in so long i don't think i can even remember any of them but it looks like her it certainly doesn't look like the shimonga line is it's got those little nicks in the ears a little scar on the right side of the face and the eye color it looks very much like that in kahuma um i don't see any sign of other lines so we'll just have to kind of get a little closer just now and have a proper proper look at her but i think that's who it is at this stage i know the incohumas were on arithusa yesterday um so they were kind of off not too far from from the age of juma so it makes sense if they're around and kind of milling about apparently yesterday they were all over the place and there was varying kind of groups of the humans spread out over the sort of western parts of arathusa so let's see what happens i'll i'll like i say reposition just now and try and see if we can see a little bit better in the meantime let's send you across to trish so she can say good morning such an exciting start to the morning i bought a leopard and a lioness on quarantine and all of those antelope oh could be a tense morning here we're at treehouse damn with a couple birds to chat about and my name is trishala and i have theo on camera with me this very wonderfully pleasant morning on jimmy game reserve in the starby sands gorgeous temperature not even a needed for a jacket or anything like that it's lovely but of course that means that it's going to get much warmer as the day progresses at the dam it's a little bit calmer than things up at quarantine and we have a gray heron as well as a hammer cop they're looking for for breakfast the hammer cops been a slightly more successful than the heron this morning and caught a tiny little fish oh look at that [Music] and that's one all here at treehouse dam for the two birds that are both looking for the same things both of them are after some fish frogs little creatures that will be living in the dam or around the dam arthropods those include insects and crustaceans but they won't be able to take the terrapins they're also swimming about some gorgeous sounds here the woodland kingfisher you'll find that birds are vocal a lot earlier in the summer because the ground gets heated up much quicker and the air heats up much quicker as the air heats up you get you get kind of pockets of turbulence ah oh wow everyone's very successful this morning and those pockets of turbulence can disrupt their bird song so they start singing a lot earlier susan you say it's so peaceful archer isn't it just gorgeous susan oh heron looks like it's got its eye on something again it's 2-1 to the hammer cop at the moment oh gets hit look at that focus still trying to eye out a meal there's a woodland kingfisher in the tree just there as well that keeps tucking down good morning pretty the feathers are so so striking just as stunning all right well this was a lovely peaceful time at the dam and we got to see some successful hunts going on here but let's send you back over to tristan on quarantine where there is a lot of excitement well it's not the nikki headliners from the ecommerce so i've had a nice long look with binos but it is definitely one of the incumbent younger lionesses i'm not 100 sure which one but it's she's from the incumbent pride um i think think and i might i stand under correction here that it could be one of ridge noses original cubs but difficult to see now you see she's backing off a little bit out of the clearing and the reason for that is because the impalas on our left hand side at the moment are coming closer and so as they start to come closer so the likelihood of them seeing her is is really high and so what she's doing is she's retreating slightly into the thicket so that she's going to be well hidden so that as these impalas and wildebeest start approaching they're not going to find her right on the clearing and then what you're going to find is as they start to get hot because it's going to be a very warm day today hotter than it was yesterday they're going to start pushing into these thicker denser areas in order to try and get out of the heat and that's going to play right into her hands if she's lying in a dense thicket you know it's going to be very difficult for anything to see her as opposed to being out on the open clearing where everything is walking kind of and can spot her very very easily so i'm pretty sure that's why we've seen a sort of tactical retreat if you want to call it that is she just gets up she moves behind some trees and some vegetation but from there she'll still be able to watch what's going on and she's going to hope that slowly but surely these animals get close and the time that we've been sitting here i reckon um the impalas have probably moved maybe about 20 meters closer to us the wildebeest haven't moved at all but um the impalas definitely have and it's starting to get a lot warmer now so it doesn't surprise me that we're starting to see these animals shifting off of quarantine and starting to head into at least a bit of semblance of cover but what that means is that i'm pretty much in the way at the moment because those animals are going to move in my direction which i don't want to be so i'm going to try and move and get around her to the back side of her it's always much better to be on the back end of the lioness rather than between prey and predator obviously we're trying not to influence anything that's going on okay well we're going to do that in the meantime though we're going to send you down to kyle um see what he's up to this morning after such a spectacular into the day yesterday good morning and welcome to swally kalahari and this is the way i like to start the safari in the morning doing a little early morning birding and what a fantastic bird we have in view here this is a ground scraper thrush very nice bird to see very active at this moment very active forager see it flicking out moving vegetation very warm welcome good morning my name is kyle behind camera is owen and uh thank you very much for joining us on this fantastic morning last calls of the white broad sparrow weaver obviously sharp harsh jumbled notes and what a nice way to start off this morning's game drive very nice bird to see there's ground scraper thrasher there's ground scraper thrush yes it is and it's actually a pair you normally find them in in small pairs like this small groups just like this oh just trying to rotate there for us very nice bird to see and very distinctive markings you take a look at the one busy foraging you'd see a very distinctive line through the eye and that heavily streaked or blotched breast and tummy uniform gunmetal dark gunmetal grey dorsal section or back section of the bird very very distinctive fantastic bird to see black cuckoo musical in the background dawn course just starting to to lift off please follow our young earth warriors please if you want to communicate with us any questions or comments please feel free to do so and for all our young earth warriors that would be kids questions at wilders.tv sorry i got a little bit lost here in the birding and then for everybody else it's just a hashtag wild earth or at fc and don't forget that exciting and new initiative if you feel like you want to get really involved please go and check out wild earth dot tv forward slash explorer so it could be feeding on little ant nestle or termite-ness more than likely an ant nest it's continuously pecking at the ground yeah yeah definitely picking up ants or termites oh we're gonna enjoy a little bit more of this and we'll see when you guys get back to the side [Music] an ever-increasing part of the global population is losing its connection with nature wild earth is here to reduce people's stress and anxiety allowing you to escape into nature even just for a few hours a day however wild earth is expensive to run and we need help from you to keep this ship going wild earth explorers gives you the opportunity to be part of a program that supports the sharing of nature with the world jumbo my name is isaac rotic i come live to you every day from the mata triangle in kenya east africa i think the most underrated animal here where we are is the spotted hyena and the main reason is people 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subscribe don't miss out this fireside chat will be on the 13th of december at 7 30 pm central african time straight after sunset safari well as you can see there is a lioness that is much closer to these wildebeest impalas the whole incumbent pride is here at first it was just the one but we're slowly but surely seeing one here and there and lying under bushes all over the place so the rest of the pride is coming behind us i think or is it tingana that's coming behind us i don't know there's something coming from behind at this stage um we've got two lionesses that are lying kind of off to the left of where we seated now and then one line is that's up there um i can't see where the rest of it i'm trying to see behind us what's coming our way i might reposition a little bit just in case it is tingana um obviously if it's him i don't want to be between him and the lions just so that he has an opportunity to be able to see what's going on so let's just move slightly so that we are out of his way and out of everybody else's way as well it is tingana he's going to walk straight into these lines he's right here on our left hand side which is not ideal at all um so hopefully he's going to spot one of these lionesses before he gets close because these lions are lying right under a bush next to the road and they flat you can't see them at all you need to pay attention how crazy is this though that we've managed to get lions and leopard in the same place and i always hate these kind of situations they're never the ones that you want to see because things can go very badly here and very quickly um so i'm hoping that the two lionesses that are sleeping i'm not going to notice him but if he walks along the road he's going to get himself into trouble there we go i think he spotted them which is within time let's see what's going to happen now i mean he's an old experienced male 90 now the problem is is that his biggest safety point is the marula he's about to pass now there's a big tree behind him there we go i think he's spotted them now he's got to be very very careful here like i say his only safety point is that tree behind him where we are right now there's nowhere else for him to be able to go and he's going to have to spot the lions before they spot him because if they spot him first and he doesn't pick them up it could end very very badly and even though he's a big male leopard these lionesses are way larger than what he is wanting to give you an idea how close the lionesses are where he's standing now about 15 to 20 meters in front of him on the left side of the road is where the two lionesses are so you see there's going to be a bush and a little shady thicket that's where they're lying so if i use the antenna of my radio is right there no don't go in there tingana i don't even know what to say right now because he's way too close and he's not paying attention the right direction so the lioness that's further away is not the problem here it's the one that he's about to walk into right now you see he's seen them now there we go he's running he's going to go straight to the merula i'm sure the lions are going to chase him there he goes he goes up and here come the lionesses look they're going to chase after him oh tinky you're going to have to go a lot faster than that see you've got upper trees somewhere let's try and get through all of this which is not easy it's not a very easy place i see the lions in front i think he managed to see them quick enough oh there he is he's up the tree there we go okay all good singana you're going to give me heart attack so i don't need it so early in my life yeah the lines are on top of the termite mound and tingana is firmly placed up in the tree which is crazy i'm going to try and just get into a position here where we'll be able to line them up so that you can actually go from one to the other which will be pretty cool so if you have a look there you can go from leopard in the background to lion in the foreground which is absolutely ridiculous in every way shape and form you can just see his silhouette in the tree behind her at the moment um so that's where he is he's like i say he's up a tree you'll be fine up there so no worries for him the lionesses while they can climb that tree um that's going to be probably too kind of flimsy a lot of those branches for them to actually get to him and there's no kill so there's no real risk for these lions to be able to to kind of chase um that leap at the tree and try and kind of injure themselves by going up there but i'm glad tangana managed to spot those lines before they spotted him because he was walking straight into them at one point which is not an ideal situation at all um i'm sure a lot of you like me had kind of heart in their mouths and felt like your heart kind of beating out of your chest at one point there alex not that i've ever heard of um these guys don't like each other at all um i've never seen lions or leopards work together consciously to get food what i have seen is many many times one chasing something and that then leads the other one making a kill um so you might find something like lions chase these wildebeest and then the wildebeest run into thicket and the baby wildebeest gets caught by a leopard or something like that that happens um but what you don't see a lot of um is well you won't see i haven't never even heard of it is them cooperatively hunting so helping each other um remember that predators see each other as competition they don't see each other as friend so they know one is that they're dangerous to their own offspring to have predators around too it's not a good situation to have [Music] a cat that eats your resources so it also eats meat and so that's why they just don't tolerate each other at all there's never really been a recorded case of cooperative hunting what there has been though which is interesting and i don't think any of them have ever survived i certainly have never heard of it but there has been adoption of leopard cubs by lions and so lionesses that have litters of cubs that have sometimes adopted a little leopard cub and there's a leopard cup suckling from a lion that i've heard of a few times but never actually seen those um able to to kind of grow and become adult leopards within a lion's structure so i'm not sure if there's maybe something within the nutrition that they get or the way that the lionesses try and look after them that leads to them dying or when the lionesses start to realize hang on they look different and kill them i don't know kind of how that plays out um it's one of those things that we often kind of see not often but you do see pictures of these leopards sucking from lions but you never really see it progress from there so i suspect that the lioness eventually realizes hang on a second this is not from my pride and this is not what it's supposed to look like and um either it gets killed by other members of the pride or maybe you know that's maybe probably more likely what happens is that she introduces it to the pride and the other members see leopard and not little baby and don't have their mom blinkers on um and end up killing the kaaba i mean i don't know no one's actually documented what happens to those little clubs when um when they are when they start to develop with the mom but isn't that just the most insane thing to see like i say lying in the foreground and lipid in the background it's one of those things that you don't see very often at all and they not really no i mean they hunting will take first preference but they've got to assert themselves and and make sure that they just send a clear message that they are in charge of what's going on um so you'll find that they will chase a leopard and they'll make sure that they kind of um it's kind of intimidate that animal as much as possible but you can see now this lioness in the foreground um so the one that is kind of sitting here she's not going to be kind of worried too much at all she's hard even facing tingana anymore mostly she's just having a bit of a nap and you can see your eyes closing in in the afternoon in the morning sunshine um so what does happen a lot of the time is when they chase these leopards is that they end up lying down and then they kind of basically um keep that leopard up the tree because they lie right next to it and what happens is the leopard will sit up there and wait and wait and wait and once it sees the lioness is completely flat and sleeping then they try and sneak down and run away as quick as possible before the lionesses can notice that they have gone but sometimes that can be an all-day thing i have seen leopards stuck up trees all day long with lions sleeping underneath so it can be a long long long morning for tigana but hopefully what's going to happen is these lions are going to move off and allow him the chance to come down in kahunas you haven't been here for ages but you come back with a vengeance don't you hmm i'm glad though that they didn't grab thing on i was kind of hoping that was not what i wanted at all it would have been a very very disturbing thing to witness um they've been being taken by lions it's not a pleasant thing um and it does happen i've there's been a lot of lines that even um at tengan's experience level um have been taken um by i mean a lot of leopards have said that of his experience level have been taken by lions good that it's all worked out and he's managed to somehow evade them luckily luckily luckily he spotted them because if he hadn't spotted them he was going to be in big trouble he would have walked straight into those lionesses it just goes to show you how perceptive they are um i think what happened there is he actually saw the first lioness which is the one right in the open clearing and then he thought to himself now i need to get away from her and he was going to cut into the bush and play it casual and just walk through the thickets around her um but obviously there were the other two like i said that were in there shame boy been a long time since we've he's had to climb a tree um for anything other than food and to pull for from somebody else so this is a different experience for him at this stage i'm sure the lionesses are just milling around underneath the tree at the moment today after they're doing too much else they won't really um climb that tree if there's no food up there a lot of you would think that they'd go up to try and fight with them up there but they're not as agile so if there's no carcass up there they're not going to go up for anything or for any reason and they'll rather just sit at the bottom and just watch him eventually they'll get bored of of his kind of sleeping up there and they'll move off and either rejoin the rest of the pride or they'll kind of you know go for hunting or find a shady spot to sleep and that'll be the gap for him to get out and and to move off and once he does come down he's going to run and he'll run far he's not going to stay anywhere near here which is a bit of a pity because he was starting to get into a little pattern where he was coming to quarantine hunting and then back to the dam overnight for all of you to watch on the dam cam um and then kind of going off and back again so it's a pity that that's going to be um ruined a little bit but at the end of the day it's also nice to see the incredible pride around once again all right so we'll carry on sitting here we'll see what happens and how it plays out and whether the rest of the pride arrives or what goes on in the meantime though let's send you across good morning and welcome to and beyond punder private game reserve we've just come across this lioness with two relatively young cubs really really beautiful starting here it's really really nice weather nice and cool this morning and these young cubs have just shown some interest in something i'm not too sure what it was and they had the eye on a dove earlier and at this stage they're obviously not taking part in any hunts but they are showing interest in maybe birds and and and small little animals just to practice their hunting techniques for now but i'm pete and behind the camera we have glenn and this morning we've got quite an exciting lineup for you really nice weather so hopefully the animals are quite active for a little bit longer the one cup has just gone behind a bushnell she seems to be just taking rest now knows that nice black cotton soil it's really nice and and soft soil and usually in in summer when there's a lot of rain around this is actually a water hole and where will be a lot of animals attracted to here you can almost you can all you can see even all the little footprints all over the place where um elephants would have made indentations rhinos anything that's got quite a bit of weight behind it that line is just got to hit up scanning around so clean just hits me now i know jc i heard you guys have been spoiled this morning from in terms of lions um really nice weather around i'm not too sure how it is um at other places but whenever it's overcast like this lines tend to be a little bit more active and for active for a little bit longer throughout the day look there's that pigeon i don't know if again can zoom in that close um but just to the right of that young cub and it seems like he's got his head down now um there you go getting up going behind the bush so this young cub is off obviously just taking notes from the mom seen her in action before how she hunts using a little bit of the scars and it'll be really really interesting to see if this young cub does try and catch that dove i think he's lost a little bit of interest as the dove goes behind the the bush now he does still have his eyes on it though there you go he's giving up going back to his sibling if mine changed his mind again that other sibling as well as that other young cub has just crashed down on his haunches there as well keeping an eye on what the brother is doing thinking should i join them [Music] but also that soil looks so nice and comfortable i think she's decided just to to lobby and watch what happens here [Music] that pigeon's getting really nice and close actually a ring neck dove that dove doesn't actually show too much interest in the cub probably knows that it can escape a lot quicker than that young cup oh there we go i just missed it half-hearted attempt there um but not too bad for young cub oh there you go some playfulness saying don't worry you'll get them next time it's lovely to see this little bit of energy from from these young cubs you can tell even from this young age they've got a really close bond everywhere the one goes the other will go as well and they won't ever be separated too far there you go he's going again ah and once again no luck look at them stalking each other now one's just hiding behind the bush there there we go sharing a bit of love might notice us now as the ones walking a little uh towards us that's that's the young male cub and he's slightly bigger than in the female that's behind him there from a young age he would have dominated when when suckling and also now when they've started to eat a little bit of meat as well he would eat it slightly more than than his sister and that's the reason for that weight difference and size difference mom's just got up now started grooming yourself nice big stretch now oh she got a bit of a frog from her cubsie really nice to see all this playfulness here and see the bond between them is really really close as well but usually when the mother plays the cubs it's not for a very long time she just gives him a bit of attention and then she gets back to the serious business a little bit of a toilet break now but if you look carefully while she's walking there you can see all those that definition in her arms and in her back she's really really strong and this lioness is in the prime of her love and this is a first letter so she's doing really really well here um very playful you can still see that she's quite youthful still really really awesome to see them playing like this but i hear tristan um is going to show you guys a bit of a leopard line interaction there and we'll stick around here for a while and hopefully you see just now as you can see not much has changed here tengana is staring out because the impalas behind us are going absolutely crazy which means i'm pretty sure they've spotted those lines um so he's watching in the distance there you can see he's got quite a intense look on his face he's had a tough morning as tingana life is not always easy aren't ya for any animal you would think that a leopard would have it easier than maybe some other creatures but that is not the case you'll find that they on their day can also have tough ones uh just like we do and i mean this morning he's been chased by aeneas he's been chased by lions it's been a rough morning for the duke but luckily he's an experienced fella so he knows exactly what goes on and how to get himself out of things and and able to kind of deal with certain situations and it makes you think how many times has this happened to him in his life um a lot it's probably more than we even realized um we know we've seen multiple different leopards chased by lions in the past but including him um but it's never never something that you kind of breathe easy about because things can go horribly wrong very very very quickly um the last kind of incident i remember well in this area of lions getting hold of a leopard was and to do with the kind of leopards we follow was one of tandy's cubs that was taken by the styx pride a horrible horrible horrible sighting that and the footage and videos and photos are not very pleasant at all um and he just unfortunately slipped slightly as he was trying to get up the tree and they grabbed him by the tail and kind of pulled him out and yanked him out of the tree and then sort of systematically killed him much like they would if they were in a kind of fight with um with another pride of lions so it was a an easy thing to watch that and and that's what you never want to see so kind of when he was approaching that i was just hoping that we weren't going to get an incident of that ilk it's not funny when that happens at all you know james i'm i suspect that he's not thrilled at all it's it's like when you have those days where you wake up and everything just starts to go wrong you kind of get out of bed and stub your toe then you spill your coffee or your tea then you kind of go out and there's traffic and then you kind of have maybe a car accident that's the kind of morning um tengan is having at this stage so i'm not surprised he's not looking chuffed with life um it's it's not the kind of start to one's day and that you would want to be like i say chased by hyenas first and then having to be treated by lions when you just want to go on your morning stroll and go and get yourself an impala lamb for breakfast um things didn't quite work out that way today tinky but that's okay he's survived so um he's he'll settle down and when to be so grumpy um by the by this afternoon and i don't think the lions are going to stick around um too close to where he is i suspect what we're going to see is that they're going to um get hot and they're going to go try find some shade and then he'll be able to get down and go and do his own thing and find somewhere peaceful where everyone will leave him alone problem is because it's going to be very very hot today i would be surprised that there's going to be a lot of elephants which are going to disturb him at some point today as well so he's got lots to look forward to um i think it's going to be a long day for eating but at least the sun will come up again for him and he's managed to avoid um any sort of negative thing with these lines and at least you didn't have to get into confrontation i i at one point they thought that we were going to have a big problem because i actually thought the lines were slightly closer than they were kind of misjudged that the trees i couldn't remember exactly which tree they were under but i thought they were it's been a few meters of him and luckily they weren't there's you know there's a good kind of ten meters between the two between the two parties and that allowed him to get away and and because he made the break before they did so he started to run before they did and he had that little bit of a head start and that allowed him to get up into a tree but did you see how interesting it was he went straight past the first marula and that first marine is an interesting tree because it's kind of got a long big straight stem but it's got very thick branches um on top which would be branches that would be easily able to support the weight of a lioness whereas he's gone up a smaller tree now which has got much thinner more narrow more intertwined branches and i wonder if part of his kind of escape was just to get up something that is going to be harder for these lionesses to get up um i don't know i mean obviously in the moment i suppose it's all reactionary rather than calculated but it would be interesting if that's the case that's why he bypassed that first bruiser to get to the smaller more kind of um i would say irritating marula void line to try and kind of climb um it could be very difficult for a lioness to get up to that whereas the ruler behind us um would be a lot easier so maybe that's what it happened or maybe it was just coincidence and he just ran for his life and tried to climb a tree or conjecture really um we won't ever fully understand why he chose which tree he did but you can see how he's watching he's just staring in the direction of those lines i don't know what happened to the other two that were here they went over the mound and i can't see any sign of them it's not like they're milling about right at the bottom of the tree um but they must be here somewhere that he's still in the tree itself because he wouldn't be in the tree if he couldn't see the lines he would be down and away um but there must be somewhere nearby although he he keeps just staring to where the impalas were alarm calling he's not looking anywhere else and where those lines are i can see the other vehicle is with the lines at the moment it's far enough that he could escape without anyone worrying him i don't know i feel like he needs to find a spot and just fall asleep because he's not going to be going anywhere anytime soon at this stage and standing like that surely you can't be that comfortable i'm very in lions not so much but in in leopards very much so their food preferences do change and so what you'll find is as they start off in their life they start off on very small things so they lizards birds small mice as cubs they they play and they try and catch things so that constitutes the sort of start of their diet as they start to get older and physically more capable so they then start to escalate into other prey animals and they'll then be able to start getting things like the likes of imparters and so forth and you'll find it's very dependent on the area that they that they live in as to what their kind of preferred food item is but then as they start to get older they start to slow down a little bit it's you know sketching speedy things becomes a lot harder you start to see them almost regressing slightly so they'll target slow-moving animals like porcupines odd fox civets those kinds of things and then on top of it they'll start to kind of catch birds and um and try and kind of scavenge off other leopards quite a bit as well so they kind of start to almost go back into a youthful phase where um they try and catch smaller things rather than the larger stuff which you'll see often with old male lipids particularly porcupines and civets become something that they they start to really eat a lot of um and a lot of them actually it's kind of the beginning of the end for them because when they start to do that um they expose themselves heavily to all kinds of issues um so eating porcupines is not a not a clever thing for an old leopard if you get cool stuck in you that can lead to infections which can be fatal to them so um and desperation as they get hungry and and becomes harder to hunt it makes life very difficult and then they take more risk uh than they probably would have but tengana's not in that bracket year to use still very fit and healthy and even though he's eating the old porcupine and service here and there it's still not constituting the majority of his diet so he's absolutely fine and we saw him killing pilot down the other day so he's still got what it takes to survive as an adult [Music] well welcome to your few minutes of pure bliss here on swallow kalahari what a beautiful scene to do that [Music] uh [Music] uh oh what an enriching experience and how beautiful of a scene to be looking at very active you can hear little chicks calling and parents obviously hard at work to ensure the safety of feasible individuals [Music] welcome back to and beyond pinder everyone and these lines have stopped playing a little bit and mom has kind of focused her attention on something that's up on the water it will close the water hole just on the horizon can't quite see what it is we've tried it under with our binoculars but unable to see but their sites are so amazing they pick up the slightest movements we have seen some impala just up ahead and but they are quite far far away and i'll be very surprised if if she made any attempt with that see she's just looking around the cubs are now playing together and just behind that green bush there you can see that close bond that i was speaking about earlier mom's away but they still together there and and that would have been the case from from a very very young age you can see mama's just keeping a careful eye on them making sure that they're not causing too much trouble there's now a warthog that's just got to the water hole above on the horizon she's got her eyes on that and in this area this pride is uh they almost specialize hunters of warthog warthog is probably one of the most common species found in this area and they really really are good at hunting waters as we saw yesterday see that water is just trotting around and there's a little bit of mud there and now this lioness has got her ears pricked straight forward towards that warthog she's got her eyes dead set on it that warthog is also in quite a nice position she's got a lot of space in between but it is she's coming from a low level up to a high level there's a lot of cover in between if you go back down towards where the cubs are they're looking at mom they must have seen the water gazelle and looking at her thinking is she going to take this opportunity she seems to not be too interested now looked around she might also just be looking to see if there are any other um prey species around that that might alarm call if she had to start moving towards that warthog if impala or jala saw her they would start barking at her and and that would just alert the warthog that there is a predator around and the water would then run off so we're going to stick a little while and doesn't seem like she's moving just yet but i've heard that carl has a bird in a tree which will be quite interesting well welcome back so another bird we haven't had the luxury of seeing and there's three of them just taking it easy on this fairly cool morning doing a little early morning preening session realigning all those feathers pre-flight checks basically going on here this is a bird called the speckled pigeon and fairly easy to recognize if you look very close you're going to see this beautiful red eye ring based in cases the eye you're going to have this light pinkish throat and then those prominent speckle like more speckle like patterning those little white spots running down the wing very beautiful bird to see but that red o-ring in those white speckles being very distinctive to id the species fairly large dove species or referred to as a pigeon crowned left wings busy crawling around us very beautiful sounds going on and there's a goal for the day and on golf and forage these guys predominantly feed on seeds but then also they'll utilize the green shoots that are available at this given period see that the cores of the lap wings have got their attention as well now so even birds use other birds to pick up on predators because if a bird gets an alarm call that means that there's something that everybody should be wary of and so birds actually use each other mike good morning what is the difference between a dove and a pigeon well a pigeon would be a larger species and a dove would be a smaller um by my knowledge doves are a versions of pigeons pigeons are quite large chunky individuals so if you look at this individual this individual would be at about 300 to about 350 grams and then in comparison to the um ring-necked dove that we've been looking at quite a lot the ring neck dub is only about 150 grams so it's quite a large size difference in terms of body mass so your larger species pigeons and then your smaller ones doves very very beautiful birds but i just want to get owen's attention and let's just take a look at this wonderful scene we've got going here on the right inside and i mean it is spectacular you see that how the light affects this place is quite remarkable and just look at the backdrop that we are that we're enjoying here can see all the spider webs being illuminated from the sun when the birds go into the nest you can see debris falling down and just almost like snowflakes coming down there's a few insects making their way across the nest and obviously just the sheer beauty of the birds going into the nest is just remarkable bits of the green that's just to illuminate on the tree and in the dark basically shadow being casted from that of the sun being behind it of the tree this is a very beautiful scene so a lot of babies would be in these nests now so like i've mentioned before 20 mils and above these birds actively start breeding and obviously now the rainy period being in summer these birds do actively breed in a summer period and that high pitched call that you can hear in the background those are the chicks busy whining and begging for food the next couple of weeks the parents will actually when the fledgling is ready to leave the nest the parents will actually task the little ones out they will sit on a branch with a food item to basically lure this young individual out it's very very it's very nice of the parents to kind of not give them a push over the ledge or push out the nest but obviously those little chicks now become a viable food source for a lot of predators from birds to reptiles small mammals and that is all obviously an effect if you don't have that predation you would have these social weavers you know reaching exponential population proportional size so the role that predators play along with these individuals is very very fine balance sure that is just amazing a lot of spider webs in the background there more than likely by spiders it could also be by caterpillars a lot of caterpillars oh ah ah very distinctive call and somebody and some a call that people really dislike especially around the city areas of johannesburg very distinctive call at 4 30 in the morning to wake everybody up and that is just magic so now with the abundance of insects this is what they'll be feeding these little chicks obviously protein is a very very solid substance to be feeding a developing individual there's nothing better than and that's all the insect activity is also being utilized by these intermediate role players [Music] and if you take a look at the bottom right left hand corner of this nest we're gonna send you off to i think it's pete and some thirsty lions good morning and welcome back to and beyond pinder these two cubs have just come across this waterhole and after all that playfulness they've just become a little bit thirsty i don't know if you heard that but mom's just been calling them now she's summoning them to to follow her and but this one covers still a little bit thirsty that that little reaction is really beautiful if you look to our right now there's a a big buffalo bill approaching them this cover hasn't just hasn't seen it just yet um but i'm sure as soon as he does notice the buffalo you'll run as fast as possible i'm sure if these buffalo had to come across these cubs without the mom around it would be quite a interesting story that would unfold i think the buffalo would chase these these cubs and and um i've read about it where it they can actually kill the cubs and and take them out because they are such a threat to buffalo but because this mom is by herself she's definitely not going to even attempt to show any interest in this buffalo here look at that buffalo and i was just noticing those lines walking away and not even really showing any interest in them really beautiful now you can see this whole herd slowly making their way towards this water hole i'm sure as they approach they might even surround the water completely and some of them might even get inside the water just to cool off a bit but as they're walking towards us you'll notice that most of the buffalo that are close to us now are are slightly older and and these buffalo are really an important part of the hood and they're called the pathfinders and they lead the hood out into the grazing areas they're the most experienced they know where to go and graze and then they also know where the water is so they'll be at the front and and all the rest will will be behind them not sure thank you for the question and asking about crocodiles in this waterhole this water is a little bit too small and it's quite shallow the other night we saw hippos in here and it's it's it's quite a shallow waterhole and and if if it's a really hot day it can even dry up so um there won't be crocodiles in here they tend to be in a water where there's there's almost permanent water they do move around a bit and but they like it with a bit bit more of a larger water body i'd get quite a fright if a crocodile did pop his head up right now though but look at that now beautiful all the horns are on there and got their heads down drinking and just like those cups they also got their eyes up and i think that's just out of habit usually when they're drinking they've got to be quite cautious they know that there might be other predators around and might be crocodiles like you mentioned but that's a really really nice scene there with all the different shapes of horns thanks anna maria it is quite a nice herd and they still keep coming and just over the horizon they just keep piling in here if we just keep quiet you can hear all this beautiful sounds and on the splashing water of them slurping let's just keep quiet for a little while and head [Music] they seem really really thirsty this morning and they've probably spent the night out in a in a nice big open field um and and had a little bit of grazing this morning and i'll come to the water hole and to have their morning drink and then they will head out again and and graze for the day and then probably return to the same water hole later this evening and it is the only water hole in the area and quite a dry area at the moment we haven't had that much rain yet this year so they all know this what's hot and so it's a really of an important part of their lives like i mentioned earlier look at them some of them have gone almost knee-deep inside this waterhole now linda so buffalo on and beyond pin day and do not migrate they are on nomadic so they'll roam around and follow where the grazing is so just this big buffalo bill just came and interrupted everyone gave them a bit of a fright but linda back to your question they they very nomadic so they will just follow around where the grazing is and where there's water they are incredibly water dependent um and if there's a drought they're the first animal to really really struggle then if you go just beyond this bull and there's a young female there with a tree stuck on their horns or sorry a branch rather stuck on their horns eh and often what they'll do is if they've got a little itch um on their ear or on their face somewhere they'll rub their face up against the tree and and that that looks like a small timber tree that she's been rubbing up against it's quite interesting you can see a bit of the tree left on their horns there and that greenish color that's just popping out there yeah there's some zebra coming from behind as well really really beautiful scene here the zebra looked nice and clean we had a little bit of rain last night so they look like they've just had a had a nice bath look as they're approaching the water hole they won't go and drink close to where the buffalo are they'll rather come and find their own little spot and and you see they'll they'll kind of keep away from the buffalo they respect their distance and now as that buffalo is approaching and they they're moving off slightly but uh here tristan has got those lines with with him again so we're going to send you off to tristan well as you can see that was where we were with tingana but we he's come down and disappeared and we have decided consciously not to follow him there goes my game drive radio uh sorry lions um we've consciously decided not to follow him purely based off the fact that he's had a rough morning already and us crashing in behind him he's only going to stress him out more and there's no really reason to do that we're not just here to um stress animals we're not trying to um you know increase their stress levels we rather want them to kind of see us in a positive light rather negative one and it just didn't feel right to follow him he's had a tough morning already um between being chased by all these different things and stressed out and just i think needs time for himself so rather than us crashing around and making him feel he's a bit jittery we decided we'd stay a little bit with the lions although it's only three members of the incumbent pride um i don't see any others i certainly haven't found any signs of other members here and i wonder if that's starting to be an indication of what might be happening within within the income is going forward and that pride is big it's it's way too big to survive here as it stands we don't have enough food availability in terms of big prey items to sustain prides that are 16 18 members if you include the the evokers um that's just it's it's too large they need a high percentage of buffalo in their diet or giraffe and we have very few of either of those in this area at the moment so i wouldn't be surprised we're going to end up with a split it's quite a common thing to happen within the lion prides within the sarby sands if you if you go back here you know to the incomers themselves and tortured telematies and kahuma's they all kind of originate from the same pride um look at them the salalah pride and how that splits into the salalah mangan's kambula pride and so that's gone through three splits so it happens regularly when the prides get too big and the lions have to split our tortured pride is split again now with the young individuals doing their own thing in the older lionesses on their own so i i wouldn't be surprised if we see a lot of the the sub adult lionesses from the 2016 litters i call them sub-adults because none of them have got cubs yet um but i wouldn't be surprised if we see those lionesses um leaving the older lionesses and going about doing their own thing it's quite a common thing for that to be the splits is when it's either a mother in her kind of offspring or it's the offspring of the pride during a certain time period that generally takes off and goes and does whatever it is that they want to do and then sets up their own little area and quite frankly it wouldn't be the worst thing for us because what would happen is we would probably find that incumbent now that they've shifted so much more south and west there is space here um albeit a little bit of space um for a small pride to exist so a pride of three adult females like this would actually be quite a nice size pride for this little section between the telematics torches and incomers and it would really kind of operate quite well across the juma sort of area the problem with that is that as much as you want lines to be around fairly regularly when you get an increase in line activity generally you get a massive decrease um in all other predator activities so you know we've been spoiled with wild dogs of late and and that's partly due to the fact that we're seeing so few lions on juma at the moment the dogs are having free reign around here they can run around and you see as soon as they have an incident with the lioness how the next day they're gone and so you find when there's a lot of lion activity dogs go down cheetah sightings will all but vanish and even your leopard sightings start to take a downturn um as animals try and avoid those areas where there's higher line activity precisely because of what we just saw this morning so as much as it would be nice to have a smaller pride operating on duma it will come with the cost but that's the way things are i mean it's it's life it's how the balance works um and it's why we kind of you know sits and observe and we start to learn over the years and for extended period of times um to be able to understand this urban flow that takes place all right well we'll sit for the lions for a little bit longer it's getting very warm so i don't think they're going to do too much but let's send you across to kyle i believe he's got something very interesting so the beautiful color that you are seeing from these two beetles there is one over there and there is one over there is not from actual pigment but it is the way that the structural components of the animal's body is structured and it is reflecting a certain wavelength off of the cuticles the tiny little pieces that make up the animal's body plan these are jewel beetles and jewel beetles hence them jewel they actually look like pieces of jewel and i mean it is absolutely stunning the color that is coming off of these little insects is remarkable so joby will come they come in a variety of sizes anywhere from two to about 50 millimeters so fairly large two millimeters up to about five centimeters in length that would be about yay big my finger next to them that's quite a large individual and they have these elongated body plans you can see over here it's quite an elongated structure and if you think about beetles beetles are very very diverse in terms of their body plan and the stuff that makes up the body plan the chitin obviously has allowed them to diversify and inhabit multiple environments across the globe also making them one of the most abundant in terms of species across the world there's about 380 000 described species of beetle and this body plan and as well as the stuff that makes up the body plan has given rise to the success these two individuals are just resting now obviously it's still a bit cool insects operate in a more warmer temperature range when it's cool like this they tend to be very very static and i mean what an amazing insect to be looking at absolutely mind-boggling so just on a quick count i read something a couple of minutes ago that some of these insects go through an immature stage that lasts up to 35 years 35 years and that's remarkable um and just thinking about their role that they play is obviously in very important and beatles play a role of multiple um multiple roles you know from being predators to being pollinators to being prey you name it even being a host for certain parasites but really really beautiful to see this little individual sitting on this leaf they are sitting on a velvet raisin bush and what initially got my attention is i was busy looking away and there's a lot of little caterpillars around and on this tree and it is very busy then why do these beetles eat um these beetles would more than likely eat vegetation so uh um plant matter and that would be leaf or even flower matter at that if you look at insects more than half of the insects across the globe are herbivores and obviously you get a percentage that are that are predators and you need that balance to outweigh obviously mountain them because if you think about the biomass of insects around the world it is tremendous it's actually mind-boggling figures but yeah these guys will be munching on vegetation with beetles they have moving mouth parts which would be um used to crop and um obviously feed off vegetation but what initially got my attention on can you look this way what initially got my attention is these little guys here you can look in front of the little piece of grass that i have these tiny little caterpillars tucked up in between all parts of this tree and we've been talking about butterflies and moths and obviously larval food is very very important for these individuals and i'm now seeing more and more now that i'm looking they're all just everywhere so i'd like to find out in the next couple of minutes and i'll be sure to let you guys know if i do find out who this could possibly be because this is very specific because they are all the same in terms of patterning they all have these orangish heads and then this speckled or mottled patterning going down to the back so definitely a certain species utilizing this plant for its larval stage or development and now they go through between four and six in stars or malts obviously accumulating the vegetation they need before they can eventually pupate or go through that transformation of metamorphosis we're going to send you for a couple of minutes i'm just going to geek out over here and we'll see you back the side join us around the fire as we have our very first wild earth explorers fireside chat and what that means is that if you are an explorer we're inviting you to come and join us so we can chat about the greatest highlights of 2020 we will be chatting about our favorite characters and what they have been up to during the course of this year and if you would like to join us head over to our explorers page and subscribe don't miss out this fireside chat will be on the 13th of december at 7 30 pm central african time straight after sunset safari this is rusty he's my favorite vehicle and we've been through all the good times here in the bush now if you feel a connection to joomla game reserve like i do then we have a fantastic opportunity for you you can have your name engraved on a brushed metal plaque just like this one and we will attach it to rusty so you can always be with us on safari in spirit we will even send you a digital photograph once your plaque is mounted on rusty spaces are limited so grab your spot now what fascinates me most about the animal circle of life is the intricacies between the large and the very very small i mean it's very easy to go out there and find the lodge once you've found the large the cascading effect down to the small absolutely fascinates me alertness and situation awareness is by far the number one aspect for protecting ourselves out on safari catch up with the guides daily here on wild earth have you been watching wild earth and dreamt of being right there on safari with one of the guides well now you can wild earth is offering you a chance to buy a ticket to dream you or a friend can hop on board a live wild earth show and join our guide on safari the ticket is redeemable at any of our locations anytime in the future only a limited number of tickets are available so don't wait get your ticket now and start dreaming terms and conditions apply welcome back everybody now we're kind of stuck here for a moment i don't know if you can see but maybe a quarter of a foot in front of the vehicle she is moving now there she goes look at this lioness she's right next to us and it's quite amazing we were with her this morning we left her to try and follow up on the rest of the pride and drove quite a distance and as we were driving we heard baboon's alarm calling so we kind of turned around and went back towards the riverbed and she's moving quite quickly and she's moving quite far as well particularly it is warming up quite a lot as well and her little cubs are i wonder where they are right now i wonder if they're not ahead of her or if they're right in front oh they're right in front of me so i'm not going to go anywhere i just got a glimpse of one of the tails i might be able to move back a little bit they might no it's not the shade of my vehicle that they're using so let me move back a little bit see if you can see they have a look at them they've just kind of reappeared in the picture in the front keep going big says there we go more cool quite amazing i mean as we were following her as well we found the baboons we saw them alarm calling right at her there she's crossing with this two little two little ones following behind her and as we stopped and turned off we heard him parlor's alarm calling and that's exactly what i think she's listening to she's trying to see if maybe there isn't a food opportunity potential for a meal maybe a leopard's taken down an impala not so far away from here and she's going to go in there and if a leopard has or even hyena she's very likely going to go and steal it from them but it's quite interesting i mean she is being quite brave taking her two little cubs to an unknown impala alarm call because if it is maybe another pride of lions or a huge clan of hyenas it will put these two cubs in serious danger in fact so she's up and moving i wonder if these two aren't going to get up and follow her as well let's give them a moment she's kind of walking slowly through the thick bush she'll stop every now and then and listen and these two are watching her very closely learning see how their heads are kind of going different there we go one up here it goes the other one up as well here it goes following mom's exact path being sure not to let her too far out of her sight or out of their sight rather and so that they can keep following and mom wants them to follow as well if she didn't she would have kind of let them know okay so i'm gonna try and reposition see if we can't follow and catch up to mom and let's see what's happening here i know oh she's coming back changing my mind a bit so she's now where are you going let's the two little ones come through so she has kind of just changed her mind i wonder if she's not doing a little loop around trying to see if she can't spot the impalas that we're alarm calling and try and take them by surprise or even the animal that they were alarming at by surprise oh she's now just lay down as well let's see if we can't find a better position to get into here quickly and very interesting oh my god sorry back cool back again um so let's see let's try and get in here watch your head here bk and the camera just going to turn off and now this vehicle in front of me to get a good spot so a bit of a tricky spot that she's lying in and i'm gonna try to keep my head out the way as well be very interesting to see what her next move is she looks like she's picked a shady spot and so i wonder if she's not listening don't know if you can hear that those impalas are still alarm calling gracia in the eyes are gorgeous i agree with you i haven't had so much of a chance to look at them this morning because i've been trying to follow them up up she gets those impalas are still alarm calling her and she's definitely interested in heading towards there these two little ones i wonder if they're not getting a bit frustrated with mom picking the hottest time in the morning and only getting hotter to move i'm gonna try and catch up to mom here quickly okay let me just stop and turn more let me let that vehicle turn around quickly two little ones haven't followed mom yet she's probably 30 meters away by now enjoying the shade not so happy with my moving in the heat of the day like this so let's guess this i'm going to keep following mom i wonder how long it's going to take before she catches up to us in parliament alarm calling and what is actually happening there i'm going to send you over to steve in his lines as well welcome back to and beyond pinder this linear center two cubs have just settled on this beautiful red termite mound they're keeping an eye on those buffalo that we were watching at the waterfall earlier and just watching them fade into into the distance it's starting to heat up a little bit now um you know that's probably why they've gone gone stationary you can see the cubs still have a little bit of energy they're still getting up looking around showing a little bit of interest in what's around them um we've seen some zebra this morning so they're just keeping an eye on that but i don't think mum will risk it she's just they're just too many eyes on on them and the chance of them actually catching one of those animals is really really low mama's still quite focused though you can see she's got her eyes fixated on something he has picked forward everything that the mom is doing at the moment and the cubs are watching quite carefully and they're taking notes because they know in the near future they're going to be doing exactly the same and two years isn't a very long time it is quite a long time in the lion's lifespan and but in about a year and a half two years time these lines these young lions will be doing exactly what the mum is now doing trying to provide for for youngsters and and just you know for themselves as well you can imagine a termite bond gives a lot of elevation a really nice spot to to climb up on and cheetah often do this as well when they're looking for something to prey on or also just to keep an eye out for any potential predators that might be around they often use these elevated points and termite mounds are a great one all these beautiful songs i don't know if you can hear that dierdrex cuckoo in the background it's a really really beautiful starting here and with that mountain on the background the lights really nice on on these lines that red color is also a color that we don't really see too often in pinder and it's a really special soil type it's quite a clay-based soil and and often if you see waters rolling around it looks like a completely different animal and they turn out really really red and it's quite funny to watch them they've just gone behind that bush i'm going to try and move the vehicle slightly see if we can get a different angle here and just go in front of them see if we can get them head on there we go looks like we've got an ass and we hear the cubs nirvana girl that's a that's a great comment i mean it's very true each of them is really special in their own way and very very unique and um almost specially designed for what they what they're made to do you can imagine these big lines they're very social completely different to an independent leopard that's that just wanders around on its own and really only is together with another leopard if if it's got cubs or if it's mating and otherwise it's it's really a solitary animal and that's similar to cheetah as well really really special this lioness will probably join up with her proud as these cubs seem to get a little bit older she's moving off now and just keeping an eye on her cubs nice big stretch i wonder if they're going to go and find a bit of shade as it's starting to heat up a little bit i'm going to try and keep up with him they've just gone down into that dry water hole that they were in earlier let's see if they're going to carry on moving so we're gonna keep up with these lines um and i heard that carl has some interesting insects for you guys so see you later well look at this amazing sight there's a lot of brown veined whites this is the butterfly species that makes it mass migration through the interior of south africa almost 3 000 plus kilometers and at the moment they're not they don't have any thing else on their mind but mating this is where they'll find a mate you can see how they are flattening around and there is a few of them that are actually attached to one another and how they are doing this mating is obviously a very it looks very awkward but in the beginning they'll actually sit side by side but when they attach themselves they attach themselves from abdomen to abdomen so back into back end that's where the reproductive organs are situated and in that process the male will then pass a female a packet or package obviously with his genetic value he's a sperm and then obviously the female will then take it in she will then break it and fertilize the eggs and then from there she'll obviously fly to a suitable site where their lava or the species would actively feed on a certain plant up like we've been talking about the distribution plant species are very very um important for certain butterflies obviously they're larval stage having certain species of plant and where this specific butterfly its larval food would be that of the shepherd's tree and this is a very funny growth of a shepherd you can see the whitish interactive good morning everybody but there is definitely full mating behavior taking place so once the female is obviously mated with she'll carry the sperm inside of her fertilized eggs and then she'll find this appropriate food source and either singularly or multiple she will lay the eggs but what a half of activity be watching right now it's like a fairy tale it's also pheromones pheromones also used to obviously recognize mates if you are so a mate could land on a branch or release pheromones and that could attract the respected individual to come and do the deed and a very very amazing period now because i mean these things migrate through the interior of the country every 20 minutes they need to stop to get a drink if they don't they'll die from dehydration so all the flowering plants right now are vital stop over points or stop stopping points for them to get a nourishing drink and if you look at the other day we were looking at them drinking at the pan not like i mentioned they were taking up some essential minerals especially salt and obviously water but salt plays a vital role in reproduction so a very important element for these butterflies after this process complete now when she lays the eggs have you managed to get one attached to owen so when they are attached end to end sometimes you may all the time you'll see one individual actually hanging and the the partner actually carrying both individuals in flight looks very awkward um in flight but when they do this transferring of this sperm package it's usually done in a in a static position obviously it's a lot more it's a lot safer because while you're attached to your partner you're high risk to being caught by a predator such as a bird birds will obviously highly sought after these food items it's a very tricky process that these individuals are going through now but obviously vital for the next generation and this is basically the start of this beautiful and elaborate cycle and it's just on this little bush here i mean it's a half activity just at this one spot i mean if we look around us there's plenty of other shepherds trees but this is definitely where it's happening right now and as the weeks go on more and more species will emerge um 76 different recorded butterfly species on swallow which is remarkable for a western western arid region such as this area and i mean the diversification of these beautiful insects is just mind-boggling well we're gonna enjoy these butterflies for a little while longer but we're gonna send you over to tristan that and he's got some lions that is remarkable it's a serious amount of butterflies now we've tried to move a little bit because two of the females had their heads up but they've just plunked them back down again so the visuals not great unfortunately our lionesses are very very sleepy and i expect it's because of the heat it is extremely hot in the sun already while there is a breeze blowing the sun has got serious venom and so if you're a cat covered in fur i don't think it's very comfortable this morning and i think they probably feeling far better off hidden in the shade um and so i expect what you're going to find with these three in corners is that they're going to be very sleepy today and then we're going to find that they're going to get up and go this evening so it would be better to be with them around sunset tonight i think we'll see them waking up and then hopefully slowly kind of moving their way towards um a potential drinking spot down at the dam maybe galagopan or the dam and then hunting from there i don't think we're going to see them active at all now i'd be very very very very surprised if if they did anything i mean you can see their whole demeanor has changed since they chased in ghana they become a lot more kind of relaxed and and they just flopped on their sides they're not watching anything they're not even paying attention to vehicles that are arriving in the sighting they literally not just asleep and this is what you know a lot of the cats will do even leopards this morning i wouldn't be surprised that their behavior is very similar like tengana pretty sure that he found himself a spot and has ended up just sleeping now i don't think he's going to be too active either it is warm it's it's blustery it's not really the conditions for lions to be moving around too much um i suspect we're gonna find that they're gonna just lie up here oh you guys decided to put your head up to see who's arriving hmm there also i have no idea why they've chosen the shade that they've chosen there's this beautiful big marula that's got beautiful shade and they've decided to take the guari bushes which have got very little shade and the sun is going to hit them quite regularly you can already see that line is how there's that patch on the side of her face that's going to be warm and she's eventually going to get irritated with it and get up and move and find some better shade somewhere in what she's got right now nice to see the incumbents though um um even if it is only three of them it's always nice to see some of them back on jima both so it's an interesting thing because when they do splits i mean obviously they are competition for one another we saw it yesterday with tandy and kochava it's a very similar kind of thing but sometimes you'll find that even when though they are theoretically competition um random moments can happen and i've seen it with the salalahs and even the telematies and the incumbents where they actually end up feeding um together on carcasses sometimes but generally the the response to one another is going to be quite negative as soon as an animal carves out a territory and it has offspring its duty is to protect that offspring it's not to worry about its old family ties and so if that means that the family ties that it had previously are compromising its ability to mate to produce cubs to raise those cubs then it's an aggressive response that starts to take place in order to try and kind of reduce that competition so you know it's it's it's sometimes they are fairly okay with each other but most of the time not um most of the time actually give each other quite a hard time when it comes to to these splits but it's gonna be interesting to see how many more prides we get because obviously these guys might spread i'm almost sure the telematies are going to split as well um the kambula or unstable pride they're going to have to split um they too big as well i think there's 21 in that pride if i'm not mistaken um so you know there's a lot of big prides now within the savvy sounds and soon we're gonna end up with a lot more um smaller sort of satellite prides and it's gonna be really interesting to see how they all settle and where everybody is going to fit um because if you think about it if you get three prides that break apart i mean let's say you get an additional three prides it's not like there's a huge amount of space for three new prides to be around um and so it will be fascinating to watch how the kind of torchwoods telematies and kahumas how that all happens um whether the splits head north into manila from the telematies or in columbus split heads towards ottawa i don't know it's going to be a fascinating next little chapter in what's already been a dynamic and checkered kind of history of lines within the sarby sands particularly over the last sort of 10 to 15 years it's been up and down and all over the place um in many respects from big male coalitions to um dwindling prides to now rebuild and smaller male coalitions it's a lot has happened over the last 10 years and gonna be interesting to see what plays out next and how this next chapter goes i i have a sneaky suspicion though that what we're going to see is these young younging kahumas as we know have already come into easter cycles and they're starting to to mate with their vocals but i think what they're going to do is they're going to end up having cubs on juma they're going to come and have their cubs where they were born and put as youngsters that's what i think is going to happen i think we're going to see very similar den sites from them and we'll have a kind of back to 2016 period where we had lionesses here with their cubs and it was a constant i wouldn't be surprised if that's what ends up kind of happening the other area that's up for grabs is also tortured yes there's tortured lines that are moving around the far eastern side but that central part of tortured is pretty much underutilized by lions at the moment and there's some beautiful den sites there as well as food availability there's a lot of buffalo that come out of the kruger on eastern torchwood um so i think that'll also be a place that you might find some lines starting to to settle and maybe that explains the far-ranging movements of both the incumbents and the telematies out of their general areas is that they're starting to expand and almost look for for other places um you might find that you know young females are driving the pride to move further afield as they explore and try and see where their next potential move can be in order to kind of sustain themselves i'm sure there's a prey kind of response to that too in that they're searching for food but it could also be that they're just searching for space more than anything else as the price expands so they know they're going to need more space to operate but yeah it's going to be fascinating to you to see how it all plays out much like our leopards at the moment we're in a really good from a predator point um high number of leopards and big pride lines um and that's at some point you know interactions and things are going to have to happen and you know it can't always stay idyllic like this um forever um we really have been spoiled probably the last six months i would say with unbelievable sightings of pretty much all the predators that we see here at jim i mean we've even been seeing cheetah again lately it's not regular but we haven't been seeing them we've had a lot of dogs a lot of hyenas um our prides of lions have been fairly good to us i mean obviously we've seen the telematies a lot more and the leopards have just been off the charts um so it's going to be fascinating all right we're probably going to leave these lines now we're going to go scratch around there was reports of a leopard sawing to the west so maybe you should lose what is about so i'm going to see what i can find in the meantime let's send you off to carl at swalikalari all right welcome back look at this i just want you folks to focus on this individual right over here and what i'm gonna what i'm trying to explain is look at its wings its wings aren't as fully formed as a butterfly and when we initially saw it the wings were all crinkled and almost tucked in it's because that brown veined white has just emerged from its chrysalis and it is actually physically pumping air into the wings to straighten them out what an amazing sight because if you look here very closely look at this these are individuals over here that still need to emerge as actual butterfly so inside there this transformation of metamorphosis is in process where this caterpillar is physically breaking down its entire body and restructuring everything didn't have wings didn't have a feeding mouth appendage like a tube that proboscis it didn't have large googly eyes so the whole body is being restructured from a worm-like individual into this beautiful magnificent flying creature and now the sole purpose of this individual is just to mate and that's what's going on here so we've looked very closely and this entire little shippers tree is just laden with caterpillars and as well as these chrysalis and these are individuals that are emerged maybe 20 minutes ago if maybe if less than that you can still see the wings they almost look wet they're very floppy and that's because the individual's still structuring and forming them correctly and getting them ready for flight what a marvelous assault the individual didn't have antenna it didn't have eyes on the side of its head had ars on top of its head it didn't have wings it didn't have reproductive organs everything happening in this tiny little case how incredible is that and i would love to find one look at the wings and now you're gonna see in the next couple of sec a couple of minutes those wings will start basically pushing out and forming into proper wings oh my word so just to let everybody know everybody has been watching safarila for a little while and uh you guys so all of our viewers just like our guests at we do not see guests as guests you're not another number you are family so our family members that have been watching safarila for a little while would remember deidre de re will be taking over from me tomorrow morning wealth of knowledge obviously the boss here on swadi and she'll be in the hot seat from tomorrow morning and what an amazing sight deidre let's just say hello to dinner there we go let's just give a hello to deandre hello deirdre there we go this is dear to everybody and she's an individual who just spotted this but this is remarkable to see this is a first for me i've only seen this on on obviously footage before but never like this this is such a treat brand new life stemming right in front of ourselves so you can see also that remarkable property louis you are correct it is blood that fills the wings you are 100 right louis good morning ask a great question is it not blood that falls the wings um i stand to correction yes it is thank you very much lou it is blood that fills the wings and obviously while the animal is drawing in air that blood is being pushed and stimulates the wing development i mean look how that transformation has happened right in front of us so a lot of mating going on here but then a lot of emergence of these brown veined whites how incredible and now in the period of being obviously temperature is a very important thing as well mariana good morning great question what is the difference between a butterfly and a moth well there is no scientific solid evidence to split butterfly and moth but there's a general consensus across the board as in terms of you find a butterfly will sit with its wings closed a moth will sit with its wings open moths typically are active under the cover of darkness wherein butterflies are active in the daylight hours anything else and certain species of moths will be active at daylight hours but the general large portion of the family would be active under the cover of doctors but there's no solid defined line to say you know moth and butterfly the general understanding or general consensus let's say that um but wings definitely the way they sit with their wings that's a very distinctive property that said that but really beautiful you can see how this individual sitting wings obviously close and upright position let's see if we can see one coming out and it's a fundamental thing folks the slower you go the more you look the more you see your great question there how long do they live for brown veined white i would say live for a week or two maybe butterflies the notion previously where that butterflies had a very short lifespan some do but some can actually live for several months especially a larger species we find a species here in south africa called characters they live for several months so generally within the size frame of things that generally the bigger the individual the longer lived not always the case if you look at ants ants are very long live some individuals live for 20 30 years but these individuals i would say two three weeks one month one month so two three weeks there we go one month and brown van white would live for and obviously in that one month this individual is packing a lot of activity in from feeding to mating pollinating becoming food it is a very short but very high energy fast-paced three weeks for this little insect that is incredible that is just giving me absolute goosebumps that we have just seen that i never thought in my wildest dreams i would be able to see it but then we are now sharing it with you as well what a treat [Music] right so as you can see we still here we were just chatting to some landowners that were trying to find out some stuff about the lions and they were listening to our last little kind of chat and they were intrigued as to what was going on and we're asking a little bit of information it's always nice when we get people that are interested in things particularly you know people that own properties here they don't come all that often um and so sometimes they lose kind of touch with what's going on and it's always nice just to sit and help them out with what's what's happening um generally they're all nice people so it's a good thing to do um but we're gonna switch over to these lions a little bit longer like i said we'll just let you listen to the sounds of the african bush um while they have a little nap as the wind blows oh all right i think it is time that we leave them and hopefully we'll be able to find something else down the road there was a gorgeous gymnogen that was in this or on this dead tree trying to get its claws into what appeared to be a starlings nest but then unfortunately as the birds do it flew away being dive bombed by starlings and the drungos as usual i was hoping if we just waited it would come back here but unfortunately not but that's okay we've been having a fantastic drive with so much variety i wanted to show you something i just need to make sure it won't blow away in the wind so she's going to give me a sec so you can grab something to hold it with look you interested in my segment how cool all right here we go i'm gonna pop it into the shade of my cap this it's a little easier to see it is the spent exoskeleton of some type of hermenopterate that's all i can tell at this point you can see that there's a stinging at the bottom there i think it's very very cool to see these kind of things because they are so delicate that they're usually completely lost and broken very easy to break and you can see at the top where my forceps are holding it that's where the animal would have broken through because insects have this hard kittenous exoskeleton in order to grow they need to shed that skeleton and then their skin will harden again once it hits the oxygen and i'll get a brand new one i'm just going to show you the face quickly if it will allow me without cracking it might also be um a young mantid a type of mantid but it's very difficult to see it with with just the exoskeleton i can already hear it cracking no i wanted to keep it doesn't break but i thought that was very very cool even some of the hairs are still still on it there goes a leg i keep little containers for all these little things i find then i can show it to you at some point all right well let's put these away and continue on still haven't found any elephants except for some young males that we're running away having a bit of a box and then running away so we're gonna keep on the search last night i saw on the way home after tingana i saw a scrub here suckling two little tiny leopards that's what you call baby scrub his tiny tiny ones just like that and then we stopped and watched them for a while and at first their immediate defenses to crouch low against the ground so then we switched everything off and just watched them in infrared and then they suddenly got up and they seemed to have so much confidence about them tiny tiny little things it was so lovely to watch now because they are out in the open they don't have burrows we know this is about scratches they create little forms in the ground so that's actually why i came this way is to see whether they'd be anywhere nearby where i saw them last night obviously being nocturnal they're going to be out in the evening but we know we've seen scrub here's in the day and they are somewhere in the day they're just lying up so well hidden that we usually don't see them but since i knew where they were roughly i was hoping that i would be able to find them unfortunately not but hopefully that's just their camouflage working really well for them and that they were around and i just couldn't see them that would be that would be great they were just they were too cute it's been it's been some of the it's it was seriously cute one of the cutest things i've seen this month i might say anyway kyle is on a roll with these insects go kyle he's got some butterflies welcome back to this very wonderful scene we are looking very hard to potentially catch a butterfly butterfly coming out of the chrysalis so to think about what's going on over here this caterpillar would have used silk to anchor it to the branch beyond that one and then from there it would have actually moved its body in such a manner that it's its exoskeleton would have become the actual chrysalis and inside this little compartment this is where this transformation would be taking place and i'm really trying to look of course it would be mind-boggling sorry oh there yes so be mind-boggling to see but then to share this with you would be just cherry on top of the cake i never thought in my wildest dreams i would be able to see this and it's now with the increased heat the temperature is quite warm today but summer is definitely the period where insects go crazy and they need heat heat is a very important requirement for a lot of processes to take place if you think about cold temperatures things go dormant on the top of the branch so i'm just looking carefully watching a few individuals where we think they might be emerging and that's why there was so much activity earlier is because all those individuals had just emerged which is remarkable there's still a few of them so as they emerge looks like they're mating and a female once mated once has mated she would lay a batch of about 20 eggs within a site like this obviously this is the preferred larval food for these individuals so deirdre just helping me we really really really really would like you to see this we're just keeping tabs on a few individuals which we think might emerge in the next few minutes i mean it's fairly warm and it's only 20 to eight already that sun is really kicking its heels in so deidre has seen individuals that look very white you see the casing that you that you folks are looking at now it is fairly white and if you look at the butterfly there's colors that resemble it with inside here so there's its eyes you can actually see its eyes will be right on top obviously just being very very careful here just come out so its eyes would be right over there and then the wings folded in a very neat pattern lying behind the back anything your side deirdre it is such an awesome process that is such an awesome comment it is something that is mind-boggling and that has obviously fascinated people for a very long time this transformation of metamorphosis is something that is just mind-boggling we're talking about cells that are broken and then restructured to form a brand new individual but yet it is still the same individual i mean think about that i mean the whole body plan being broken down i think this one's going to emerge here deidre this i can even see the color of the wings so if you look at these beautiful insects they fall into a group called lepidoptera and on the wings they've got tiny little scales it's also water resistant a very very efficient look how wavy they are still look at that unbelievable um but i can actually see the color through here there look at this see that oh yes one yes one here's one yes one the other one oh you got it my finger oh my word oh my word if you got it yep oh my word welcome buddy and there's another one here oh it's not okay oh my word look at that welcome back to the world so think about digestion think about feeding appendage think about the wings not being there before that has all been modified and restructured within this little period that this caterpillar oh my word we've got one actually making it chris looks here daddy look at this one here unbelievable folks look at that ah wow um jackie um how long before the butters fly away after they've emerged well it looks like they kind of hanging around here for a little bit we can see a lot of individuals taking their time they move off a couple of meters and it seems like they are looking for mating partners straight away you obviously in this beginning in this beginning period you just want to take it easy you've just emerged and you've got this new apparatus of you know wings and you're still kind of finding your find your feet so it looks like they they're taking a couple of minutes here and then they take flight and from there they waft off to the end of the tree and then looks like they fly off to try and keep tabs on one is a fairly difficult task because there's so many at this point in time but um but yeah they wouldn't have to go far because this is their larval food and they obviously have taste receptors the antenna would be doing that job they are smell and taste receptors um on the end of these these club-like appendages his antenna so this insect can pick up the chemical clue that this is larval food so if it is an individual that will reproduce sorry it is an individual that will reproduce this is the best spot so you would kind of hang around here if you do find a mate great if not that's why you have this amazing ability of flight and something that's only been achieved you know through certain organisms through evolution insects mammals and that of birds it's a remarkable activity it's a remarkable adaptation especially to find new food and to find a representing mate oh i can't believe we saw that physically mind blown right now so this is the start of the cycle obviously reproductive individuals finding a mate mating laying eggs like i said this individual day about 20 eggs on a shepherd's tree boss gears its larval food and from there this little caterpillar once emerges would just eat frantically to try and accumulate the the material the energy it needs to go through this transformation because the cumulative material would be needed to transfer into an elaborate adult such as this and this is what's referred to as a hollow metabolic life cycle so the whole body hollow metabolic the whole body is restructured and broken down it's a very different life form coming out okay where's the next one emerging sun mario is there a way to determine if it is a male and female yes and it would be the patterning on the wing so if i could stand to correction i think males females have more black lining or black markings with on the wing pattern i could be i could stand to correction here but if uh let's just go to this one let's emerge females have more darker panels or lines that run across the wing than that of males it could be the other way around i am super dyslexic so my brain could be just shifting things around and i am only human so if i am incorrect i apologize profusely and the more colors the more okay beautiful as i've mentioned every day is a learning day for me and that's why i love being a god is because i'm constantly stimulated and constantly driven to understand more about this because i understand more about this i understand more about myself and obviously this big beautiful planet that i am part of because my actions and what i do has an effect on everything over here but yet i need all of this in order to survive it doesn't need me so in terms of respecting and understanding it is by far the most enriching part of my life is understanding all of this because how lucky are we that we have the cognitive ability and the the luxury of viewing and understanding all of this complexity all right i'm gonna keep on geeking out of here we're gonna send you over to taylor at pridelands well finally we've managed to get hold of some animals that are willing to stick around and i think that's because it's hot and there's water available that's the buffalo are not going anywhere my name is taylor mcgrady and on camera with me today is sebastian rambi and we are here at pridelands which is part of the ludi game reserve and the greater kruger now we're not at logo dam for a change we are here at leopard dam i'm actually just going to do a little duck now so that you can see what's going on but there's a bit of commotion going on there which is quite normal to see uh with the buffalo especially these big breeding herds constantly interacting you know you're bound to get annoyed with somebody and then well the easiest way to sort that problem out is a horn to the bottom which is probably what is happening there but they look quite settled for the most part where the cows are now sitting in the water you can see some young calves and i don't know if they'll stay here the whole they're out in the sun but they're definitely staying here for some time to cool off before i think they'll find a nice shady spot to rest hello girl she's clearly been rolling around in the mud at some point doesn't look very impressed with us keeping a close eye making sure we don't do anything and then the one just above her look at her face this is the typical evil stare that buffalo like to give people lions anything really oh she's quite pregnant she looks quite fat so hopefully we'll start to see lots of little buffalo although there's not really a breeding season for buffalo you can give birth all year round but it does make sense if you can to try and sync it up with uh i suppose the rains right because those rains comes nice lush vegetation you can see them they're all getting nice and comfortable the box pekka is also flying around they haven't left the buffalo side you might even be able to hear the foam nest frogs chirping in the distance too very peaceful scene archer this morning sebastian and i've also managed to find a little bit of shade which we're huddling under i think the buffalo probably envious we also don't want to really sit in the sun we kind of don't want to cover ourselves in mud so we've opted for a marula tree thankfully a couple of splashes here and there from the buffalos as they swish their quite tails as we try and get rid of all the insects also having the old gulp of water finally gonna start to hear the humming of the bees and dung beetles as they flower past until there will be lots and lots of feces around the edge of the dam before the buffaloes rained i don't think that they were sleeping too far from here last night the longest years we were perfect for swatching the flies just around the eyes [Music] join our explorers program so we can keep on sharing nature with the world for a monthly subscription you will have the opportunity to win fantastic wild earth expeditions have access to an animal identification app receive weekly highlights from our shows and much more all the money will go to keeping these live safaris on air which in turn connects a global population with nature wild earth is launching our brand new explorer program with an opportunity to win a very special wild earth expedition the lucky winner will get a behind the scenes wild earth experience at the magnificent and beyond gala tainted safari camp the prize includes a three-night stay for you and a friend with a chance to sleep out in the unique ngala treehouse become a wild earth explorer and stand a chance to win this and many other prizes terms and conditions apply my name is lauren and i'm currently working in jooma private game reserve here in south africa i love answering your questions during the live safaris it's my favorite part it feels like you're on the vehicle with me and i'm able to teach you exactly what you want to know if you want to ask a question on wilder then you need to register on our website once registered you must go to the live safari page and ask your question below the live feed join us around the fire as we have our very first wild earth explorer's fireside chat and what that means is that if you are an explorer we're inviting you to come and join us so we can chat about the greatest highlights of 2020 we will be chatting about our favorite characters and what they have been up to during the course of this year and if you would like to join us head over to our explorers page and subscribe don't miss out this fireside chat will be on the 13th of december at 7 30 pm central african time straight after sunset safari well we haven't found too much other than our heard of eddies which is what i was actually hoping for um we've managed to kind of just find them as they've been as they left treehouse damn which i was a bit unhappy about because i was hoping that we'd see them drinking at the dam itself but they'd just finished up um what's weird though is that they haven't really sprayed themselves as you can see they they dry they are quite a light gray color um generally when they've been swimming or spraying themselves they're a much darker gray than what you see here there's one or two that have done it but for the most part the herd is still probably looking for a decent sized waterhole in order to go and properly spray so i wouldn't be surprised these guys appear at gary dam on the damn camera in about an hour's time they're moving fairly quickly and i think the reason for that is the heat um they slowly pushing their way towards the mulawati which makes a lot of sense because the mulawati will have a lot more shade than there is out here you can see that they're in full sun at the moment and those ears are working overtime to try and keep these guys cool um it really is a warm warm uh morning it's apparently the temperatures are going to push close to 40 degrees celsius by midday and so it's already got a bit of venom in the sunshine at the moment um which is why those ears will constantly be flapping the hotter it gets the more the ears have to work you'll find on cool mornings in the winter sometimes you don't see the ears flap at all for a good three four minutes whereas you can see now she's pretty much constantly pushing those ears back and forth just trying to cool her blood down as much as possible now it's not just her and this little one in the herd there's quite a number of them and they just spread out at the moment so i'm going to just reposition it we'll get the rest of them they're just up at the top here we'll try and find them quickly megan no elephants cannot jump um they unfortunately do not have that ability their body weight and their body structure doesn't allow for jumping so you'll find even when they're running their feet pretty much don't leave the ground they kind of skirt along um just too heavy for them to to jump what they can do though which is pretty cool is they can go up on their back legs and stand on their back legs and here in south africa we don't see it very often at all it does every now and then you might get one doing it but if you go to places like lower zambezi national park mana pools in zimbabwe and those are museum zambia there they have anna trees and what you'll find is the ellies stand on their back legs to reach the branches because of the years and years of elephants feeding there nothing is really within the reach of normal feeding height um and so they have to rear up on their back legs and stick their trunk up as far as possible um to be able to then grab low lying branches and seed pods and pull them down and often they'll like shake the branch and the pods start to fall and then they feed off them there's a very famous elephant up in mana pools called boswell who does it all the time um he kind of stands and his iconic photos in the beautiful light that monopoles gets of these guys on their back legs these massive bull elephants kind of upstretched uh towards the the tree it's very cool to think to to see um it's always a special thing to watch granny's dead but they can't hold it for long periods i mean they're not going to stay up there indefinitely it's kind of rock back trunk up pull branches and then come back down again to feed on what they've managed to to get but yeah no jumping i'm afraid they just have too much weight for that you can see how they're moving it's interesting to watch because they move fast through the sunshine then they find a little shady spot and then they slow down and feed underneath the shade of a tree as soon as they're kind of in the sun again they just don't like it and you find that they start to move much faster you can see those females also had a bit of a shower she must have used some water trees damn unlike the first female that we saw there's quite a number of them like i say they're just slowly emerging from the thickets it's one of the things that always amazes me with elephants is how it goes from kind of one elephant and you can't really see others to all of a sudden there's 20 30 of these big grey animals ghosting through past past you it's unbelievable to see the camouflage i always get astounded by how easily they blend in you know big animals like these that weigh four tons you'd think would be difficult to miss but in fact in little bushy areas like this can be easily overlooked um particularly if you're not listening they give themselves away mostly with the the sound that they make because of the crunching of trees and branches brushing up against their skin makes a bit of noise all right i'm going to try and before we get repositioned um like you want to know the difference between a male and a female so i shall show you in a diagram because i'm sure that will be easier than me just explaining with no reference so if you just give me two seconds it's a hippo we don't want a hippo we want an elephant where are you elephant sorry guys just give me two seconds [Music] now where is it i had it yeah sorry i'm trying to find the page in my book there we go all right it will be easy enough to explain with this diagram because well it's nicely laid out okay so you have bull in the background car in the foreground so you will see that there's going to be a size difference but obviously that is when you can see them together it makes it a lot more a lot easier when you when you kind of have them close together to see size differences but the really the easiest way is if you look at the head of these two individuals you'll see that the head of the cow has a very angular sharp pointed kind of head whereas the bull has this nice rounded sort of forehead there and then the spine is also quite indicative of sex you see the male has a very sharp kind of point that goes up and then it drops off and comes up whereas a female is a lot more kind of straighter also the distance between the hips and the shoulder on a female is slightly longer and you'll find that the legs of a male elephant always appear to be a lot longer on the front legs particularly um but really the head is your defining kind of thing that's what you aim to look at um when you're looking at ely's it will pretty much give it away more times than anything else and it's often easier to see than the other sort of sides of it but that's the quickest and easiest way um to be able to sex them the problem with that is that that ability to sex them in that manner can only start when they're about 15 years old prior to that it's a bit more of a guessing game as to you know whether it's a male or female generally the nice thing is that when ellie's reached that age now prior to that age is that they often have particularly the boys their genitals often hang out and that gives it away quite quickly an elephant is fairly well endowed and so it's not difficult to miss if it's a boy or a girl when that happens all right i'm going to try and catch up with them they've drifted quite far already and so while i do that i'm going to send you across to mcmuddy um that is true i think it was almost this day three years ago i fell face first in the mud in the masama right speaking of mud uh we're looking at some not that i've smeared it up against the tree but this is a maruti and this has been done by the elephants and actually a couple of months ago we watched the elephants just not destroyed but tear off bark from this tree so you can see all the grooves and so the scars that are left behind by the elephant's tusks but you can see the tree is definitely trying to heal itself so you see those sort of reddish parts um where you where the cambium layer is exposed you can sort of just see that it was oozing at one point and that's of course the sap from the tree and within that sap there's all types of um anti or like a not disinfectant where are my words today antibacterial sort of properties that are going to try and heal that tree up but it's going to take a long long long time it doesn't look like the elephants have since a few months ago it's paid much attention to this tree but what they have been doing of course is using it as a rubbing post they have as these buffs are spending a bit of time in the water and then the mud we know the elephants like to cover themselves in mud and they can normally come over here and have a nice [Music] scratch that looks like much better tree to scratch yourself on let's see again just some scoring from the elephant apologies if you the camera moves it's me fighting all of the flyers today as with the buffalo come tiny little biting oh see go straight into the fork of that tree there's something there there's a skink can you go up a little bit there we go hello look how chunky it is looks like i think it's just a common skink that is just sitting in the fork of this tree a nice place to sort of hide away very good camouflage lots and lots of bugs about lots of uh lots of flies there you go you can see it desperately looking oh sorry um there we go see if that's perfect um just trying to fight the thousand we try and sit very still now but maybe we'll even be lucky enough to watch it run out and catch something they're quite comical we see lots of them in the camps and last night actually el paso the night before i actually watched one try and catch a fly from the uh what was outside and the fly was on the inside of the window and attempted it for five minutes chasing it up and down the window so i don't know about the intelligence level but anyways it was very entertaining i wasn't it was quite as earlyish in the evening too they're not nocturnal they spend a lot of uh time moving around during the day and then they'll find a nice little hidey hole and disappear at nighttime that's when the geckos like to come out but the buffalo have not moved there they sit they're still swatting their tails and flapping their ears desperately trying to gain some relief from all the insects perhaps the they need something like um like those skinks or anything that's willing to eat flying insects but they need to all be covered in chameleons and and that would be it would be quite nice for them i definitely would have evolved i would have plucked chameleons out of the tree and provided them with safe haven and also regular meals that would have been my tactic anyways there's a couple of dragonflies as you can also see every now and then flying across the screen and lots of them at the moment they're all swarming so they're definitely helping with casting a lot of the flying insects chin lean i haven't personally ever seen physical fight between elephants and buffalo i know there were pictures many years ago that surfaced on social media where an elephant basically lifted a buffalo off of the ground i suspect there must have been some kind of altercation with a buffalo and a cow's cart or something along those lines that got to the point where the car felt like it was agitated and needed to intervene remember animals don't want to engage in a fight unnecessarily because they can become injured in the process and then of course not be able to feed properly not be able to defend themselves so if they can avoid comfort they will um so no i haven't personally seen it you see it i mean what you typically will see is around a watering hole where everybody's you know sort of jostling to get a place to drink or to come in and have a swim or to just sit down and relax like the buffalo and it can get a bit disruptive when you have a big herd of elephants and a big herd of buffalo will come down to the same watering hole that's maybe you know quite small in size so if we were to have two breeding herds of elephants come through here to let the dam they'd probably be be a bit of a competition around the waterhole but as we always say size really does matter in the bush and the elephants would normally rule the roost and they'd probably just chase all the buffalo out if they weren't going to move but buffalo are stubborn creatures they really are stubborn only so elephants are so hippos so i suppose they've got no chance just a couple of them moving around now yes what are you looking at buffalo ball you're also giving us evil eye moments so they're not just doing nothing obviously they're trying to cool themselves down but i'm sure you've seen them all continuously chewing and no they do not have bubble gum in case you were wondering and they've spent a large part of their day as all ruminants do so any animal with a full chambered stomach and they have obviously and have very effective digestive systems and part of that is because they regurgitate a portion of partially digested food and um and then chew on that again and it goes back down into the other chambers for a second chance at digestion which was quite cool but anyways we're going to leave the buffalo now in peace and let them carry on with their afternoon oh cool we have a redheaded weaver that's got a full red head of plumage and so nice to see we've been seeing them but very fleetingly there used to be one around camp but i haven't seen it since it's a really awkward position it keeps looking down at us it's almost just above us but if we aren't here then then the stick's gonna be obscuring it so hopefully it'll give us one nice look again such awesome bright bright colors and you can see that the beak is also that orangey color really really easy to identify in the breeding season and this male is all by himself here we're on simbambili at the moment we want to go down to the dam so i've been feeling a bit bird crazy the last few days and redheaded weaver is a really good one i just love the colors so so much megan you say oh such a pretty bird absolutely so so so gorgeous they make really really nice nest as well it's a typical weaver weaver type of nest but it looks a little bit untidy a little bit shaggy like i said this to be a really nice one around camp but no longer so they mix feeders seeds fruit as well as insects i'm gonna see if i roll a little bit more forward will you be able to get it deal okay let's just roll a little more so oh car does not agree with me no rolling today okay oh off it goes it's built it's it's nest on a on the power line close by so it looks quite untidy hopefully i'll find another one that's not a power line to show you i'm gonna head down to the dam and tristan has some elephants so go over to those well our ellies are very disappointed we came right ahead of them and waited for them to come to this little muddy section and i think they were all coming hoping that they could have a really nice mud bath but at last with the heat that we've had in the last two days um the mud is all dried up and it's a disappointed dejected look on many of an elephant's face as they came and sniffed around and realized unfortunately water and mud is not going to be available here i'm pretty sure with this heat they were hoping to mud pack themselves and just get a nice amount of dark mud all over their bodies which will just help with cooling down one and two protecting them a little bit from the sun as you can see there's quite a few of them that are just milling about it's interesting to watch these ellies they know exactly where they're going because from here they're going to bypass me now and they're going to go straight down the road to chilepan i guarantee if we go to chilepan and we wait for them there they'll arrive exactly where we kind of think they will um it's pretty obvious that they go there it's a general route for the ailes is this way all right so let's go around and we'll catch them on the other side i'm not gonna push on the road so i'll just go this little at least a game path that runs through here that we can follow and it goes around them and then we'll just go to the pan and wait for them there shouldn't take them long i reckon maybe 10 minutes or so not even actually five minutes and we'll see those elies arriving where we are i actually might get there before i do at this rate see this game path has gotten so thick nowadays it's not nearly like it used to be we're on the right one now it helps when you're on the right one and not the wrong one generally ellie's have right of way when it comes to to life and so we normally let them kind of go down the road and if i were to drive on the road behind them eventually they'd just get frustrated with the noise behind them and they move off and they don't actually walk down the road so this way they can have free range just to keep going straight and we don't have to worry too much like i say we'll have them in the next two seconds this is a little bit thicker section and then it gets nice and open towards the path britney say elephants like what we're seeing now moving the same places all the time hippos are big big big game path makers um buffalo rhinos airlines leopards once hippos establish one then you find that that all the animals start to use them and it becomes a pretty quick sort of progression to a big open path also you must remember we had a drought for a number of years which meant that a lot of these paths are far bigger and more defined than they would be in wetter years they're on their way now so i'm just going to go park in the shade on the opposite side of the dam and this is what i wouldn't call it a dam call it a pan and see if they come down they should there's a couple here already that are having a little wallow they beat me to it so you see what i was talking about you'll see on this car's forehead um how she's covering herself in this thick dark mud um and that will cool them down much faster than than just normal water the mud actually cakes onto them and it also just kind of acts as a little bit of a barrier that absorbs some of the heat rather than their bodies um taking the brunt of the heat but that's a massive massive car that's in there at the moment it's a bit windy but i'll try and keep quiet so you can hear the splashing of the mud the rest of the herd is still making their way down this is not the same herd as what we were following this is others that have just so happened to be here the other grouping i think has slowed down to feed a little bit now just to wait for this lot to finish ellie's can sometimes be quite polite like that if other elephants are busy then they just wait for them to finish and once they those ellies are coated and they feel like they're fully covered they'll move off and then the rest will come in and take advantage of it looks like a happy ellie though doesn't you see how she's holding her ears out there did you see that rather than flapping them and so the reason she's doing that is because she doesn't actually have to use any energy she's wet her ears and she's opened them and the wind is coming from that side which means that it's cooling the blood in her ears before she even has to do anything she just has to hold her ears out to let the wind do all the work rather than actually physically flapping them back and forth now curry asking how far can an elephant smell a predator it always depends on um on a number of things um you'll find that wind direction is a huge plays a huge part in it terrain bush which predator we're talking because some are stinkier than others um but generally quite far if the wind is blowing the right way they can pick up predators oh you know i've seen them picking up lions from a good 800 meters away um kilometer and probably further it's difficult to judge when they're picking up a smell of a predator as opposed to just general behavior because if it's not immediately close then they generally don't display too much sign of irritation um so yeah i don't know how you would sense that but the the sense of smell is good enough to to pick it up from a long long way that's for sure especially if you've got a wind blowing like we do today is that one having a little sleep on the left there has it been too much today little ellie just decided i'm done i'm going to just lie in my wallow and be happy i would imagine there's going to be a number of humans in this part of the world that's going to do very much the same thing at the lodges in the sami sands today they're going to find their pool and they're going to sleep in it and kind of take it easy and stay out of the heat i don't think this ellie could have covered itself more with mud than it already has a little baby in the back is benefiting from it too because it's been covered by mom at this stage um mark you say they're so majestic they are indeed aren't they um i thoroughly enjoy spending time with eddie's and it's so nice that the last couple days they've really come back in force because it was a little quiet with ellie's in the first kind of week that i was here so it's always really cool to spend time with them and especially when you get these big old cars like this i mean she's a massive massive girl first when i first saw i thought of maybe it was a young bull that was there just because of the size of her body and head i think she's also pregnant as well she can kind of see she's very rotund at the moment so maybe she's got a little one coming along and if you look at her two offspring on the side of her i'm there of the ages where it's possible she can have the next um baby she's got you know quite an old one that's lying down and then there's one that's about i'd say probably about four years old so it's about right for her to have her next cough that's for sure there goes another one down i think yep also going to lie down in the mud now what you will find with these sometimes as well is that they when they're in the mud like this is that they will use their tusks to actually break the mud so they kind of wedge the tusk in and they move it around and they make a slosh and then from there they can actually wallow a little bit more so sometimes you'll find ellie's doing that in this case though these two are just having a snooze they are not interested in moving around too much i think they're tired they've probably had a long walk it's hot and it just seems like the right place to have a little nap under mom's watchful guys cute though isn't it as i always say when you get illys lying down like this next to you um it's always a ultimate vote of confidence from them so nasty asking about african and asian elephants and differences um so there's quite a number of different things when it comes to the two um african elephants larger than than asian elephants on average you'll find ears on an african elephant much much bigger so there's always that kind of thing that people say where the shape of the af the african elephants here is similar to africa's shape whereas the asian air difference here is very similar to kind of india in that part um shapes are much smaller here and the asian elephant on the trunk only has one little finger that sticks off the tip of the trunk whereas african elephants have two um also what you'll find is that it depends where they are but a lot of the time asian elephant cows who don't have tusks and it can sometimes be quite rare for even the bulls to have tusks in like sri lanka for example not a lot of the bull elephants have tusks even whereas obviously with the african elephants it's pretty general across the board they all have them by the odd female here and there that you know has a recessive gene somewhere that doesn't produce them but it's um for the most part african elephants will display tusks but really size ear shape you can't confuse them at all it's pretty when you see them side by side you can immediately see the difference it's quite obvious um and then when there's a picture of each one next thing that yeah particularly is is very noticeable on asian elephants versus african elephants [Music] are you just having the best time though i don't think there's gonna be any mud left by the time she's finished in this whole she's literally covered her entire body there's a one little spot on her face and a little stripe on her ear that she's missed but otherwise everywhere else is covered in thick mud at this stage she almost her skin is so kind of covered that the wrinkles are starting to disappear now it's starting to become a little smoother rather than as wrinkled as they normally are i wonder if she's gonna lie down to you it's almost like she's providing shade for her young ones while they sleep i think she's gonna go down to those legs look like they're getting weary also do you see her trunk often when you looking at eddies and you want to know if they're having a little rest or a micro nap if you want to call it that a trunk is always a good indication when you see that that trunk is completely limp so all the muscles in the trunk are being relaxed and then what you'll find is that they are kind of in a sort of trance or asleep or somewhere there and her trunk went completely lumped for a second there so she's having a little i think a few seconds rest you know when you're sometimes a little bit tired and you you end up kind of closing your eyes for a few seconds it's almost like that with i her to see if i could find this is a very cool diagram i've got on an elephant's trunk because often people ask about um elephant trunks and how it all works all right here we go so if you have a look here um you'll be able to see that essentially because a lot of people don't quite understand how it all works but essentially you've got the nostril up on top um over here so there we go there's a nostril there now air and water is being sucked in through there and you can see it comes all the way through and then when it gets to this point here um that's where it will kind of then start to feed down um into air particularly we'll go into the lungs whereas water is then blocked off by a membrane that sits here the water is then kind of taken and pushed back into the mouth and then utilized that way but a lot of the time people don't understand the muscle structure of ellies so if you have a look here you've got longitudinal muscles so these muscles that run the whole length of the trunk um and then you've got these radial muscles that are in between that and all these muscles together make this trunk kind of work the way that it does um it's able to contract lengthen twist turn grab go up down pretty much anything you can think of in any way is how it works and there is no bone structure that sits inside there it's all just powerful muscles with these two nostrils that goes all the way up and goes into the kind of um like i said the nasal sort of cavities over there um and then kind of down into the body but um it's nice to just kind of see the layout of the muscle structures you've got these kind of striated muscles that go down and then these ones that come across um you can also see the tusk kind of structure um where you've got the little um the main part of the tusks the pulp cavity and then you've got the little enamel tip which is the one that breaks a lot of the time um and kind of chips off at the bottom over there good i think our ellies have literally fallen asleep even mom her eyes are starting to close now shane are you tired and warm and all the other ellies are literally sitting in the sun waiting for her to finish they're all behind us here just waiting for their chance i'm afraid they might have to go somewhere else and find another little muddy wallow to cool down [Music] as the day goes on more and more birds are arriving at a leopard dam and the sounds that all the songs that they are singing are really just beautiful mix so [Music] so it's really quite beautiful have that giraffe also just show up and just basically a few more buffalo and i'm sure you could hear the eerie calls of the grey-headed bushrack but there are lots and lots of animals that will be visiting a labor dan throughout the day and hopefully we'll get to see some more of them we're here at zimbabwe dam and it's nice to see that we have four chicks they're still remaining of the egyptian goose family that was here they look really good and strong don't they i remember when they were tiny tiny and we saw them so when they're about seven weeks they get a kind of a a pinkish tinge to their what was a darkened bull like a grey ball and you can't see it too clearly now but it's starting to happen it usually goes from gray to a bit of a green and then it starts to get slightly pink so i'd say they're somewhere between five and seven weeks now and in the water they look actually quite large which is nice to see strangely statistically they have like almost an 80 percent survival rate of chicks even though the ones that we've seen lately um seems that it's a lot less than that look at them go still got a bit of down on them but you can see they're very robust now pulling at those grasses like we said they're really nice and juicy nutrient-rich along the banks of the dams and drainage lines look how strong their legs are scott you'd like to know why they're called egyptian geese it's not because they're from egypt not a grey heron they're found throughout africa but the markings on their face if we look at the adult the marking on the face looks very much like ancient egyptian art and that's where they got their name from sometimes misleading because they're all over south africa you'll see them in parks you'll see them in gardens even if you've got one of those really nice big ones especially if it's near water source and people think that they're invasive that they're an invasive species but they're not they may become pests to some people especially with their their noisy um calls but it's not as if they should have been in egypt but now they're here in south africa eating all the grass they're completely natural to be here it's just that the markings look very much like ancient egyptian art i'm so glad to see these chicks looking so lovely and sturdy so strong oh yes kyle is on such a role i'm so excited for him you know how i love to see butterflies emerge and things like that and kyle has some more butterflies so let's go over to him we are still geeking out here incredible a brilliant question was asked uh the previous section thank you so much for the question the difference between that of male and female and i was right so but to better explain this over here on the left is the male he has less prominent dark markings or lines on the wings in comparison to that of the female so male on the left and then female on the right of the screen and you can see that how frantic these males are in search of these females this individual's wings aren't even extended correctly and yet they are attached and transferring that sperm parcel it is incredible to be here right now and to be sharing this with you um something else was brought to my intention is that these buy these motherfly butterfly a little litter these butterflies are commonly fitters migrating through the country and that is actually not entirely correct they do an immigration they don't return migration is a closed circuit where the alamo will return to a given area these guys leave the area so just a little correction on what we've been talking about really remarkable to be at the site right now we have found another two or three that we have actually watched from start breaking out of the chrysalis and it actually breaks from the top section of the head look at this male trying to mate for the female look at that so definitely pheromones being released but the female would attract these males via those and 10 others those organs on top of the head so right there you are seeing the transfer of life and the next generation of brown veined whites really incredible um owen can you come up over here can we just come up onto the chrysalis over here so where this is all happening so this is basically the last exoskeleton of this caterpillar it attaches itself with two little strands of silk to anchor the caterpillar itself and then it wiggles itself within its own skillet or within its own exoskeleton and actually encases itself into this little capsule and then when it's ready to emerge the emergence the break happens on this tiny little point right of it looks a little horn that's actually where the crystics chrysalis splits and then the butterfly basically claws its way out wings are folded in a very awkward manner and then after a couple of minutes obviously by oxygenating itself blood is then forced into the wings pressurizing their wings and straightening them out obviously ready for flight but i mean just look at the vast amount you know follow me on look at the vast mark there's another one over there there's another one over there there's another one over there and we've been trying to pinpoint when these individuals are ready to emerge and we have found out that if we watch one long enough it takes about 20 minutes that the individual will be wriggling vigorously within this casing and that's it just dislodging this casing away from its new body and then after a couple of minutes it wriggles regal's wrinkles and eventually it pops open and out comes a beautiful [Laughter] butterfly i'm not going to be able to sleep for the next few days this for me is is the peak of of what we do out here folks it is really a privilege to to be here and the more you look like i mentioned earlier the slower that you take take it the more you look the more you see and obviously life doesn't happen at a million miles an hour like with us things take their own time out here they are structured and timed differently in comparison to us so all it takes is just to be patient just to be calm and observe that's all it is it's just observing looking appreciating these finer things the cicadas are singing around us birds bernie it is really fascinating and if you guys will get on the computer do a little bit more clicking on metamorphosis it will totally mind shatter you and it's a beautiful process and transformation that these individuals go through and i'm sure deidre will take you on a bit more than a journey with the emergence of more butterflies in the next few days because they are really going to be coming out at full steam with the increased temperature obviously this plays a vital role along with water rain in this period we're going to send you off and we will see you back the side absolutely amazing thing to witness that it's not something you get to see all that often in fact it's quite rare to actually see the day that they are coming out so i can understand why kyle is super excited about it those brown veined whites are also incredible butterflies and just because of their ability to migrate and movement that they take in south africa to be able to to kind of get around as the distances that they do is always amazing as well anyway what's also fascinating has been watching these elies not because they're hugely active and yes they're mud waddling and that's all good and it's interesting in its own right but what's been fascinating is the social element of this herd and how it's kind of played out so this female that you see closest to us now spraying herself with mud she sat next to us here at the car for a long time she was sitting and just taking it easy and waiting and that big female that was in the mud when we first arrived was in there and she just sat spiding her time biting her time and she waited and as soon as that other female moved off she then moved in and took over and it's interesting because there's obviously a hierarchy that's taking place there and she knows through probably communication that we don't pick up that that female's busy there as soon as she's done she can then um go in and kind of do a thing but interestingly enough where it gets for me very interesting is that the youngster for this particular female was allowed to walk into the mud wallow with that older female there no problem and that older female did not make a single groan grunt noise nothing didn't chase that little bun away and so elies even though they have a hierarchy amongst these adults are quite forgiving to the little ones they don't mind that the little ones come and have a little chance to get some mud and just to cool themselves down and they know that they're a lot more kind of fragile if you want to call it that even though they're not fragile they just they're more susceptible that's a better word for it to the heat than what the adults are so the adults can take a little bit longer and they can wait whereas the little ones it's important for them to cool down pretty quickly they also can get badly burnt by the sun if they're not in their mom's shadow and they're not wallowing and they're not cooling down and so it's fascinating to see how they're able to determine those things and talk to each other enough to actually come up with a system where little ones come first and the others must wait and there's a kind of whole hierarchy that takes place and that to me is always the best part about being archer is witnessing things like that and you know we we be fortunate in that we get to spend a lot of time with animals um and that's how we learn is by being with them and spending time much like carl spending time with those butterflies emerging if you don't sit with the eddies and various other animals you never get really rewarded by by them you're just going to see brief glimpses into their life and you don't start to make the connections to complex social interactions that seem innocuous at the time but if you spend a lot of time with them you start to pick up subtle things that you didn't realize before and i always think that is a very very special part of our our job we're very lucky in many respects and it's great that we have you guys along for the ride because a lot of you help us um with understanding of things and provide articles in the scientific background to potentially some sort of behavior that we've witnessed and becomes the whole community that is sharing and engaging um and and for the betterment of everybody and we're all learning from it which is which is super special so um that's that's why like i said it's one of my favorite things about the show is the the time that we spend with animals and the fact that we all learn together and get to witness behavioral things um over long periods of time that's that many people wouldn't have noticed um had they just come out for three days on a safari as opposed to you know some of you have been doing safaris with us for 10 years now which is crazy when you think about it and you've probably done more game drives than most of the guides in this northern sector put together when you think about it because of the high rotation of a lot of the guides through lodges um you know some of the guys here oh if you've only been working for a year and when you think that you guys have done a lot more game drives than them it's a pretty weird thing isn't it to think about so it's a special kind of part of everything and we're lucky that we get to witness things like these ellies and those butterflies i mean the lease is a little bit less rare than what the butterflies are but interesting nonetheless okay while they're drifting off they're heading into the mulawati and i think they're going to go straight up from there towards gary dam um maybe they'll even go to buffalos of them i'm not sure but keep an eye out in the dam cam for those of you that do watch it i'm pretty sure this herd is going to make their way in that direction i was kind of hoping while we were sitting here one defecated and i was kind of hoping that we were going to see dung beetles arriving but it doesn't seem like it's i think it's not been enough rain the last few days for them to be super out and about and it's going to take a little bit of time for them to arrive right so dusty you're asking about elephants and regions and how far do they walk so i'm going to show you a quick thing just give me two seconds so this is a booklet on elephants that are colored within the kruger and where they move and and it's based off not just the kruger but it's based off the the distributions of the western boundaries of kruger by elephants alive and so these little kind of colored elephants are different individuals that move around and this is both bulls and cars and you in terms of the distances they cover in territories they don't actually have a territory they have what's called a home range so if you see here let's take this dark blue elephant for example it's congregating in this kind of sector here but then it starts to shift and you start to see these dark blue markings here and you probably find this individual goes deep into the kruger and all over the place as well so they they move according to where their food availability is and time of the year now i want to show you an elephant called summer just give me a second to find her that's it one there she is all right so if you focus on down here at the bottom you'll see that there is a map down here um that is showing her distribution now the red inside the map um is basically the most frequent pings of her collar so she's very much kind of in this area but then you'll see that there is a shaded yellow area that goes all the way from the southern tip of the kruger national park to pretty much palo boa gates now this distance while on a map like this doesn't look far but that's probably close to 200 kilometers from north to south that she's traveling around in and she's making use of all of those areas so she's actually been pinged inside the sarby sands i haven't seen her myself but it's possible that she could come into the sands at any time but yeah she's covering kind of north south in just in her home range is over 200 kilometers so it gives you an idea of how far these ellies can move um and how much distance they can cover um when they want to so a lot of a lot of movement and the bulls are even more i mean some of the bulls will travel from northern kruger and they'll do 300 kilometers to come down to the southern marula sections in order to take advantage of the rivers so just depends on the individual but huge home ranges rather than territories okay i'm going to leave them though we're going to let them go into the mulavati and enjoy some shade which is a good idea in the meantime to send you to trish and a bird we have a lovely drungo that does not want to play with us we've been trying to get him oh there we go we've been trying for a while to get it it's such a strange thing because we get drunkos so often we see them so often but to get them on camera is not always easy because they move so quickly the moment it's a very very hot and what tends to happen and it's happening a lot earlier these days um obviously because it's summer it's getting warm is that is that the the bush seems to go very still from about eight o'clock and that's when it gets the heat really picks up and it's almost like like the bush becomes a freeze frame very little is happening and and there's very little movement mostly but of course there's those animals like impala and the elephants and the wonderful insects and birds that are all out and about so at least it also offers us even though there's this beating down heat offers us a change of environment or a change in the environment that gives us better view of other animals in the morning predators are on the move we have that exciting exciting in the morning and then as it heats up birds uh and elephants really really good sightings of those so now we are on western quarantine trying to do a little bit more birding i still want to find more nests bird nests dan you'd like to know if i'm more interested in animals or insects dan animal insects are animals one that's that's insect discrimination but i know what you mean i have no preference i like everything pretty much equally because fundamentally everything is working on a same kind of chemistry same kind of physics there's certain things that we all that we all have to abide by and that's why i love all things it's just that everything uses and manipulates the environment around them differently they have different needs so it's very difficult to say that i'd prefer one over the other i love it all i can never ever ever ever choose favorites it's very difficult for me here's a lovely squirrel but i see one of my favorite birds that's why i say one off because i can never pick favorites it's just in front of us here you can hear it calling if you can guess it before i show you with it's cold you get lots of admiration from me see this tall marula the straight one if we go up it and off to the right oh it's just flown to the next marula there we go what is it do you know it it sounds like an arrow marked babbler but it doesn't look like one it's one of my favorites it's a green wood hoop because of the the really really bright sun at the moment it can be difficult to see the birds very clearly especially since a lot of the time they're silhouetted there we get a bit of color very nice that reminds me that yesterday when we were at the wahlberg iwobi's eagles nest we had a similar problem where it's quite difficult to see but you all managed to see that little chick had popped its head out and that makes me very very happy so we will go back and and see them maybe this afternoon it's a little bit cooler and when i went and watched you can see the little chick pop its head out so that's really really cool when the sun is beating down like this almost everything looks black and white because it's so bright and the shadows are so dark it can be difficult to pick up stuff like that and as um tristan was saying to you we gain so much from each other and you guys see things that we don't a lot of the time oh i can hear i can hear the woodland kingfisher lots of lovely very short sounds as well from wax bowls another little birds and i'm sure that you can hear the wind as well lots of rustling going on so this bird here is probably looking for some insect larvae they can find under the bark of these trees you can see why that really long de-curved beak it's really good for just poking yourself underneath the bits of dead bark oh well all-out bark is dead technically but the stuff that's actually peeling off the tree you can get that peak right in there and grab a grub tasty treat for breakfast [Music] how insane is that animal this is out of this world fantastic good mama wow what a way to start off it's just such an incredible privilege to be out here it just keeps on delivering there you go there you go heart is pumping right now look at this everybody the clock is holding the tail is holding tight lucky will beast there's nowhere to go this is a disaster in the making something that i have never seen before in my entire life that you are now watching live the heart is in my mouth everybody look at this it's gonna make it it's going it's going this is just too magical hi little guys that's great isn't it look at that scuba steve has got a friend you've got a friend in me it couldn't be a better morning this is just too special oh my goodness we've got a turtle how epic is the fact that we're coming to you live from the joby river it's the most incredible feeling to be here this is live and we're in rwanda this is a very very different adventure charged with emotion i did not think i would ever face my fears like this well welcome back to the thought of the world we have left that very very busy scene and we are now currently just taking it easy welcome back to this wonderful place on this very broad and diverse country and continent we have decided to leave those beautiful brown veined whites and we have decided just to come sneak in here at this watering hole to see what we can see and uh the smell coming from this pan now there's a slight breeze from the south wind direction is termed from where it comes from so the wind is basically hitting me in the face that's coming from the south and it's basically picking up the smell of this deep rich earth uh scent and it's wafting it towards us here it's a rich earthy smell it's really warm cicadas are singing birds are seeing coming down to the watching hole lots of butterfly activity there's lots of brown veined white mixed in with cabbage butterflies now as well another species that we'll take a look at and it's just too perfect i'm still mind melted of what we've just seen this morning nancy what a great comment and how wonderful we could share it with you that is such an important thing for a guard is to share because knowledge is free and knowledge is power and to be able to share it with you is by far the cherry on top of the cake because i can freak out by myself but it's nicer you know it's a lot more enjoyable to freak out with somebody and it is a wonderful thing and i've heard about the sightings and from our colleagues on the other side it has been a remarkable morning drive and thank you for joining us thank you for sharing and for the comments thanks for comments obviously very very important to make this as exciting and as stimulating as it is from our side from swallow and obviously the colleagues across the country thank you so much for joining us and be sure to join us this afternoon for our sun set safari kicking off at four o'clock central african time please join us on board here to explore and understand more about this this wonders these wonders these wonders of nature i'm even getting tongue tied i'm so excited still see owens busy giving us a good view of of the lapwing there obviously just important to shelter those eggs because that sun is getting warm and so shading them but regulating them at a very constant medium or constant rate to ensure embryonic development continues and it's quite a long incubation period so hopefully in the next few weeks we can see these tiny individuals it's only about nearly a month for incubation which is very long but deidre is aware of the nest and she will continue just keeping tabs on it for us which will be remarkable and then as well as all the butterflies that will be coming out in the next few days oh my word i hope everybody's ready beautiful day thank you mother nature and thank you viewers really truly remarkable well from now until then we'll see you later have a good one [Music] foreign [Music] this program features live coverage of an african safari and may include animal kills and carcasses viewer discretion is advised

Channel: WildEarth

Views: 456,528

Rating: 4.6906404 out of 5

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Id: hkr0P79fgAc

Length: 214min 8sec (12848 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 10 2020