WildEarth - Sunset Safari - 23 June 2022

[Music] good afternoon and welcome to the lunchtime slash sun safari here at juma private game reserve on the west infringes of the greater kruger national park which of course is also part of the great limpopo trans frontier park some 3.5 million hectares of contiguous wildlife land my name is james hendry and on camera today we have got panda show us your thumb panda there it is and we are going to be exploring this area together and we have a very special treat today no no we need to show the special treat we're showing rhino today for the very first time at juma we will be showing rhino and many of you asked if i had any fun socks with me well here are my fun socks covering the legs of a blacksmith lap wing there they are and they demonstrate white rhino these are very fine socks come from the feet sock co and have on them the rhinos seem to have a variety of different colored ox peckers blue ones orange ones and pink ones fantastic all right we can go back to the animals now the real ones please do talk to us during the course of the show using the hashtag safarilive on the tweet tweet alternatively you can talk to us using an email address kids kids questions at wilder tv if you happen to be under 18 years of age or you can go along to the website wilder dot tv and you can register there the only other thing i want to look at over here is all of those impalas standing on a termite mound which is quite fun and we chatted this morning about the nutritional value of grasses on termite mounds and there you can see evidence of the fact that the grasses on termite mounds are obviously very nutritional and very tasty for there the impala are standing on a termite mound grazing it flat it's rather a nice picture that so we opened with the collection of impala zebra and wildebeest that have been on the clearings just outside camp for the last couple of days i think the temperature let me just check i'd say the temperature is around about 23 degrees celsius which is about 71 degrees fahrenheit very pleasant indeed and just sit here for a few more seconds and then i'm going to head off to the hyena den and see what's going on there you're going to have a look at the official weather [Music] so good afternoon good afternoon from wendy and myself have sat um just here on buffalo cut line around bob damn just to suss out the comings and goings at the start of our afternoon safari once again my name is liam burrow i'm the naturalist in the driver's seat here on trustee wendy and the man behind the lens is hertberger we are uh yeah coming to you live from the sarby sands um hopefully we're going to find some exciting things to show you this afternoon but let's see how it goes the afternoon is full of possibility nice conditions we're getting a bit of uh welcome sun there is no wind cool but manageable temperatures i think that is a recipe for some nice uh nice game viewing yeah as i say not too much happening here around uh the depth because many of the wild dogs in the greater kruger are currently denning it is the time for them to whelp or have puppies yeah but they've still got to eat and uh in order to eat they have to travel so yeah we might get them coming in or out we shall see how it goes the safari guard of the year 2022 is approaching us rapidly this year we'll be heading to bourgeois field guides at the southern african wildlife college from the 27th june until the 2nd of july we will soon meet all our contestants who are vying for the prize of being the very best of the best and the judges who put them through their paces join me steve falconbridge as we dream it guide it win it if you would like to be a part of the team that shares the wildebeest migration in kenya live on wild earth then we have some great news for you there are a few places left to join our expeditions in august and september this year you'll be staying in an exclusive tainted camp with ensuite bedrooms nestled in the riverine woodlands of the italic river head over to our website to book your bucket list experience today wild earth expeditions travel with purpose lisa isn't it just a really really nice afternoon this morning was a little bit chilly for my taste um still manageable it could be a lot worse but this afternoon is significantly better i like the sunshine a little bit of a breeze picking up but uh not quite as chilly and as windy as this morning so i think now as hurt and myself continue on into the west let's check in with james once more to see how his bumble is going this afternoon it's going all right thank you so far early days yet early days we heard some elephants shouting around galagopan which is just behind the camp they seem to have gone off into the thick bush to the north of the camp where there are very deep gullies and many sticks and so i'm going to leave them alone and continue around towards the hyena den that very little activity there the last couple of days and that's because the adults have all been trying to get some scraps from that kill elm chitwa there we have got some kudus you see them panda and the kudus are enjoying a meal of flugia verosa or the white berry bush mmm delicious and if you look in the foreground that grass there is the glorious grass clorus roxburghiana glorious simply because saying the words claudus roxburghiana make one feel so much better about the world give it a try cloris roxburghiana panda say it see those waving grasses there that's claudus roxburgiano let's hear you say it chlorus roxburghiana doesn't that make you feel good yeah i told you it would cloris roxburghiana there's another kudu behind us here also imbibing in flougia verosa or whiteberry bush and far in the background you can hear the lovely call of the white broad scrub robin now that could be looking at is eating magic quarry and that's a seldom eaten bush out here because it tends to have a very high tannin content and in fact it is so seldom eaten that it is the choice of tree for many of the cats to mark their territory on so they urinate on it we think in the hopes that it won't be flattened or eaten by a browser so that's quite interesting and perhaps this could use having a go at this tree because it's got quite a few yellowish leaves on the top honey no male kudus do not play a significant role in their young's lives their role is simply to provide a haploid cell in the form of a sperm and that is the end of their role as a father they don't really provide much by way of protection they are not hugely territorial so it's not like they protect a territory from other male kudus that might harm their offspring they don't protect their young from predators so no they don't really play much of a role at all they definitely don't play a mentorship role so i'd say they play very little role other than the donation of a haploid sperm cell but that is a crucial role let us not forget without it there would be no more kudus as far as i'm aware and i might be wrong here but as far as i'm aware no mammal has managed to breed by parthenogenesis which is the process by which an egg basically splits and becomes an organism that is a clone of the mother and it does happen in some reptiles i think some salamanders are able to do it it does happen in some insect species and it happened once in an episode of house in which a a woman came in pregnant and she had apparently managed to create a baby by parthenogenesis we're going to head across now to chris at pridelands while i move on from my kudus eating flugia verosa and let's find out what chris has got hello everybody you are live with me here at pridelands just north of a town called hood hutzpat which is sort of seen as the gateway to the lowfelt and today we are going to be discussing trees shrubs plants in general with emphasis on trees and shrubs and their role in the ecology my name is chris and paul's again with us on come-ups and what we're gonna do is we're gonna walk around a bit easy bushwalk not gonna go mad and we're literally going to look at trees in various different angles and look at their role and the ecology from the simplest things like providing food to complex things like when they die for instance look at that there's a horn border oh now he's fallen off here is there is there there it's one of possibly one of the bark beetles wow right on our first exploration there we we find something now i'm hoping to see where these guys what happens they lay their eggs it's part of the larger hornwater or a bark borer would bore a family so they lay their eggs in the tree when it's usually just after it's died or where there's dead bark the larvae will hatch underneath and they'll start sort of drilling into the wood some go straight into a hole some make these little galleries underneath and they hatch from there and they specifically will live in dead bark material i mean this is one of hundreds of different things [Applause] mia is very excited for those ecology discussions anyway so these bark beetles is a very big family there's several species the guy is still around there i'd like to know what species that is you know what we're gonna try and identify this using our book my name is michelle duplessi and i'm the managing director of the field guides association of southern africa i'm one of the judges this year and i'll be judging the game drive category as well as hospitality professionalism and storytelling i really look forward to seeing everybody again this year and obviously to meet the incredible contestants [Music] here at wild earth we promised great monthly prizes for our explorers and this month is no exception if you join our club before the 10th of july then you stand a chance to win a fabulous safari guide online course brought to you by bushwise field guides they specialize in accredited safari guide training with courses tailored for the african safari large industry sign up to be a wild earth explorer today and don't miss out on this life-changing opportunity it's like insects just ass down our backup to get my insect book i know the family of this beetle he's still around and again just showed you i literally just wanted to explain what we're going to do today and bang is a beetle the other day we even saw a whoop scorpion in the bark and we're gonna try and find another one for you later on so even when trees are dead they do provide refuge for such a number of creatures anyway while i try and id this beetle let's get back to james who's out searching for animals theatres are i think the most diverse group of insects in the world and therefore there are very likely thousands and thousands of species of beetle that have never been identified so good luck with that one chris quite nice that there are some beatles out this time of year again probably a function of the amount of rain that we've had of late uh one thing that must be done every time you come into the bush is to appreciate the very common yet very colorful bird that is the lilac breasted roller behold do you see it panda it's on the end of this tree closest to us if you zoom in over the top of my finger them so one of the borders the wood borders i'm trying to get to them still trying to identify this border beetle i mean there's so many of them i just need to get but while i do that that's the thing with insects you know especially beetles all these things they there's so many varieties of these things that you all right i'm at the borah's now i'm gonna try and see if my book has the i think i got it i've got it gosh it doesn't even have a normal name so let's see let's go to that beetle let's see if i've got the right one here it says cut this slightly it's got these it's got a glass black ahead and carapace slightly orange length and then these two orange spots on the back could be this guy but it does not if i do get it i'll show you i'm gonna find this thing i don't think my book has it i'm gonna take a photo and see if i can't find it elsewhere speaking [Music] and coming up in first place and officially named bilo is [Music] your tracking is very good what is the starting tracking just check the left you walk a little bit you stop you keep starting checking keep your hands your neck up okay your eyes listen for the birds before the leopard the letter shall see you first you lose but next year i cannot find this in my book guys be nice to know if there's any any herpetologists around okay i'm still gonna keep keep keep digging um i'm still convinced it's one of the bark beetles let's go back to james who's still on his bumble i'm sorry you lost me in the last segment i'm not sure what happened i'm not sure how far we got in our discussion of the lilac wristed roller but what i was saying brief in brief is that it's something of an evolutionary mystery to me maybe not to others why males and females should have evolved such expensive colors when it can't be for sexual attraction in the same way that a sunbird or a peacock or a hummingbird has developed those sorts of colors parrots the same love birds the same [Music] it's very interesting i did read something about it and it is now naturally lift my brain but i i haven't come up with a particularly satisfactory answer yet for why that should be the case anybody who would like to enlighten me is more than welcome still on our way to the hyena then get there relatively quickly because i think this is a good time to be there it's an unusual time normally but the last time we had all the action was around about this time of the day so we'll see what we get this is a very productive road in the summertime when it's very hot because there are a whole lot of lovely mud pans along the way where often you will find elephants mud bathing or rhinos wallowing or buffaloes wallowing today there is just quite a lot of grass and not much wallowing at all most likely because there is so much water all over the place you want to know what my most memorable story is while being on a drive oh there are just so many it's very difficult to pick the most memorable one um i don't know the thing that springs to mind immediately is the first time i saw a wildebeest crossing of the mauro river and we were in kenya just sort of doing a bit of a recce to see if we could perhaps get some signal and do a broadcast and we were at the river the wildebeest crossed we found some signal and we did a broadcast from there and it was really the most astounding thing to see and we saw three or four that time around and from then on we went regularly to cover the migration so i think that was probably one of the most memorable ones when i first saw a build-a-beast crossing in the mauro river and at juma what sticks in my mind a lot of walks stick in my mind i'm trying to think of a drive i guess the day i found marips when he was just a few days old or maybe a week or two old that was very special it's always nice to be the first to find a leopard a little cub so that was very special it's always nice to have that kind of box to tick so i will always have a special bond with maripse he will absolutely not have any kind of a bond with me he doesn't know who i am but i i know who he is and so that's always very special we know that there's nothing worse than just as your favorite leopard is about to catch his first meal in three days you are on the edge of your seat and up pops in advert but as you know a life without advertising would mean a very boring evening when you arrive home from work because wild earth and most other media companies rely on advertising in order to fund our content but we want to let you know that we hear you and to show you how enthusiastic about following wild dogs so that was always great fun and what else i'm trying to think if anything really sticks out in my mind i mean there's been so many special sightings then we had i remember a drive with tandy where she killed a kudu while we were live she used the sound of the vehicle i felt a bit bad for the young kudu who i'm i mean i don't know if it would have survived if we hadn't been there but she very cleverly used the vehicle to mask the sound of her approach and she killed the young kudu live which was quite spectacular and you know all of those little those tv shows we did i remember we opened one tv show into you know we were doing international wild in the states and i mean there were high pressure situations because we had to have an animal on screen it it was only in desperation that you ever did a segment like we're doing now where you know you were just driving had to have an animal on screen and we had hosanna the male leopard and it was pitch black darkness couldn't see anything and we were driving along and we were trying desperately to keep the leopard in in sight and we were counting down from 20 to going live and the leopard was moving through the bush just the other side of the voyatella dam wall where the drone up in the air saying okay he's he's 20 meters to your left he's 20 meters to your right keep going keep going forward okay there he is three two one live live we opened on the leopard the leopard disappeared back to me do the introduction all those kinds of memories are very special because they were just you know it was such a it was such an honor to be part of those events anyway i'm going to reminisce with myself probably too much and you're going to go across to chris and see what's happening with him right so when we identify trees i'm going to use this lead grid this is that beautiful specimen we've done a few weeks ago we're not going to go into lead with as such we're using leadwood as an example so when we start to identify trees let's say you're a student and we have to learn how to do it so the first things that you look at is the general impression shape size the general appearance of the tree all right so look at the and that one of the biggest things there is growth form you can see if you look at the tree and i'm even going to refer to my little schematics here on the book lovely drawings here in the book you can see this is very similar this is almost as is this tree that's copied so the lead wood very tall trees especially the adult trees with a single very broad elongated unbranched trunk mostly and then you've got both vertical and sort of horizontal branches and the tree cover or the the leaf cover is very space the canopy itself as you can see there as well as this sort of slightly olive greenish colored leaves so that is the general shape and size things that we can also look at from here without having to analyze leaves that's the next component we're going to get you later it's a very tall high branching tree in the bark remembers that flaky ashy white colored bark almost resembling a pale snake skin like scales almost and then the spare foliage the canopy so there's the general impression and shape and size of a leadwood so ledgewoods are one of those trees that you can easily identify just by looking at that i mean there's very few things that resemble that tree some trees are a little bit more tricky say they grow the same like some of the bush willows well this is one of the bush bullets but for instance a large fruited bush fellow versus a red bushwillow so then you start having to look at things like leaf structures seed boards flowers etc so that's why i wanted to use a ledgewood this is a perfect simple example of how to use the just or the general shape appearance impressions that you get from the tree to identify it ruby says it's a marvelous tree for a leopard to climb and let's go closer to the lead wood i have found that leopard stunned do lead woods that much i have seen them uplead woods but they generally don't like it remember it's an extremely hard wood even that bark there the outer bark is extremely tough they do climb any tree if they need to but they seem to prefer things like marulas and so forth i mean we've done this tree a few times now remember the bark again the first general impression you get you can see that sort of flaky almost like a s like a snake skin very very uh very white in color and that's due to the high lime content of the bark and the woods but now if i'm a leopard look at this see how easily that bar comes off it's very easy and underneath there that's very very hard so not a good place for a leopard to get traction onto but they do climate and have seen them climates not like they don't climb it and also it's it's not a lot of perfectly broad horizontal branches to light onto that's why they prefer marulas they love marilla trees for that purpose anyway the safari guard of the year 2022 is approaching us rapidly this year we'll be heading to bourgeois field guards at the southern african wildlife college from the 27th june till the 2nd of july we will soon meet all our contestants who are vying for the prize of being the very best of the best and the judges who put them through their paces join me steve falconbridge as we dream it guide it win it if you would like to be a part of the team that shares the wildebeest migration in kenya live on wild earth then we have some great news for you there are a few places left to join our expeditions in august and september this year you'll be staying in an exclusive tainted camp with ensuite bedrooms nestled in the riverine woodlands of the italic river head over to our website to book your bucket list experience today wild earth expeditions travel with purpose right let's find our next tree peter good afternoon peter says leadwood is his favorite tree and there it is peter this is a really really impressive specimen sorry i'll fix my words today quite a lot this is an incredible specimen i've seen bigger ones than this but this is about as that's about as big as they get they're not trunks diamond it's probably close to a meter it's a big tree that it's it's a very big tree let's take a look at a dead lead wood this is a young language while we're on lakewood i said we're going to strip it down to the bottom today again now the trees lying down we don't have the general strap we don't know the leaves this has been cut obviously elephants have pushed us over could have been wind but again if we know what the bark looks like we know that this is a liquid again there's that bark i showed you this is so so distinct and we can already see how it's loosening look at that nothing there all right so these are very young branches so they're not nearly as dense as the trunks wood itself right also not such a big lead wood it still takes substantial power for elephants to break this down or push this down goodness and i've seen they have pushed down quite a few of them let's see if we can't see something in here at a distance let's go back to james and see what he's up to we have come to the hyena den now and we have got three hyenas visible we have got the belle and we have gotten the bell as baby cub and we have got loki or kira and we're undecided about whom that is i think it's probably loki given that kira has the wound behind her head and that hyena doesn't appear to have a wound behind the ear so things are very quiet at the moment but develops little one is suckling and we got a very brief view of him her hit and we're just going to stay here for a while and see what happens and hopefully the little thing will begin to play and that will be well very joyful for us indeed it's all very peaceful here no sounds very few smells thankfully because as we all know hyenas can smell something cruel [Applause] and luckily none of that right now it's all rather pleasant in every respect [Music] with a slew of potential dangers lurking it's essential to be aware of your surroundings whilst walking in the wilderness 20 yards away from one of the most endangered species this is a big bull what a moment what a close encounter with an ellie bull he's just over here now he's moved completely away being on a bush walk and seeing a leopard i mean it's ridiculous to be this close to a leopard on foot and for him not to run he's absolutely insane how crazy was that it's just the back of the head of a male lion he is absolutely unaware that we are here right now i'll tell you seeing lions on foot it definitely brings out the caveman in you this little scared human being was just what you needed yes i know what you mean it is something very um soporific and peaceful and enjoyable and just pleasant just generally pleasant it really is gorgeous yes taylor age 12 absolutely the cubs are always at the den that's how this tends to work and the reason they need to be at the den is for protection if they're not at the den then the chances are that they will be eaten or killed and what's great about the den is that it provides them with complete protection from any of the potential predators that could hurt them and it's it's actually quite interesting what they do and how the adults deal with any potential threats and it's actually really clever so the adults will come around here they'll feed the cubs and they'll often be lying around here in the bushes close by cubs will be playing and if a lion comes up or yeah a lion mainly or some other kind of threat like a huge pack of wild dogs all that happens is the babies go inside they know immediately to rush inside the adults disappear and then there's nothing here and the den is set up such that the youngsters can go inside and unless some kind of predator is very small they'll never be able to get inside to pull the cubs out so something like a lion a wild dog or even a big male leopard would not be able to get into the den to pull the baby hyenas out and so really it's an incredibly safe place for them to be and that's why they stay at the den and then when they're about eight months old they'll start moving around and going on little foraging expeditions they'll still come back to the den but after that they'll spend less and less time here ah um you say this nothing like the hyena den with your morning coffee linda well good i'm glad that you're enjoying your morning coffee with the hyena den i will assume that you are living in the western hemisphere probably in the united states of america and all canada or mexico guatemala maybe you're from guatemala are you from guatemala linda there's a nice comment here from michael fleetwood um who says other than corky i'll read it directly other than corki who wasn't really known well individually until jamie patterson and i started putting in time with them um wild earth has continuously watched all of the clans adult females since they were cubs themselves and i think that's an important comment and our viewers have done a really remarkable job of helping us to understand the clan dynamics here and in fact it was long before we started taking an interest like we do now in the hyenas the viewers were doing the same thing and doing it with very limited information they were identifying these hyenas from mainly from the juma dam cam and from the few sightings that we had on drive and they managed to put together quite remarkable um i suppose set of identicates and hierarchies and all that sort of thing and you know michael you make a good point there that corki really was the first one that we started paying proper attention to as presenters or guides or naturalists or people who like being on camera and in the bush at the same time and after that we started taking much more of an interest and jamie took it to a new level uh in the mara with the north clan and obviously here thank you for that michael all right liam is knocking about somewhere uh clearly on some kind of vantage and he wants to show you what he can see from said advantage a beautiful view indeed off of the summerham billy open clearings while instigating this area myself have uh found quite a lot of sign for what looks like a small group of buffalo in the area somewhere um i say small maybe 15 or 20 individuals it looks like some carves blended into the mix as well lots of dung lots of tracks and then while we were set looking at a giraffe that was briefly out in the open but which vanished into a thicket we heard a buffalo call so they're out there somewhere we've made a few loops around the block that we're currently framed up on but as you can see it's quite thick and there isn't much of a road network there so we're just trying to get a slightly better perspective from a bit of a crest i'm in the hopes of either spotting these buffalo or hearing a bit of sound again nice to see a group of multiple buffalo individuals we did get that big herd briefly in the dark the other night but it would be great to see them during the day [Music] hmm [Music] [Music] we know that there's nothing worse than just as your favorite leopard is about to catch his first meal in three days you're on the edge of your seat and up pops in advert but we want to let you know that we hear you you can watch wild earth without the ads sign up to be an explorer and watch the channel on the wild earth website completely ad free head over to our explorer page to find out more so we've been keeping an eye out for ox peckers and there's been a number around and they're usually fairly reliable often hanging around big groups of buffalo like that but uh the oxbeckers that we have seen and heard have been on impala a couple around the giraffes so no joy there just yet yeah it looks like the buffalo may have been around in this area for one or two days already quite a nice area for them lots of good grazing plenty of water king uh mine counted the buffalo herd in the western sector of the sabi sans that was reckoned to be over a thousand individuals um quite a spectacular scene not a common scene at all quite regularly a 600 or 700 though yeah especially in times of plenty when conditions are very good the herds seem to merge just get vast numbers of them and when you're dealing with numbers of buffalo like that it's almost a guarantee that lions are going to be present there somewhere yeah the smell and the sound of all those thundering hooves just impossible for a line to pass on ian yeah i think look i think uh i think the buffalo do get sort of used to the ox pickers to some degree but yeah they can be certainly quite irritating hey constantly buzzing around and sticking their beaks in where they don't belong so yeah they're used to them but not always very tolerant so wild earth have really inspired me to return to south africa after having followed so many beautiful characters this ticket to dream has given me a great opportunity to meet the wild earth team which i thank they're all amazing i love all of the characters but i do have a particular passion for leopards it's a dream and as i said before i just keep on pinching myself am i really here [Music] [Applause] [Music] so buffalo calves will begin to sprout horns i think you can just see the buffalo they're very well framed up by a buffalo will start to sprout horns from just a couple of months of age but it's going to take a couple of years for the horns to be as developed as an adult cow or an adult bull i think we're going to waste no time at all those are the buffalo that we are looking for but we are going to have to loop around somewhat to get to them so yeah before they head into a completely different area let's try and uh shoot around there to uh to grab a bit of a closer look superb [Music] yeah i believe you'll start to see horns sprouting on a buffalo calf from about three months of age they do grow very very quickly speaking of growing very quickly um i think let's check in with james who is around the hyena den yes the cubs are still sleeping everything is sleeping here at the hyena den panda is asleep behind me i am asleep here i am talking to you from a dream in which the hyenas are not asleep but playing doing backflips and engaging in gymnastics on the trees all around us panda wake up and zoom in as you can see not a great deal happening and the bella continues to snooze the background the crested barbet makes its call a little bit more melodically than i did there and everybody is very content presumably those lying inside the den are also content sleeping quietly as the afternoon slowly progresses at some stage one would imagine that the adults who have been scoffing on chitwa will arrive home to say hello annabelle you said something about five-star accommodation i don't think there is um any form of five-star accommodation down there i think it's probably fairly dirty probably fairly cramped and probably incredibly stinky but these are hyenas they are not the sorts of creatures that need much in the way of creature comforts and therefore i think it you know they'll be quite satisfied with where they are uh not having ever stayed in five-star five-star accommodation we know that there's nothing worse than just as your favorite leopard is about to catch his first meal in three days you are on the edge of your seat and up pops in advert but as you know a life without advertising would mean a very boring evening when you arrive home from work because wild earth and most other media companies rely on advertising in order to fund our content but we want to let you know that we hear you and to show you how much we care about your experience in nature you can watch wild earth without the ads [Music] sign up to be an explorer and watch the channel on the wild earth website completely ad free head over to our explorer page to find out more while those explorers it's in your nature so yeah it really does depend on how deep or i mean how frequently the dens being used i don't think this one is a particularly old den i do recall it being used in 2020 during the lockdown i think that's when it started being used it's almost two years old so it's possible that it's opened up all the way through but i'm not sure remember each new generation will probably do a little bit more digging and excavating and so it'll become deeper and deeper as the years go by i think the cub that was suckling is now sleeping fallen asleep on the boob as it were yes jane absolutely hyenas returned to the dens they've used before frequently and then sometimes they abandon them and never use them again so there's one not far from here that these hyenas used to use in which the inimitable plonk was born it was a son of corkis and that's fallen and completely into disuse i haven't seen them up at the den that i was talking about on galaga shortcut for a long time but they've definitely used that a few times and yeah they absolutely use reused dens remember also this is the central den and low ranking hyenas will often give birth away from the central den and what comes to mind is a a peripheral then called gwen's den in which gwen the hyena gave birth once uh or twice and it was far away from the central den it was very small just one termite ma a small termite mound with a hole in it and that's where she gave birth until her cub was big enough to deal with the social ramifications of being around the clan as a low-ranking individual and then she brought her baby to join the clan gwen has since gone back to the mud along with many other members of the jhuma clan but her genes live on i suppose can't remember who her offspring are or if any of her offspring are still here still waiting for some form of action from the little cub aaron i can never remember this one either but the spots i think begin to develop at around about three months i'm just going to check this out for you but around about three months i think the spots start to come through the black i've been asked this question at least 700 times i've looked it up at least 700 times and you think i can remember it of course i can't why would i remember it i don't remember something useful like that um so i mean if you look at if you look at corki's cub cover born in march 2022 she's already got the spots out she's four months old almost five months old yeah so just just before three months swazi swazi's cub masengita's already got spots and he is now april may june just uh just about three months old so probably even before that let's say they probably start coming out at about six weeks and they're much more obvious at around about three months i think that's a relatively nebulous yet um probably fairly solid answer i hope thanks so much for that question ah a giraffe girl says from what she understands heart and ribbon were gwen's offspring so i think that's probably correct thank you for that giraffe girl and michael fleetwood agreed to agreeing that heart is gwen's daughter and gingrich and ambilo are her granddaughters cool very cool sambilo is gwen's below is gwen's granddaughter and therefore oh that's yeah okay obviously because hearts are milo's mother okay let's go across to young liam i think he has found something big in the bush which i think is a euphemism for an elephant so huge indeed but uh not an elephant kat and i after quite an extensive search have managed to locate on the buffalo that we were in search of we're trying to approach quite gently though we did give one of the bulls at the front a fright and he uh thundered off so they might be quite skittish however saying that cows are now popping out in the road up ahead i'm wondering if we shouldn't just sneak around the corner looks to be quite a nice sized grip which is very cool i'm happy we did a bit of tracking to find them i do like a big group of buffalo yeah it may even be more than we originally thought maybe 30 or 40 certainly bulls cows and calves all present this is a buffalo breeding herd very very cool you can see here that uh orchestra of oxpeck is uh constantly inundating this buffalo group uh they can be a brilliant uh sort of early warning sign for us certainly when we're trying to track them but especially if we are on foot tracking something else or on a walking safari yeah warning you that something like a buffalo or potentially a rhino is quite close quite a few individuals crossing the road yeah might even be more might be 50 or 60. this is a proper sized breeding herd that's cool now now that we've actually switched off and we're just sitting here quite steady speaking nice and softly and the buffalo are actually approaching us which is pretty ideal at their own pace within their own comfort zone that tends to be the best way to deal with most of the wildlife a very impressive bull off here to our right so so we're going to continue to enjoy these buffalo um hopefully we will check in with you again just now but uh in the meantime let's cross back over to chris in pridelands to see what he's up to all right so sometimes you have a tree like the lead would we have which is a tree that's unmistakable in its growth form you can't confuse it with anything else but sometimes you have a tree it's actually common with a growth form that's so distinct when they're adult and this is no different but then you get this young tree that you can confuse with a few others of its kind now before we get to how we can identify this tree obviously a either a senegale or vegetarian species formerly known as acacius all right so for this segment i'm just going to refer to as a caseis because you can confuse all of them right so now we have to go we don't have growth form because it's a young tree it's a it's a very young tree in a species so we can confuse it with something like a flaky thorn could be because this is a size of an adult flaky thorn the safari guard of the year 2022 is approaching us rapidly this year we'll be heading to bourgeois field guides at the southern african wildlife college from the 27th june till the 2nd of july we will soon meet all our contestants who are vying for the prize of being the very best of the best and the judges who put them through their paces join me steve falconbridge as we dream it guide it win it if you would like to be a part of the team that shares the wildebeest migration in kenya live on wild earth then we have some great news for you there are a few places left to join our expeditions in august and september this year you'll be staying in an exclusive tainted camp with ensuite bedrooms nestled in the riverine woodlands of the italic river head over to our website to book your bucket list experience today wild earth expeditions travel with purpose that has both and taking all of that into consideration we thou know it's an umbrella thorn used to be a case here tortillas now known as vicilia tortillas while in the virgilia because its flowers are around not spikelets which is the case the senegal is also if we look at the leaves we know all of them the older cases they all have a bipedally compound leaf so it's twice compounded but if we look at look at it compared to my finger it is tiny tiny tiny individual leaflets those twice compound leaves are very tiny among the tiniest of all the acacia or for the chilean senegalese and it gives it this sort of fine feathery appearance but they tiny and therefore we know this is a or an umbrella thought so if i come back to my book those if you've seen an umbrella thorn and later on i'll show you an adult version they've got this very distinct flat ground that very typical africa shape you know that that's the vanity that you always see on them on the documentaries but again the adult tree unmistakable we've got a single trunk low branching distinct flat top but in this case we had to go to the thorn structure as well as the leaf structure in order to identify it okay let's head back to liam with his buffalo while we advance to our next launch so um we are back with uh this very impressive scene of cape buffalo all around us uh very interesting as well a huge presence with ox peckers two species here and they're very common and regularly seen red build oxpecker but we have seen a few there is in the back right of the screen a yellow build oxpecker as well oh watch out for the hooves so as the name suggests red build ox picker with a red bill yellow build ox picker with a red tip but the majority of isbill is yellow slightly bigger not frequently seen at all those yellow bills are special ouch yeah bit of a bit of a puncture mark on that one's flank i wonder if that wasn't the result of uh a bit of lion predation a predation attempt let's just pull around the corner a little bit this buff coming nicely out into the road always the highlight to see those yellow build oxpeckers those are great birds uh the use of tick-killing pesticides um in the production of beef cattle almost destroyed the yellow bill dox pickers in southern africa it was only until um conservationists made stringent efforts to bring them back breeding them in captivity and establishing populations all over the country how the dox pickers finally made a comeback there's a nice one that's a great one and a great comparison between the two species as well yeah those uh killing pesticides that were so lethal to the ox pickers have now been outlawed as well you can't use them here at wild earth we promised great monthly prizes for our explorers and this month is no exception if you join our club before the 10th of july then you stand a chance to win a fabulous safari guide online course brought to you by bushwise field guides they specialize in accredited safari guide training with courses tailored for the african safari large industry sign up to be a wild earth explorer today and don't miss out on this life-changing opportunity [Music] and coming up in first place and officially named bilo is [Music] my goodness that was a particularly woolly looking cow she almost looks a bit like a forest buffalo with those ear tassels quite a character and they do have that very characteristic buffalo stare when they look at you so the ox pickers uh can do a little bit of both to be perfectly honest with you uh we just witnessed um a cow crossing over the road with a big open wound um on her back and the ox pick is all picking at the flesh keeping it very raw keeping it very open so from that perspective they can be quite negative but obviously they feed on hundreds upon hundreds of ticks or for the buffalo's body the average buffalo in the low felt reckon to have about 30 000 ticks on its body at any one time so the ox pickers have a full-time job of pest control for these buff so i think about 50 50 they do help but they are a bit of a hindrance as well lots of calves in this group it has obviously been a highly productive season for the buffalo a product of of all the green grass still a few coming through but i think the bulk of this herd has crossed over it may even be as many as 80. now a much bigger group than we initially thought i estimated 15 or 20 from a distance so ali i have witnessed confrontations between buffalo and lions before in one particular sighting even witnessing a lying lion being chased into a tree by her buffalo but i've witnessed lions killing buffalo on on even more regular occasions so i guess fair is fair yeah a big risk big reward for a pride of lion obviously uh bringing down a buffalo is an enormous success there's a whole lot of meat there if it's a big enough one nice calf there but often buffalo will protect members of the herd so if they hear an elderly individual at the back being attacked by lions bellowing for help often the rest of the group will rally back drive the lions off and potentially even take it far enough to trample trample unsuspecting lions all righty well i think the majority of the group has now crossed the road in front of us so we may attempt to loop around if we can get another view we certainly will but even if that's all we get that was pretty smashing always great to catch up with a big group of buffalo something spectacular about it so while we see if we can reestablish on the majority of this group big bull in front of us let's check back in with chris and see what he's up to in pridelands so now continue on what we mentioned in that previous segment about the acacias and again i'm referring to cases purely for the save of demonstration they're not called the cases anymore they're called virgilius or senegalese all right so this is not the same one we had this is the flaky thunder now i've brought a branchlet off the umbrella form we just had now look at the difference between the individual leaflets as opposed to that of the flaky thorn look at the color this is much more gray supposed to the shiny green of the flaky thorn you can even see the flaky thorn has somewhat longer spikes or thorns we protect and reconnect nature across southern africa we bring countries together to care for wild spaces that stretch beyond borders we protect and restore biodiversity [Music] we prioritize the people living in these landscapes enabling them to thrive in harmony with nature we are restoring tomorrow [Music] my name is mark carontonis and i'm the co-owner of a travel company called africa direct and i'm from waterville in pumalanga and i'm the founder of safari god of the year it takes a lot of courage you know to put your hand up and say i'm in to put yourself forward and say i'm here to learn it's not possible without them since of resin again this is not something that you will not see on the umbrella thorn even on a young one reels that oily in my hand you can feel it this is just to demonstrate and to continue on that previous segment as to once we can't use things like growth shape those type of things that we start moving into the territory of analyzing leaflets thorns and specifically with the thorn trees it becomes important because they can look very similar especially young trees and why the thorns i mean i don't know if you've seen how careful i was when i maneuvered here i mean these things are razor sharp now look at the size of these leaves they're soft they're very easy to chew like tasty there's not a lot of tannin in them so all the browsers are gonna utilize these things it is most of these thorn trees are super nutritious great browsing value so in order to prevent over to utilization you can imagine i'm a kuru i every now and then that's not nice i'm gonna just leave rather yeah all right and there's this one harriet uh wants to know if there's any deadly or poisonous thorns in the bush no not not so much like he would have with poison ivy and those things which that we don't have here there are poisonous and toxic plants if you consume them but very few that actually will harm you in terms of toxins when you are pricked by them some will have chemicals that can cause a burning sensation even these they burn like mad when they sting you but that's mostly mechanical pain induced by the actual sting and obviously there's some bacteria and stuff in there so it can get a little infected but no there's no plants that are severely toxic out here at least with thorns that can harm you these thorns are menacing though like i said it's easier to chew here with the mouth like a browser than to try and get in there no matter where i go these thorns will prick me so defense mechanism and they are actually just modified leaves keep that in mind anyway let's head back to james to see what he's up to so sorry there's just such a lovely peaceful atmosphere that i thought a little afternoon ziz was the way to go and i think it was the really the right decision i had a very peaceful time taking on the activity of the hyenas and enjoying the sun's rays warming me on this winter's afternoon absolutely nothing has happened here since last you were here about 25 minutes ago loki or kira most likely loki he's doing exactly what i was doing in the bella is doing exactly what i was doing and the little baby cub is doing exactly what i was doing we know that there's nothing worse than just as your favorite leopard is about to catch his first meal in three days you are on the edge of your seat and up pops in advert but as you know a life without advertising would mean a very boring evening when you arrive home from work because wild earth and most other media companies rely on advertising in order to fund our content but we want to let you know that we hear you and to show you how much we care about your experience in nature you can watch wild earth without the ads [Music] sign up to be an explorer and watch the channel on the wild earth website completely ad free head over to our explorer page to find out more while those explorers it's in your nature so maybe we should do the old trick of should i stay or should i go hey where you get to decide whether i should stay or whether i should go thank you morgan you say be one with the hyena become the hyena they will accept you interestingly there is actually somebody who's done that and his name is kim wallater and i think that it's very interesting the things that he's done so if you haven't come across kim's work or kim's activities check him out you'll find him on youtube you find him on instagram you find him all over the place and he's done this with a few different species it's very controversial but his most recent work has been with the clan of hyenas and i forget exactly where because he does move around quite a lot he did it in mashatu and i'm not sure if he's still in mashatu up in botswana or if he's moved on from there he might be in zimbabwe now anyway what kim does does is that he habituates completely wild hyenas and to the extent that they will accept him as part of the clan so he he doesn't feed them at all he never gives them food but he's habituated hyenas to the extent that they have accepted him and he can get out of a car or he can walk up to the den he can sit down on the ground the adults don't really come up to him much they do they come and they smell him and they kind of greet him and then they go off and they lie like dabella is doing there but the youngsters will come and they'll play with him and he tickles them and they romp around and wrestle and it's it's absolutely unbelievable to see he's never fed them they're completely wild hyenas it's only him they accept they don't accept anybody else unless they're with him in which case they'll kind of allow the person to get relatively close but they don't interact in the same way as they do with kim and it really is phenomenal to witness i'm not i'm still not entirely sure how i feel about it because it does cross a line but it is absolutely fascinating that it's possible the safari guard of the year 2022 is approaching us rapidly this year we'll be heading to bourgeois field guides at the southern african wildlife college from the 27th june to the 2nd of july we will soon meet all our contestants who are vying for the prize of being the very best of the best and the judges will put them through their paces join me steve falconbridge as we dream it guide it win it if you would like to be a part of the team that shares the wildebeest migration in kenya live on wild earth then we have some great news for you there are a few places left to join our expeditions in august and september this year you'll be staying in an exclusive tainted camp with ensuite bedrooms nestled in the riverine woodlands of the italic river head over to our website to book your bucket list experience today wild earth expeditions travel with purpose because if i don't fall asleep for real panda certainly will and devela did give us a bit of a stretch and she went [Music] and then she went straight back oh here we go cover's talking now [Music] right here with some action look look look little babies out action stations everybody i made that up do you like my song i think it's brilliant this is great okay all the little ones are coming out now oh this is fantastic they heard we were going to leave and they decided to stay who can blame them of course i'm now going to have to identify the slot i'll get on with the identification process in a little while is being beaten up there it's definitely loki i think and i think we've got three different litters there we've got loki masingita and and koa i i mean i'd love to take credit for identifying these cubs but i'm taking it directly from panda who seems to have developed a much greater skill at identifying them than i have and it's here of course that we will see the hierarchy enforced and reinforced thank you lynn yes i think i will stay for now this is a marvelous sighting more babies coming out of the den that must be kira surely no yes okay so now there's great joy and playing going on biting pulling suddenly oh shame look at the little one being beaten up there shame it's tough being the littlest in the clan isn't it but you've got to be tough if you're a hyena i've got to tell you there's no gentle hyena that survives if you want to be a hyena that survives to adulthood you've got to be tough as old boots my name is michelle duplessi and i'm the managing director of the field guides association of southern africa i'm one of the judges this year and i'll be judging the game drive category as well as hospitality professionalism and storytelling i really look forward to seeing everybody again this year and obviously to meet the incredible contestants [Music] here at wild earth we promised great monthly prizes for our explorers and this month is no exception if you join our club before the 10th of july then you stand a chance to win a fabulous safari guide online course brought to you by bushwise field guides they specialize in accredited safari guide training with courses tailored for the african safari large industry sign up to be a wild earth explorer today and don't miss out on this life-changing opportunity it's a testament to individuals i think that that little one is being dragged about like that i mean that's quite something to be picked up by the skin on your back and dragged off i mean that can't be a lot of fun well surprise has gone back into the den we might actually see here whether this den goes all the way through because he or she could pop out the other side i'm just gonna sit back down on my chair there we go so it's softer than the dashboard on my aging buttocks oh and now there's a delightful smell of rancid hyena yeah look the babies was this she got two she got two okay so the other one's now going to be carried off oh look they're both there so it is the den goes all the way through fascinating how cool is that all right we're not gonna move from here liam's still with his buffalo which is quite unusual so let's go across to them and see what's happening there so uh our buffalo group is uh showing that they've they've kind of accepted our presence really nicely not skittish at all cows and calves emerging on all sides out into the sun for a bit of grazing before the sun does actually set now they will find a nice place to settle all together as sleeping in quite close proximity and often popping the calves on kind of the inside of a fortress of uh leathery skins and sharp pointed horns yeah but capitalizing on the last of the summer's greenery still quite a bit of uh very palatable fresh grass and at least plenty of water another big requirement for healthy buffalo now they're daily drinkers they must consume water probably morning and afternoon huge amounts to sustain a group this big such cool vocalizations all these moose and growls and bellows they're formidable real characters [Music] and coming up in first place and officially named bilo is [Music] your trekking is very good what is the starting tracking just check the leopard you walk a little bit you stop you keep starting checking keep your hands your neck up okay your eyes listen for the birds you fold the left the letters should see you first you lose start next year so rhys so um i think the uh the role of protector of the young is actually more likely to go to the cow the cow in charge and the actual mother of the calf and that's probably the reason that female buffalo have evolved to have quite a formidable pair of horns as well protection of their young but the entire group all members are very intolerant to the presence of predators a leopard a lion whatever it may be any buffalo spots it it's going to raise the alarm and it's vastly probable that multiple members of the group will charge in often chasing a lion or a leopard up into a tree going to great lengths to keep predators out of the way uh but yeah um the the action of uh sort of crushing that uh that boss that joined seam of of of horn over the top of the head a bit like a helmet driving that onto a predator crushing it onto the ground has the potential to break bones and quite easily cost a lion or a leopard its life yeah not a buffalo hunting not to be taken lightly by any of our predators an interesting old female crossing the road there she may not give us much of a good look but missing the horn on the left side that can happen matthew i have had a couple of experiences with buffalo on foot nothing too nasty i've bumped into them a couple of times viewed them many many many times sort of on our own terms quite safely and securely the only scary encounter i've had with buffalo was down in the western sector of the sabi sands following the ottawa pride of lions hunting buffalo anyway these lions pursued the buffalo slowly slowly we watched them stalking for about an hour it sort of looked like the lions were losing interest i think they did eventually lions all went to sleep buffalo moved off the wind shifted i think these buffalo got wind of the lions got their scent panicked and came thundering towards our uh our land rover where i was sat with my tracker and my guests and uh literally in seconds we were just surrounded by thundering buffalo passing within inches of the front and the back um yeah and that i mean at that point you can't really pull forward you can't pull back you can't try and get out of the way you've just got to sit in place and hope uh hope that there isn't an accident bit like running out into traffic and then just having to stand still as the cars pass really frightening but uh yeah we got off lucky on that one a good lesson for me you've got to be extremely careful when predators are hunting big animals like this if they fear for their lives they will do everything they can to get out of the way even if that means they're coming straight through you i've got huge respect for the buffalo so i think we may check back in with james down at the hyena den cat and myself might try and get one more view of these buffalo and then we will probably leave them in peace there's a great deal of bullying going on here and i think it's testament to unfortunately individuals lower rank this baby is being absolutely hyena handled now being carried off and the villa doesn't appear to give two hoots although here we go now there's trouble now there's trouble but you see how the youngster who was manhandling her cub doesn't run away they do a little greeting ceremony but there's no fear at all and that's absolutely a function of rank and the rank that the cubs inherit from their parents or from their mothers should i say we know that there's nothing worse than just as your favorite leopard is about to catch his first meal in three days you are on the edge of your seat and up pops in advert but as you know a life without advertising would mean a very boring evening when you arrive home from work because wild earth and most other media companies rely on advertising in order to fund our content but we want to let you know that we hear you and to show you how much we care about your experience in nature you can watch wild earth without the ads sign up to be an explorer and watch the channel on the wild earth website completely ad free head over to our explorer page to find out more while those explorers it's in your nature oh dear lots of beatings up lots of extendings of penises and pseudo penises now one of the little ones coming to say hello to us hello good day yes lovely to see you oh and still i think this is my singita is it got my senguited and went away surprised by that see i see how i used his name there i'm afraid we're not going to be able to spend too much longer here somebody just tried to come into the hyena den it's a one vehicle sighting which means only one vehicle is allowed here at a time and so we're going to have to pull out i told them we wanted another 15 minutes and then we'd leave no little baby being carried out again by her ear or his ear oh my goodness i mean that cannot be fun no no teresa i don't think it would be nice to be woken up having your ears chewed especially when your mother just watched it happen who is the snow that's corki's one hey that's color okay so that makes a lot of sense so koa is behaving just like an entitled rich dominant trying to suckle from [Music] the bella obviously that's not going to work but still giving it a go dragging the little ones around feeling very entitled as the matriarch's offspring are now sitting right here in front of us hello good day to you nice to see you it's so funny when they come up to the vehicle and then you make the slightest move and they decide that they're not quite as brave as they thought they were oh here comes another adult it's not corky is it no is it yes i think it is is it this is a dominant hyena whoever this is i can't remember what corki looks like anymore [Music] hmm no matthew if i got off the vehicle the hyenas would react in a manner that was consistent with another predator arriving here so they would disappear they'll just run michael fleetwood thank you very much it is corki the big dominant hyena she looks so good hey i mean there was a time that she really looked like she was on her last legs yeah she's got that nick out of her ear and it was so interesting to see as she walked up here she hardly gave the others a look the bella just stayed down and the cubs scattered they knew that the queen had arrived slightly less elegantly than say the queen of england i don't think the queen of england smells anything like corki does and certainly hasn't had to fight for her but she inherited it a little bit like color did so cool the safari guard of the year 2022 is approaching us rapidly this year we'll be heading to bourgeois field guides at the southern african wildlife college from the 27th june until the 2nd of july we will soon meet all our contestants who are vying for the prize of being the very best of the best and the judges who put them through their paces join me steve falconbridge as we dream it guide it win it if you would like to be a part of the team that shares the wildebeest migration in kenya live on wild earth then we have some great news for you there are a few places left to join our expeditions in august and september this year you'll be staying in an exclusive tainted camp with ensuite bedrooms nestled in the riverine woodlands of the italic river head over to our website to book your bucket list experience today wild earth expeditions travel with purpose and what's so fascinating is that the little cubs and the belle's little ones just disappeared inside they'd wanted nothing to do with saying hello to corki they were just immediately terrified narco is going to have a little bit of a suckle and she just had to look at what looks like probably loki and loki backed off immediately hmm brilliant stuff really just absolutely fascinating how special to be part of this clan well to be observing this clan not necessarily part of it and the poor little underbelly's cub looks forlornly out of the den all right chaps we're gonna have to leave here unfortunately i'm gonna have to let somebody else come and have a look uh until then you're going to well not until then and therefore you're going to go off to liam and have a look at those buffalo so just as we've looped around this buffalo sighting uh we're both commenting on what a spectacular scene this actually is that crest of very bumpy hills rolling hills in the back with our buffalo just popping out in the foreground what a quintessential african vista unbelievable stuff and total peace just the sounds of the buffalo feeding communicating a few bird calls got to love it is the sound of a car but it's just another game viewer very very nice indeed yeah this has been such a great sighting of these buffalo what a pleasure it's been yeah well worth a little bit of uh tracking that we had to do to locate them i'm surprised they were so challenging to find such a big group but we won in the end yeah as i mentioned earlier i think fairly soon these buffalo will begin to settle and they probably won't do all that much marching through the night a little bit in sort of the earliest dark hours maybe but very risky for them to be moving around in total darkness through the night with young calves so they will rest now and with some luck they'll be around and maybe they can have a meet-up with those lions that we saw this morning or that james saw this morning my name is juan pinto i'm here for safari gallery here i'm one of the judges one of the categories in the competition is the walk or the on-foot experience as you call it and it's kind of the leveler it's the experience that really really is important for a guy to have to be able to take people safely into the environment on a walk i've been fortunate to be working in the guiding industry for about 26 years now i've also been fortunate enough to do nine years of the 10 years and as one of the judges and the particular components that i do is the walking and the shooting exercises if you're the winner if you're going to be the winner it's important to become an ambassador for the field guide industry and competitors in the future so so i think the majority of the buffalo are now out of view moving further into the thicket nikita that is um a pretty good question i would say honestly no so the big difference between buffalo and elephant is uh that elise can be quite expressive with their body language buffalo have very few um signals to indicate to you their kind of emotional state they don't really do anything different with the head they don't do anything funny with their tail a buffalo that is quite happily munching away at grass looks the same as a buffalo that's thinking about bumping into you and doing some damage so yeah um a charging elephant could be could be trying to intimidate you it could intend to to bump into you there's a few subtle cues that may indicate what it intends to do and that could determine what you in turn would have to do to manage that situation appropriately i would say any sort of aggressive activity from a buffalo at all you'd be taking very seriously um i certainly would so you are two very very different animals both with the potential to do a bit of damage um both should be shown respect but ellie's far better communicators of how they're feeling now a great question i think from here we may continue to bumble on now and uh yeah see what's out there leave these buff in peace that's been a cracker of a sighting winner winner mack great to hear that you've enjoyed the sighting as much as uh harrington myself yeah it's been epic to see such a vast herd of buffalo it went from initial estimates of about 15 at a huge distance to probably closer to a 150 i think a big group of buffalo [Music] alrighty time to roll on i think i think now it might be time to check back in with james and see how his bumble is going we are now heading up towards quarantine clearings the romantically named clearings outside of our camp and then we're going to head off towards the northeast and hopefully there we will find some sign of maybe talamba and the cubs and this liam is very close by there i'm not sure where he is actually but i think he's over that way with a view of the drakensberg mountains with his buffalo i know he was going to head down to chitra to see if he could find those very lazy fat lions go ahead i'm just getting on the game drive radio to help yeah as far as i can tell yeah okay now sips is there [Music] right so that's our plan we'll head off towards the north east and see if we can pick up some final tracks of talamba and the babies i suspect they've gone off property but maybe they haven't maybe we'll be filled with luck and joy lovely light all over this reserve at the moment the winter light turns very pleasant much earlier than the summer light turns pleasant i'm not sure why that should be is probably on account of how far north the sun sets liam is currently on zimbambili so absolutely nowhere near anywhere i thought he was i thought he was over there he's actually there i am waving at a friend or bridge [Music] we know that there's nothing worse than just as your favorite leopard is about to catch his first meal in three days you are on the edge of your seat and up pops in advert but we want to let you know that we hear you you can watch wild earth without the ads sign up to be an explorer and watch the channel on the wild earth website completely ad free head over to our explorer page to find out more it was a dwarf mongusta unfortunately it has now run away the only other interesting thing to see on that termite mount is the white bit at the top which is where a hornbill that was either sunning itself or looking for termites relieved itself at the same time leaving a white streak of uric acid which turned white in the sun there are also some flowers there you can go down towards the left there we are they look like plumbago flowers white ones they are indeed plumbago flowers let's go and have a look there i shall drive slightly closer and then i will very bravely sally forth on foot in order to show you these remarkable flowers of the genus plum bago please appreciate that i'm going off on foot risking my life for your edification and entertainment see how i scan potential danger many flowers left this time of the year normally anyway here's one there you go you're getting a popping sound you still go you're getting a popping sound it should be fine all right okay and the interesting thing about plumbago first of all doesn't smell of anything you get blue ones and you get white ones and they're very very sticky so the flower creates the seed underneath that is incredibly sticky it's sticky and velcroy so if i take a piece off like that and bring it slowly towards me it will stick on my clothing and that is a very effective way of dispersing oneself if one is a flower one can attach oneself to something like an impala and then be dispersed to another part of the reserve it's very pretty isn't it i think so shall we move on panda he's looking at me as though i'm taking leave of my senses but he doesn't realize that i ever had any senses hello spas i haven't heard from you for a while you say are there plants that grow on the termite mounds well yes you've just seen one spas that's a plant that grows on a termite mound it is called plumbago and then there are lots of grasses there are lots of trees brown ivories shot ears jackal berries caparis tormentosa or will be caper bushes so yes lots and lots of plants grow on termite mountains we're making our way past them gary damn we're telling damn the time in front of the damn cam there's many names this damn multi-named must be so confusing for the dam i mean there's some more flowers some bright yellow flowers which i shall once again risk my life to fish for your edification and entertainment this time i shall move with haste see how i run athletically do you see it like what i did with the light there thunder use how's my sound is it all right for you okay let's find the side uh sorry if there's a popping sound on the microphone it's probably because i'm walking with the pack in my pocket anyway here we go a monkey pod tree i i think it is cena patissiana or the monkey pod uh it's definitely a center of some description they may well have changed the name three or four times i have no doubt judy h will tell us shortly if i am correct sena patissiana the monkey pod beautiful beautiful yellow flowers that don't smell of anything and in fact the plant itself doesn't smell great it's a characteristic of this genus they smell sort of um bit like rotting coffee that's so nice okay let's carry on wild earth have really inspired me to return to south africa after having followed so many beautiful characters this ticket to dream has given me a great opportunity to meet the wild earth team which i thank they're all amazing i love all of the characters but i do have a particular passion for leopards it's a dream and as i said before i just keep on pinching myself am i really here [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] i think we're just going to carry on over the damn wall the thought of talking about dewey the hippopotamus again fills me with a sense of dread because i can't think of anything original to say about him just at the moment so we'll just carry on [Music] turn onto central road and we'll head across central up towards nyala road north and then buffle silk water hole right liam has left his beef let's find out where he's going to now so good luck towards buffalo waterhole james i hope that's um a nice spot to watch the sun go down i'm sure it will be uh myself have now left those buffalo i apologize for a bit of a shaky picture slightly corrugated road here we're planning to make our way down towards chitra chitra to check in on those lions that james had this morning if we've timed it right and i hope we have maybe we get them up and a bit active it's certainly approaching that time of day [Music] it has been another epic afternoon out in the bush so ellie we hope so too fingers crossed yeah i don't think there's much likelihood that that they will have vanished during the day but uh stranger things have happened uh we're banking on the fact that they do sleep so much now that hopefully they've spent the entire day in us in the same spot or similar and that this is now the time as the sun is starting to set for them to get up and active so cross fingers cross toes let's see how it goes we know that there's nothing worse than just as your favorite leopard is about to catch his first meal in three days you're on the edge of your seat and up pops in advert but as you know a life without advertising would mean a very boring evening when you arrive home from work because wild earth and most other media companies rely on advertising in order to fund our content but we want to let you know that we hear you and to show you how much we care about your experience in nature you can watch wild earth without the ads [Music] sign up to be an explorer and watch the channel on the wild earth website completely ad-free head over to our explorer page to find out more while those explorers it's in your nature anton one on one a lion is about probably about four times stronger than a hyena they are significantly significantly bigger but if a lion finds itself all alone and it's confronted by maybe six or seven hyenas all working as a team the balance very rapidly sways out of that lion's favor both are pretty supreme predators again sorry about all of this vibration less than ideal but it should improve soon [Music] yeah as far as uh as overall strength that certainly goes to the lion however the uh the strongest bike force um so potential to deliver a crushing bite comes from the hyena and they have evolved jaws so formidable and they can make short work of even the largest bones potentially even the bones of big animals like buffalo giraffe from time to time even elephant crushed up in the jaws of a spotted hyena so so alrighty so as we continue to bumble our way um onto the chipper property let's check back in with james to see how his final afternoon on drive with us is actually going the central parts of our reserve and for those of you who remember the great leopard called oh this is where i first met him he was lying just in front of us there on a rainy day i think probably my third or fourth drive in the year 2015 which was a very long time ago i really i mean it's almost impossible to believe that it was seven years ago i mean that's almost a decade that i started with this malarkey that's why i also think these vehicles are going to still be here in 25 years time anyway was a lovely male 1 and he has he expired many years ago but he was a lovely cat the termite mound where the plated lizard used to live but his home seems to have been covered over i hope he wasn't in it when it was covered over the safari guard of the year 2022 is approaching us rapidly this year we'll be heading to bourgeois field guides at the southern african wildlife college from the 27th june until the 2nd of july we will soon meet all our contestants who are vying for the prize of being the very best of the best and the judges who put them through their paces join me steve falconbridge as we dream it guide it win it if you would like to be a part of the team that shares the wildebeest migration in kenya live on wild earth then we have some great news for you there are a few places left to join our expeditions in august and september this year you'll be staying in an exclusive tainted camp with ensuite bedrooms nestled in the riverine woodlands of the talek river head over to our website to book your bucket list experience today wild earth expeditions travel with purpose i think we might have to move from here everyone eventually but we probably can't move without losing signal so chris is on bushwalk still looking for interesting things we're gonna pop across to him and let's see what's happening right this so we may have lost pridelands there for a second but uh no worries nice to have you back with us uh we're not quite the chittor yet but almost there hopefully [Music] we've got a bit of excitement there waiting for us but let's see how it goes we are starting to wrap up nice and warm my goodness the temperature is dropping quickly it is going to be a chilly chilly evening indeed they are not so much as a wisp of cloud in the sky so what that means is all of the heat that has been absorbed by the earth during the day is going to begin to radiate off the earth's surface and uh and be gone very quickly so in for a frosty evening and probably quite a chilly morning tomorrow but that's all good we are not made of glass nothing a a cup of coffee and a warm jacket can't fix i'm always so happy to come onto the chatra section of our traversing area any of this sort of southern joomla craig um a termite bound is sort of a constant work in progress um so it may it may begin quite slowly developing only maybe a foot a foot of height 30 centimeters in a year but then as the colony grows in numbers grows in strength and that may develop exponentially growing by two feet the next year three feet the next year some of them can be massive six seven meters tall and easily billions of members within and the most surprising thing is that they're all related which is pretty bizarre [Music] all children of uh of a single queen with the process of a couple of different kings they are amazing i believe there are many many biologists that reckon that termites would outweigh all of the other the other mammal species every mouse every whale every elephant every impala if you could put them all on a one side of the scale termites would outweigh them 90 times that that boggles my mind a bit unreal here at wild earth we promised great monthly prizes for our explorers and this month is no exception if you join our club before the 10th of july then you stand a chance to win a fabulous safari guide online course brought to you by bushwise field guides they specialize in accredited safari guide training with courses tailored for the african safari large industry sign up to be a wild earth explorer today and don't miss out on this life-changing opportunity [Music] and coming up in first place and officially named bilo is [Music] [Music] [Music] mac fingers very tightly crossed let's see what happens down here in the south we've crossed onto the chitwa property now just going to swing past the dam i think and see if there are any updates and take it from there this is prime time predator viewing early evening nice cool temperatures hopefully we are lucky enough to get some activity if the lions are around [Music] [Music] so tom lots of memorable chitra sightings already i've had a couple of beautiful beautiful leopard sightings a number of nice sightings of the lions i think my ultimate favorite though will have to be that that's sighting on my last stint here with the incredible wild dog vocalization i don't know if if you were on board with us when that happened we had them all parallel to the air strip i think it was that ottawa sans pack if i'm not mistaken and then with no warning at all all the dogs uh began to sort of howl and call together part of a very special courtship ritual really really powerful stuff it blew our socks off and then an airplane took off and the dogs just exploded they ran away so it was cut a bit short but an incredible and very memorable sighting such fun [Music] such a nice sound that hippo honk and there's something about this dry season air it's um it's obviously a little bit less dense there's less uh less water vapor in it sound just seems to carry for miles really really nice the call of a hyena off in the distance as well this chitradam is always such a hive of activity it's uh marvelous to listen to all the birds the constant presence of these hippos oh there's a hyena on the other side there marching up the road must have popped out of the bush behind us there somewhere absolutely they do so um they're under a lot of pressure to um to try and keep that calf safe obviously they're extremely vulnerable when they're first born only a fraction of the size of an adult but the mom has still got to eat it's much too dangerous to leave that baby in the water it could be killed by a male it could just as easily be taken by something like a crocodile as well so best it stays with mum the whole time i think we've actually got hippos mating in the water um we've got a bull i think moves mounted a female here sights and sounds indeed yeah we have certainly got um a bit of hippo mating activity here big dominant male uh mating with one of the cows in this group surprisingly only a seven and a half month gestation period remarkably short when you consider an elephant also a big animal 22 months a white rhino 18 months and then that little calf enters the world in the water [Music] with a slew of potential dangers lurking it's essential to be aware of your surroundings whilst walking in the wilderness 20 yards away from one of the most endangered species this is a big bull what a moment what a close encounter with an early bull he's just over here now he's moved completely away being on a bush walk and seeing a leopard i mean it's ridiculous to be this close to a leopard on foot and for him not to run he's absolutely insane how crazy was that it's just the back of the head of a male lion he is absolutely unaware that we are here right now i'll tell you seeing lions on foot it definitely brings out the caveman in you this little scared human being oh ian i'm not 100 sure but um with the knowledge that their closest relatives in the wild are citations whales dolphins manatees that sort of thing it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest to learn that hippos indeed do vocalize in the water obviously we know that whale songs can travel uh arguably hundreds of miles in the water in open ocean so so shortly we will uh get in contact with the guys that have been on this property the whole afternoon for a bit of an update with regards to the location of those lions um but for now we will continue to soak up this very very picturesque and quite cathartic scene here at the dam wall nature therapy oh very nice a little bit of a cheeky yawn from i think it's a cow i think now let's check in with chase and um hopefully we have some news for you a little bit later on we didn't stay alive did he we live oh hello everybody my radio broke up there that is why i did not start talking to you immediately my radius is still breaking up we haven't found anything but as we stop here i'm going to tell you a little bit about another yellow plant and this is the plant that i think i confused the other one for same genus different species a cena and here it is over here as we look at this plant which i think is cena patissiana as opposed to the one that we looked at before still waiting for judy h to tell me if i'm incorrect or correct this is a different center species and you can see it's the same kind of white of yellow flower but a very different kind of leaf and i'm sure that i'm going to have a aha moment shortly now we've just passed roy from arathusa who said to me that he has had word that uh talamba is on her way south very fresh tracks coming south towards the northern boundary of juma which is up there and so we're just going to head around that way we did kind of come from there but he's just come from there and he says that he's had word that she could be coming this way thank you very much you will notice that i've put my jacket on it has covered up my beautiful corsage no i can't have a charge on the front i don't think any of my plumbago accessory lots of flowers today i'm gonna drive with relative speed is not it was a gorgeous sunset i don't know if you thought i thought it was a gorgeous sunset i think you were possibly looking in the opposite direction when you were sitting at chittodam now again we've got some clouds that is not the sunset i was hoping for but it is a very pretty picture nonetheless since we were talking about trees this afternoon briefly i mean i cannot do 100 plus species in one afternoon i was merely highlighting some of the techniques that we use in order to identify trees have not even gone through all of them so we will at the latest stage continue this story we know that there's nothing worse than just as your favorite leopard is about to catch his first meal in three days you are on the edge of your seat and up pops an advert but as you know a life without advertising would mean a very boring evening when you arrive home from work because wild earth and most other media companies rely on advertising in order to fund our content but we want to let you know that we hear you and to show you how much we care about your experience in nature you can watch wild earth without the ads sign up to be an explorer and watch the channel on the wild earth website completely ad free head over to our explorer page to find out more while those explorers it's in your nature and we haven't even touched things like small plants and stuff like that so it's systematic hi there josh personally i prefer bush walks josh's question there do i prefer bush walks or safari drives no definitely trails and bush walks absolutely by far because it brings you down to your business in the bush you can track animals you can get a much different experience on foot you can actually track stuff into the bush you can look at things under bushes you can you can you can you can you can possibly do a bit of that from the vehicle um so vehicle-based guiding you can still get your guests off and at most of the safari lodges where i've worked we did a combination of that at some places we did a lot more walking in some places it was a little bit more vehicle-based but i always try if the permissions are there because a lot of reserves might have different rules and i i try and get my guests off the vehicle as much as possible to look at stuff get close if we're not actually doing a full-on bushwalk bear in mind that not everybody are medically fit for bush walks it is a extreme-ish activity um in that sense so sometimes it also depends on your clientele your guests they will determine what type of guiding you'll do um i like both obviously with the vehicle you can cover a lot more ground you can uh if if big game is what you're after and good pictures and so forth that's probably the best way to go about but personally if it comes down to me to provide the experience and to plan the experience it would definitely incorporate both i have some of my guests who just wanted to do trails and we'll go for a three-day trail where we just walk so there's advantages to both i think for animal viewing definitely game drives and bushwalks is to really get to know the smaller and more intricate aspects of the bush and at times you do see animals it all depends on where you are some areas are denser populated with certain creatures than other that's just the natural way things are spaced out yeah [Applause] the safari guard of the year 2022 is approaching us rapidly this year we'll be heading to bourgeois field guides at the southern african wildlife college from the 27th june till the 2nd of july we will soon meet all our contestants who are vying for the prize of being the very best of the best and the judges who put them through their paces join me steve falconbridge as we dream it guide it win it if you would like to be a part of the team that shares the wildebeest migration in kenya live on wild earth then we have some great news for you there are a few places left to join our expeditions in august and september this year you'll be staying in an exclusive tainted camp with ensuite bedrooms nestled in the riverine woodlands of the italic river head over to our website to book your bucket list experience today wild earth expeditions travel with purpose talking about elephant i can actually hear some branches well it's not closed though [Applause] some branches snapping in the distance it's probably a bit too late to go and look for it i'm going to lose light soon so not a fan of watching elephants in the dark so an update on those lines we heard this morning it seems to be the ngati breakaways and they apparently briefly entered pridelands and they've gone back out again so i'm hoping that they might return tomorrow somehow we've also been relatively low in buffalo the last couple of days so maybe tomorrow morning we can hope for some buffalo to enter the property so a couple of duggar boys around so we'll we'll check what we'll do tomorrow if there's anything that we can track otherwise we'll just keep doing what we do and that's to bring you the interesting little things about the bush hi there nancy nancy says what a stunning view of pridelands and you know what nancy but one thing that strikes me is that even this view and again in my opinion which is a 5 out of 10 compared to where it can get and and then don't get me wrong i'm not saying this is a bad sunset it's just you can you can have a mediocre sunset and it is still incredible you must see the textures and the shapes that you get out here it is different it is different to other parts of the greater kruger and you'll find that if you go from here to the rest of the siri north of us it's different we go from there to the demovati it's different you go to the saabi sand even within the soapy sand there are different places different areas i mean there's so many different eco types within the greater kruger region that yeah it is it is such an amazing conservation area i mean the south african portion of it alone is 2.2 million hectares that's 5 million acres that is the size of a small state and then the area also extends into parts of mozambique and zimbabwe so it's not only in south africa it is probably one of the largest uninterrupted conservation areas globally my name is michelle duplessi and i'm the managing director of the field guides association of southern africa i'm one of the judges this year and i'll be judging the game drive category as well as hospitality professionalism and storytelling i really look forward to seeing everybody again this year and obviously to meet the incredible contestants here at wild earth we promised great monthly prizes for our explorers and this month is no exception if you join our club before the 10th of july then you stand a chance to win a fabulous safari guide online course brought to you by bushwise field guides they specialize in accredited safari guide training with courses tailored for the african safari large industry sign up to be a wild earth explorer today and don't miss out on this life-changing opportunity for myself dinner um suitable shoes make sure that my shoes are intact and start from the bottom upwards comfortable bush clothing neutrally colored i prefer my olive greens because it's a color that i find is suitable for both summer and winter binoculars first aid kit hat sunglasses sunscreen here my walking stick most of the other reserves where i guide guests it would be the compulsory firearm and ammunition which we have to carry as a precaution water so i've got this backpack with a sort of trough in it so or a bladder so i always take extra water and if one or two books like a bird book depending on the season perhaps an insect book perhaps a plant book always nice to have a book for reference or if there's a species of insects you don't know insect repellent is something i also take with me and that's more or less it dark man lover says he wants to go on a bush walk with me in nympho little dark my lover not sure how we're going to do that but i would love to do the same i would be delighted if i can ever take you on a bush walk another lovely day must say turner wants to know what should you never wear in the bush i assume on a bush fork um we've heard a lot about people say don't wear bright colors whites and those things and so i would say try not to wear brightly colored clothing you know and i'm also not attracted to that you're going to hear people say don't wear red because the elephants will trash you that's not really the case it just makes you much more visible on a bush work on a game drive if you want to wear anything that you think it's not going to make much of a difference from an animal perspective one thing i would mention is high heels i don't think that's gonna work on a bushwalk never wear high heels that's probably the most important thing in a bushwalk is comfortable walkable shoes don't have to wear like military boots it's not necessarily the case just comfortable shoes something with a relatively thick sole as well but yeah and a bushwalk i would say don't wear bright colors wear bushy colors like olives greens cocky those type of things [Music] and coming up in first place and officially named bilo is [Music] your trekking is very good what is the starting tracking just check the leopard you walk a little bit you stop you keep starting checking keep your hands your neck up okay your eyes listen for the birds before the leopard the letter shall see you first you lose start next year so there we have that beautiful golden glow like we normally get and that's because of clouds from here all the way westwards right so anyway we are going to be losing our light soon so in the meantime let's take the opportunity to look at some of the highlights of the past now it looks like there are some other vehicles that are joining at the moment so they will potentially try and see these cats it's going to be difficult i think for everybody else to see them because it's not really a an easy position to view them we very fortunate we've got the camera and our fringe connection sebastian jason you know um if if lions had to come across these these cheetah yes there's a good possibility of them attacking and killing cheetah um the the the i mean cheetah are really low on the predator hierarchies so what happens is is they do get threatened by larger predators like lions and there's a good chance that if lions bump into them they will potentially kill them and mainly at night you see during the day the cheetah most likely see the lions and they'll be able to run away don't forget the cheetah is very very fast and it's able to get out of out of the way quite quickly but they do have to be careful that they don't um that they don't get surprised by the lions it's actually a wonderful psyche and so great that people who are on safari at the moment are able to see this cheetah matthew yes generally speaking cheetah are definitely more solitary cats compared to lions lions are always most of the time on prides now i say most of the time because don't forget you have got males that tend to move around by themselves or in coalitions and you can get coalitions of males of up to four five six males at times moving through the area but remember with the females it's mostly prides so the females with sisters and youngsters and that's how the pride grows whereas cheetah generally the females are solitary unless they've got cubs as in this situation and these youngsters are still relying on their mother um the male cheetah however do sometimes form small coalitions two or three males together but also what i've seen a lot in the sarby sands is a lot of a lot of males moving around by themselves we've seen solitary males too so definitely more solitary compared to lions paula the the population in south africa i think is is pretty stable at the moment i think with with conservation and the protection of areas um hopefully the numbers will increase but um but you see again with cheetah loss of habitat very much like wild dog loss of habitat is the main main reason for for the numbers diminishing so we do have to be very careful and aware in from a conservation point of view of with these with these cats and also i think um with other predator numbers increasing but there seems to be a general balance you know they've got to watch out for for lions even leopards if they're a lot of predators around and then the cheetah if they do hunt a lot of their kills get stolen by other predators and they're very quick to be chased or very easy to be chased off sorry let me say that again they easily chased off of kills and if you think um i've seen i've seen vultures come down and chase the cheetah or for kill before just to give you an idea so uh interesting but i think the the main reason for for the cheetah numbers not being very good is is loss of habitat they also need large territories and open areas but it seems to be pretty stable at this stage so hopefully it continues soon again you know i always say this but it's true tourism is a huge huge help for conservation with people coming out on safari into into africa not just south africa but into africa you promote areas or or create um areas or cause areas to uh to continue looking after the wildlife because people are coming out to see them so it is very very crucial we know that there's nothing worse than just as your favorite leopard is about to catch his first meal in three days you are on the edge of your seat and up pops in advert but as you know a life without advertising would mean a very boring evening when you arrive home from work because wild earth and most other media companies rely on advertising in order to fund our content but we want to let you know that we hear you and to show you how much we care about your experience in nature you can watch wild earth without the ads sign up to be an explorer and watch the channel on the wild earth website completely ad free head over to our explorer page to find out more while those explorers it's in your nature things under the eyes um and that is to reflect light to the eye for their nocturnal vision so it would be the opposite for diurnal cats like the cheetah now speaking of lions steve has got a surprise for you i do hello kitty kitty here's a little youngster it's my first time seeing the youngsters uh since i think the third of january i saw them um the sticks pride left a group of them just there on the side of the road down in the south on the the boundary with little little gary logari and i remember seeing loads of little little bundles of joy in the grass and they've grown quite a lot well this one has anyway and the fur is not looking great but i haven't seen them and i've heard only stories every time people seem to talk about the sticks all we can talk about all i hear people talking about is the mange shame maybe we can talk about something else today maybe it'll be a bit more positive for these guys you know but they are very social you see the rubbing child universe very good question the vocal males coming in from the north will have no doubt influenced some sort of dynamic within the area something i've seen through my own experience is lions with cubs obviously cubs younger than two years of age if they hear a male call you'll often see the lions get up and walk in the opposite direction um obviously um well i'm sure my lions can recognize each other's calls and they know if those are the birminghams or if they're a new male lion and there's just a different power and frequency in it and we i couldn't tell you the difference between different male lines but when that is the only language you speak you learn how to speak it well so i'm sure they're able to identify it and i saw it many times in my gardening career with lions with their cubs and they just get up and walk the other way and because male lions announce themselves most of the time it's quite easy to avoid them if you want to the purpose of that is so that other males avoid them so they don't need to fight all the time and so it also helps for the females to avoid them but every now and again um the males won't call and they might end up finding a pride because they can smell them and then that can lead to some turmoil but seemingly their vocal males don't seem to be coming too deep into drum and they're just keeping to right up to the top spending time in buffalo and a lot of their time in manuletti there's a really really big area up there and i think there's more than enough area for them to cover so but definitely their presence um will will it be a bit of a stirring pot bit of a melting pot of the dynamics in the area affecting however the the lions will move and obviously these lionesses don't want to lose their cubs so they will move in response to those males and generally away so i've no doubt it does influence the movement of them but now here they are in pretty much the heart of juma so this is tandy's turf we've had the humans not far from here so they're right in the middle of sort of no man's land so to speak um taylor probably showed you this morning on the map where they are the safari guard of the year 2022 is approaching us rapidly this year we'll be heading to bourgeois field guides at the southern african wildlife college from the 27th june till the 2nd of july we will soon meet all our contestants who are vying for the prize of being the very best of the best and the judges who put them through their paces join me steve falconbridge as we dream it guide it win it if you would like to be a part of the team that shares the wildebeest migration in kenya live on wild earth then we have some great news for you there are a few places left to join our expeditions in august and september this year you'll be staying in an exclusive tainted camp with ensuite bedrooms nestled in the riverine woodlands of the italic river head over to our website to book your bucket list experience today wild earth expeditions travel with purpose uh [Music] maybe they've got their winter coat on okay well i've found the map and as soon as sends is ready i'm going to put it up on the dashboard and we are about over here somewhere somewhere here in the middle and the the last time we had the unkuhumaz with a kill on on the west it was right over here and then they killed another warthog over here and those two young individuals that were lost from the pride hung around this area for most of the week the uncle humors that abandoned them so to speak and have gone up to the north here where some interaction happened with the avoca males after dark we don't know and then a buffalo was killed and then kahumas went all the way back down nice and you're keeping up with me there and they've spent the rest of time over here so that seems to be the fact because uh amber eyes is denning somewhere in here and the whole pride seems to feel the need to stay close to her but a lot of that might also have to do with the fact that the avoca males are sort of in just coming in and out of juma in the north here not very very prominent but they've got an enormous amount of area north of us it just keeps going and going and going so we are only a small spot on in the spectrum of of territories with these prides and they all cover an enormous area that we don't even know about for example this is the second time i am seeing the sticks and i've been here for six months so uh welcome back after a little bit of a difficulty we have uh some exciting viewing for you well it's actually quite calm viewing but we've got some lovely lion activity here on chitra a beautiful big lioness right close to the edge of the road she has been head up for the last 15 or 20 minutes but taking a snooze one or two of the other lionesses right in the back as well as some uh some nice cubbies starting to rouse a bit of grooming going on this is all part of uh sort of bonding bonding strengthening the relationships between members of the pride before they begin their evening missions such a cool time to be viewing lions now the sun has now set it's uh becoming darker and darker by the second this is the time of the big cats yeah if we're lucky we may even end up getting a view of these guys actually getting up and mobile who knows we shall see how it goes now i'm very happy to be sat with some lions after such an action-packed afternoon my name is juan pinto i'm here for safari gallery here i'm one of the judges one of the categories in the competition is the walk or the on-foot experience as you call it and it's kind of the leveler it's the experience that really really is important for a guy to have to be able to take people safely into the environment on a walk i've been fortunate to be working in the guiding industry for about 26 years now i've also been fortunate enough to do nine years of the 10 years as one of the judges and the particular components that i do is the walking and the shooting exercises if you're the winner if you're going to be the winner it's important to become an ambassador for the field guide industry and competitors in the future drew success indeed uh what a pleasure to be sat here with the in kuhumas once more so when myself and panda viewed them i think that was yesterday morning it's all starting to blur together for me i think that was yesterday morning we had 19 of the total 21 members of the pride i don't think they're all together here this evening now but we do have a couple of lionesses at least three or four and a number of cups some really lovely grooming going on in the middle there yeah certainly a lot more activity than than when we viewed them the last time yeah these uh grooming sessions serve a bit of a double function not only for hygiene and cleanliness keeping that fur as clean as is possible um it also reinforces bonds between members of the pride ultimately other than male cheaters lions are the only truly sociable cats on our planet there's lots of love here our large lioness in the road looking very unmotivated to get up cool thanks for your comment dear jade yeah um lions in a free open system like this have to be survivors and they face all sorts of threats not only from other lion prides but difficult times like drought disease running into hyenas having their cubs killed by other predators and injuries all sorts of things mandy they do take relaxation to a whole new level professional level as you say i'm sleeping for as much as 80 percent of their lives can you believe it essentially though that that all sounds quite lazy and uh a bit ridiculous but um it is in essence a very very efficient strategy for the conservation of energy if lions behave more like wild dogs running around all day up and at them all the time speaking of up and adam they would have to kill and eat every single day which they don't and this way they feed very nicely fill up their bellies and they can quite happily snooze [Music] we know that there's nothing worse than just as your favorite leopard is about to catch his first meal in three days you're on the edge of your seat and up pops an advert but we want to let you know that we hear you you can watch wild earth without the ads sign up to be an explorer and watch the channel on the wild earth website completely ad-free head over to our explorer page to find out more [Music] mimi we may very well get some line calls tonight i uh i had the same thought exactly a little bit earlier imagine hearing the raws of uh of 19 lions that would be mind-blowing stuff so uh yeah especially if the pride is sort of fragmented a little bit and multiple members are in multiple different locations it may very well call for them to make some sounds while we hang around and see what happens with these lions we're not going anywhere in any great hurry let's check back in with james who's active on his bumble um in search of nocturnal life hello everyone sorry for our prolonged absence it was not my fault i promise nor was it panda's fault we are currently driving through the central regions of joomla on account of the fact that we heard some impalas going in this region i have yet to find the impalas we heard them from quite some distance off but they were definitely upset about something i don't think it was an internal struggle i think they saw an external factor aka a predator trying to hunt them and so that is what we are looking for over here it has become quite cold since last we spoke it has also become pitch dark since last respect nikita you want us to bumble into an art wolf yeah look i think an odd wolf in this area is extremely unlikely i've never seen one here or anywhere else and so i don't think we're likely to bumble into an hard wolf anytime soon but i will do my best and i promise you that if i see an odd wolf i will stop immediately and if i'm not live at the time i will demand to become live immediately to go up the riverbed but it is here that i thought i could hear the impalas shouting wilders have really inspired me to return to south africa after having followed so many beautiful characters this ticket to dream has given me a great opportunity to meet the wild earth team which i thank they're all amazing i love all of the characters but i do have [Applause] [Music] well some way from afternoon however we are currently in the night time that's why it's dark did you get that thunder right oh jenny no uh impalas are not the only antelope with a red undertone there are quite a few female nyalas come to mind steinbach come to mind immediately uh rohn to a certain extent [Music] [Music] so we are still set with our lines excuse the vehicle in the background just repositioning a bit potentially leaving i think leaving lots more activity from these lines our female that was closest to us here in the road got up joined the big dog pile in the middle there and is now well involved in some grooming some stretching they do this lovely touching ceremony where they rub kind of their their lips against one another we are very affectionate these guys are all in such nice condition such happy spirits all part of their process of uh waking up for the evening and uh such a lovely evening for predators to be active it is cool um cool and very still we know that there's nothing worse than just as your favorite leopard is about to catch his first meal in three days you are on the edge of your seat and up pops in advert but as you know a life without advertising would mean a very boring evening when you arrive home from work because wild earth and most other media companies rely on advertising in order to fund our content but we want to let you know that we hear you and to show you how much we care about your experience in nature you can watch wild earth without the ads [Music] sign up to be an explorer and watch the channel on the wild earth website completely ad-free head over to our explorer page to find out more while those explorers it's in your nature so my tell me the feeling is that lions are largely colorblind so in order to to come into their own at night which is the time they're predominantly active and the eyes have had to evolve to operate in low light conditions in low light conditions you're not seeing much color anyway so it pays now it serves them better to have better black and white vision it all comes down to a balance of rod and cone cells cone cells responsible for color and rod cells responsible for black and white so uh humans have a pretty good mix of both but with i think slightly more of the uh the color giving cone cells we don't see so well in low light lions the polar opposite so they may have a few cone cells popped in there i believe most most animals do have a bit of both but far far far better in low light conditions in black and white we're viewing these lines currently in infrared as heart and myself look left over the side of the vehicle here it is near total darkness we cannot see the lines at all but the camera casts a light which only it can see doesn't disturb the lions at all they're not picking up on it that gives us this wonderful window into their lives after dark with minimal disturbance very very cool indeed marcy hearing you loud and clear at this stage though it would be nice to have a couple of right side up lines that are ready to get up and mobile but who knows that may change at any second for now we'll take the upside down ones with pleasure a little bit of a dispute in there from mom and cub finished in uh i would think hours meaning that the pride is going to have to be killing large stuff every two or three days which is just a little bit uh a little bit impossible so across much of the greater kruger the sarby sands and you don't really see lion prides greater than perhaps eight to maybe 15. 1920 is really exceptional the safari guard of the year 2022 is approaching us rapidly this year we'll be heading to bourgeois field guides at the southern african wildlife college from the 27th june to the 2nd of july we will soon meet all our contestants who are vying for the prize of being the very best of the best and the judges who put them through their paces join me steve falconbridge as we dream it guide it win it if you would like to be a part of the team that shares the wildebeest migration in kenya live on wild earth then we have some great news for you there are a few places left to join our expeditions in august and september this year you'll be staying in an exclusive tainted camp with ensuite bedrooms nestled in the riverine woodlands of the italic river head over to our website to book your bucket list experience today wild earth expeditions travel with purpose we did hear an impala snort at quite a distance away across the dam that's raised a few heads there but i don't know if anything will come of it we will have to have a look while we do that um and potentially grab our last few minutes view of these lines for this evening i think let's check back in with james see how his bumble is cracking on this evening we are we are driving through an area that used to have a road through and uh it doesn't anymore and it's actually proven quite tricky to get out of here we're in the area sort of to the south of where tell a damn wall and uh there's no road there anymore i don't know what happened to it i guess the rain happened to it really oh try and get out of here i do apologize if this isn't a particularly entertaining segment but we're just doing our best to find our way out everything has got rather thick here at wild earth we promised great monthly prizes for our explorers and this month is no exception if you join our club before the 10th of july then you stand a chance to win a fabulous safari guide online course brought to you by bushwise field guides they specialize in accredited safari guide training with courses tailored for the african safari large industry sign up to be a wild earth explorer today and don't miss out on this life-changing opportunity [Music] and coming up in first place and officially named bilo is [Music] that's a very large stick you know when you go forward and refuse to go back often you get yourself into a westminster and you were in to begin with and i feel a little bit like i am doing that now but i am not sure that i have ever seen so much book in all my days ah there's another seven getty size carrying through this way let's try that it's amazing how big these blocks can feel even though they really aren't really big we may never get out of here my wife may never see me again that would be sad i'm sure she'd be devastated for about 10 minutes at least anyway ah another serengeti is clearing right another reason you the reason you are currently bumbling through this area with us is that uh we're the only stable feed currently i think liam's got a small problem with his feet i'm sure they'll get it back eventually i hope they will otherwise you'll be on night bush clearing with us for the rest of the drive we protect and reconnect nature across southern africa we bring countries together to care for wild spaces that stretch beyond borders we protect and restore biodiversity [Music] we prioritize the people living in these landscapes enabling them to thrive in harmony with nature we are restoring tomorrow [Music] my name is mark carontonis and i'm the co-owner of a travel company called africa direct and i'm from waitravan in pumalanga and i'm the founder of safari guide of the year it takes a lot of courage you know to put your hand up and say i'm in to put yourself forward and say i'm here to learn it's not possible without them i think we're nearly there panda please fear not i know that you thought you'd never see your family again but i think that we're almost out thank you monica and jules you say you think i'll survive that's very kind of you i hope we'll survive the guilt i'll feel if i leave panda strung on a knob thorne tree while i try and get home it's too awful to bear oh honda look what i see in front of us yes nice central road massey we have made it oh sweet relief sweet relief i'm just going to take a moment cameron no i've never been stuck out in the bush for the night i'll tell you why i haven't that's not true actually i have once been stuck out in the bush for the night at the night but not in a vehicle mostly in these reserves you're never more than i don't know 10 or 15 minutes from camp on juma you're actually never more than seven minutes from the furthest point unless you're at 12 in which case you're 15 minutes from camp so no there's always somebody that can come and rescue you and it's i mean i hesitate to use the term tame but this area is relatively tame compared to somewhere like the ocavango delta in botswana or some of the big zambian parks or the namibian wilderness where you know you can be 50 to 100 kilometers from people with no kind of radio or cell phone signal and then you really can be stuck out at night i was once stuck at night on the northern side of the sand river and a friend of mine and i went for a run when we were at londolozi and we crossed the river and there was a storm brewing off towards the west and we thought nothing of it it was clear above our heads and we went for our run and we got back to the place where we were going to cross the river to get back onto the southern side and we found that the river had come up because of the storm in the west and it was getting dark and there was no way we could cross the river because it's full of bits and i mean often full of crocodiles and the area where we crossed you know was a really shallow causeway and it was now flooded and we couldn't get back across and it was getting dark as i said and the clouds are starting to come over us and so we ran to another crossing point by then it was really pretty dark and [Music] we couldn't get across there and we managed to i know we did there was thankfully one of the land owners had a house on the northern side of the river and it was all locked up but for one door and we got into we got to this house had as it was got really pitch dark and managed to break in and that's where we spent the night smitty uh and sweaty i did however manage to find a very fine bottle of malt whiskey to which i helped myself during the course of the evening and the next morning it was raining and we could get hold of everybody on the radio and tell them that we were fine and there was no real issue but the river was still up the next morning and there was a flight coming from elephant plains toulondelozi or it was flying over and they agreed to stop at elephant plains and they gave us at about seven o'clock that morning they said you've got 20 minutes to run to the elephant plains airstrip from london lazy it was about five kilometers or so and so we had to we had no shirts it's just our shorts and our pants and we ran and we made it to the elephant plains airstrip and we got on this plane which was full of guests going to london and we were there we were covered in mud no shirts smelly that disheveled hello everybody nice to see you thanks for picking us up and we landed at london lazy got back out onto the airstrip with the guests and had to walk back to the camp and we felt rather heroic after that ordeal it was great fun i shall never forget it that's the stuckest i've been overnight we know that there's nothing worse than just as your favorite leopard is about to catch his first meal in three days you are on the edge of your seat and up pops an advert but as you know a life without advertising would mean a very boring evening when you arrive home from work because wild earth and most other media companies rely on advertising in order to fund our content but we want to let you know that we hear you and to show you how much we care about your experience in nature you can watch wild earth without the ads sign up to be an explorer and watch the channel on the wild earth website completely ad free head over to our explorer page to find out more while those explorers it's in your nature we're going to head up onto quarantine clearings and see what we can find out there eric pour me one two you said i've just made you made you pour yourself a whiskey yes i think i'd be quite nice actually i'd quite like a whiskey i see that the damn cam light is not on which means that escom the national power utility has decided that we shall be doing load shedding which basically means they can't produce power and so the country suffers i heard recently that the chief executive officer of escom is paid seven and a half million rand a year which i think is excessive for a company unable to do what it is supposed to i'm glad i've got that off my chest let's go back across the limb i think he's left the lines and i'm sure he's on his way back to juma so um carrot and myself have made the decision to leave those lines now we left them in peace to carry on their evening's activities we are slowly bumbling our way back towards the lodge or back towards camp rather yeah just reminiscing on what an exciting afternoon it's been we have certainly had an adventure it has it has been great out there and some awesome questions from all of you at home it's kept our brains well and truly in gear got to love it my goodness it's cold though i think this is the coldest it's been since i've been here again that clear cloudless sky is doing nothing to keep any of the heat in keep us warm it is frosty frosty frosty must be about 10 or 12 degrees now it's cold the safari guard of the year 2022 is approaching us rapidly this year we'll be heading to bourgeois field guides at the southern african wildlife college from the 27th june until the 2nd of july we will soon meet all our contestants who are vying for the prize of being the very best of the best and the judges who put them through their paces join me steve falconbridge as we dream it guide it win it if you would like to be a part of the team that shares the wildebeest migration in kenya live on wild earth then we have some great news for you there are a few places left to join our expeditions in august and september this year you'll be staying in an exclusive tainted camp with ensuite bedrooms nestled in the riverine woodlands of the italic river head over to our website to book your bucket list experience today wild earth expeditions travel with purpose sarah i think for much of the wildlife life goes on regardless of of the temperature really for many species for elephants for the the predators that sort of thing whether it's hot or cold they've still got to find enough food perhaps get a drink of water for animals that are territorial go out there and patrol your boundaries so yeah i don't think the um the cold has too much of an effect but certainly if it is particularly windy and rainy um often activity is at at quite a minimum we see it with lions we see it with leopard even other big stuff they are very very interesting life goes on you've got to be tough to survive out there pauline absolutely hope those lions are successful that big buffalo herd that we had a little bit earlier in the afternoon is unfortunately quite far away but who's to say they won't be much closer to the lions tomorrow oh can you imagine and 19 or 20 lions going after that big herd of buffalo that would be outrageous yeah the stuff of safari dreams let's see what happens rdj thanks um honestly it is uh such a pleasure um we consider ourselves extremely privileged to um to head out there and share our passion for all of these wild things and wild places with people who are so passionate i know many of you at home are devout viewers and that you've been watching for years and years and years and that you take the program very seriously we do as well my name is michelle du plessis and i'm the managing director of the field guides association of southern africa i'm one of the judges this year and i'll be judging the game drive category as well as hospitality professionalism and storytelling i really look forward to seeing everybody again this year and obviously to meet the incredible contestants [Music] here at wild earth we promised great monthly prizes for our explorers and this month is no exception if you join our club before the 10th of july then you stand a chance to win a fabulous safari guide online course brought to you by bushwise field guides they specialize in accredited safari guide training with courses tailored for the african safari large industry sign up to be a wild earth explorer today and don't miss out on this life-changing opportunity [Music] so i think let's check in with james now he may have found something to show us on his mission i have got the very same things we opened the drive with the zebra herd that has taken up residence on quarantine uh that is the clearings outside of camp for those of you who don't know the wildebeest is also iran as are the impala and i suspect that the larger of these species are hanging around here possibly because there are no lions in the vicinity because all of the lions are still on chatwa chitwa and it is entirely possible as they start wandering north to reclaim or remark their territory up here that these poor larger prey species will have to find somewhere else especially the poor old lonely wildebeest yes marcus indeed the zebra being very faithful wanting to end the drive i'm just going to see if i can spot the vildes yeah the vilde is just off to the right hand side here there is my hand hello and the little beast is just over there there he is grazing with the impala very wisely staying close to the impalas and very wise of course because well many eyes and many ears and many noses make for a safe time of it as darkness falls on a moonlit night in southern africa the camera's not squared by the way that is a function of the square termite mound that it looks like that ah vanessa thank you very much thank you very much for having me it's been very special to be back for these next few days or these last couple of days and i'll be back in july i think for maybe seven nights i'm not sure i'll have to check my calendar my brain can't remember such things it's much too much too small but it is very lovely to be here and thank you to all of you for um well treating me with such a i suppose with respect yes respect certainly but um with such welcoming thank you very much thank you james richard you say a great week of drives it's been a great week of drives being back with all of you thank you nikita i'm glad i've brought some happiness to you uh you have brought me great happiness all of you um if you'd like to keep up with me you can do that on instagram james r a hendry is how you find me and same with youtube and same with facebook if you would rather not keep up with me then that's so fine uh but the the likes and follows help as one tries to build a bit of a profile when one is in this kind of business where that helps it really has been tremendous time back with you some lovely memories we've shared and we've made some new ones with talumba and her cubs which is excellent i always think it's very important to make new memories i only think that because my father told me that once when i was complaining about nostalgia because i am a very horribly nostalgic human being and he said it's important to make new memories and i agree with him the wildebeest is now showing us his bottom well done mr wildebeest how lovely the final shot of the wildebeest will be his bottom and wagging tail thank you everybody for joining us on our drive tonight it's been a joy uh this drive and for the past five evenings i hope that you have enjoyed having me and i hope that you will continue enjoy i hope that you will continue enjoying the drives of wilder we will see you again at the end of july until then stay safe and happy wherever you happen to be on planet earth bye-bye [Music] you

Channel: WildEarth

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Length: 235min 49sec (14149 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 24 2022