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the last two days, extraordinary wildlife stories have unfolded across Africa. From the grasslands of the Masai Mara to the bushfeld of South Africa, predators have been on the move. Old rivals have crossed paths. And unforgettable moments have taken place on and off camera. We begin in the Masai Mar where the story unfolding had guides as well as viewers on the edge of their seat. The marsh pride was on the move and as the story unfolded, it was clear that they had one thing on their mind. Good morning everyone. It's the fast morning for Shiv and we're here right by Bilash Shakalaga and we found the lance.
She's so excited. Morning Shif. What do you think about this? I think it's amazing. I can't wait to do some filming. Welcome to the Mara. Thank you very much. It's beautiful place. These lions look like they're slowly just scouting, checking out. And by the look of it, seems like they're waiting for the buffaloos just to cross over because the wind is blowing to their advantage. And I can see Jojo there. I can see Naseran. I can see uh Nusura, can see Kalo. So it's all in action there. So, four lionesses will be very good to team up with the big male Jojo here. So, the lions are advancing slowly
towards this buffalo her. And you can see they're all on a mission. There's a drainage line here and they're all going for water. As we watch the buffalo's head moving across these planes, it's easy to see why lions have to keep on uh you know walking towards them and keeping an interest because I've seen a few calves here. These are breeding hard. I've seen very old males. There's actually one that was staying behind falling very uh slowly. So when ls are walking towards these big herds, they always look for those individuals that their easy target. It wasn't just the viewers on the edge of their seats. Even the guides stopped what they were doing to follow the unfolding drama.
It's exciting stuff, guys. Oh, he's not calling for help. So Jojo is trying to get to his mouth or neck because that is what they do that strategy where one holds the back while one of the members would try to get or grasp the neck. So right now the rest of the buffaloos are watching carefully from a distance. No one has shown signs of help to come here. But his lines have to be very fast to bring him down because otherwise when the rest of the members come in, it will be a fight. So they also have to make sure they grasp him, hold him, not to run away to back to the herd. So he's now also watching if anyone approach from the front then it's going to be end of the game.
I think Jojo is trying to look for a good timing to go on to the neck. So they take turns also resting. So and that's why there's a high chance of a big number like this. Oh, it's it's down now. It's now down. So there's a little bit of, you know, struggle. You can see the last kick there. So by the look of it, he didn't stand a chance. When you talk about bikinas luck, it's the first morning for Shiv. First kill, first time in the Ma. And we managed to see one dramatic morning. So these lines manage to break down a whole buckle. So it's cycle of life.
I like to watch how these lines are feeding. And you can see the cab, he's really enjoying this. Uh I'm happy that the cab is getting to feed. If you can see on his face, he's lost a lot of fur and the skin is kind of looking very bad, very bad condition. So there's some microscopic mites that really uh affect or attack uh cats and even hyenas and so they tend to have a irritating skin as you can see on the face and some parts of the body there. So protein from the keel here will also help and also to provide the body nutrients needed to really cope with mange. Peter also milk when they're when the cub is nursing. So the fat and the protein that is in the mother's milk will also help to recover. But remember if the lions don't happen
to eat on a regular basis then the protein content or the vitamins provided or the content that is in the milk will not be uh adequate uh or enough for the carb. So while eating uh meat will also provide uh protein needed and the fats needed to at least help cure the body condition and also from the mange. While the Masai Mari was dominated by the marsh prides hunt further south in the Sabbi sand, another predator dynamic was unfolding. This time a very complicated relationship between two leopards. Well, there she is. It's one of the really big positive attributes that we have of the radio out here is, you know, if you are looking for an animal like this and they disappear, you know, if there's no alarm calls, there's no direct line of
sight, it can be challenging to relocate, but with a radio, you're able to at least assist in the search area. And uh I heard some dwarf mongus That's what helps us find her again. It's possible that she would like to murder another mongoose today. Now she's going to go back to the other side. Perfect little habitat for a female leopard. Greg, what could be frustrating? A leopard's very nature is to be unobserved. When she slips me, I don't get frustrated.
I uh just keep listening, switching off. And we just follow the guinea foul. And we found her again. She was trying to sneak up on them, but they were too wise. But now I think she might have spotted a mongoose or something. The body language. I don't know if there's another leopard in the area here. What is she going to catch? They are guinea foul around. Now, we ended off yesterday's drive with her daughter, Rulani. Now, oh, look at her. Look how flat she is. Look at that body language.
Animals are very intentional, everybody, in everything they do. Look at her. Look around the corner. The leopard crawl. There's clearly something happening that she's doing. And you can see it. You can see once the hunt ends, the whole body language changes. Look at the tip of the tail. It's almost got a life of its own as she's thinking. Now, I can just hear a little contact call to the guinea foul. I think that might be what she's looking for. You know, there's more than 60 prey species that a leopard will hunt. There we go.
They've spotted a from insects up to giraffe. Unbelievable, Chris. Well, the thing is that male leopards, their territory encompasses up to three females. So she is actually marking her territory against other females. It is a very sexually dorphic sort of uh territorial marking. She marks a territory which advertises to females that she's present and also advertises to males where she might be on a status point of view. So one big male occupies an area large enough to encompass three females. So, really depends on what's going on for her. If she is uh in Easter, which she probably is coming into, that's why she's calling so much. We had her two days ago calling, but she's not vigorously calling. We should probably
hear her call now if she's in that sort of space, calling, calling, calling, calling, and scent marking. She's actually trying to attract a mate to let him know that I'm available and ready. And when he finds that scent mark, he will actually try and find her and she will actively try and find him. Well, there you have it everybody. Kachava has found herself a close friend. I don't know. I think this might be him. I'm not sure. See if we can get a look at the face. But she's keen. He is not so keen.
She's being quite flirty and he's growling at her. Um, it's possible that he's been tracking her down because of all her calling. We found Kachava. The other one. You got him. Ulus. Oh, he's right there. Okay, here he comes. Listen to the noises. They've been sleeping. Here we go. Have you ever been on a date like that before, Paul? Very different species, aren't they? Everybody, one of the advantages of watching this show is you get to see some of the moments that are not able to find their
way on air. Let's go and take a look at what happened in Mabula. All right. So, we had a bit of an issue with our battery. We had to leave. They just found the lines, but we left them. But what we have found now is Landa's first art. He was saying how he would like to see one. And uh yeah, we've got one right here. One of the five art. Pretty awesome. not as we left the we got on the vehicle we started driving this family of warthogs ran past us the one in frame there you'll see is limping sadly so that's a not a happy story um mom on the right
and then there's some other youngsters and then this one was just bringing up the rear So, uh, I guess it's nature and but when I look through the binders, it just it can't put any weight on that back leg. Although, mom's pretty protective. Big set of tusks there. She's watching us, but they're still feeding. You know, life goes on. These animals don't have time to feel sorry for themselves. We found the two cheetah boys and they've been here the whole day dozing and sleeping. You can see they're sort of half in the shade.
Uh, green thumb. Cheetah, I would say, are longer and thinner than leopard. Leopard's probably more stocky, but they're roughly the same size. I guess maybe the cheetah's a little bit lighter. Um, and it's all to do with their claw structure. Cheetahs are built for speed. Leopard stealth and ambush, and leopards are very strong chest and shoulders, obviously. You know, think of like a lot of bench press versus like a marathon runner, I guess the cheetah would be. And yeah, the leopard can incredibly strong can hoist an impala carcass as big if not bigger than itself up a tree. It's got those retractable claws that it grips on the bark and uh just incredibly strong. Whereas the cheetah's got um
claws that they can't retract. So what is that? Non- retractable. Um but they're more sprinting. And if you cheers got up, you would notice they're very long, very sort of slender, small head, streamlined. They also have the spots. Where's the leopard, the rosettes? Couple of differences. In San Ringham, the bush developed a dynamic mix from tall general game to a wide variety of bird species. There was even a surprise appearance from one of Africa's superior aerial hunters. We have some southern ground horn bulls here at Sandringham, everyone. What a pleasant surprise. There's three in total. One we can see really beautifully there. Um just the sun catching that
little bit of red starting to do a bit of pining. And um then there is another adult which we can't see. here. I think it's landed in a tree further back. And then there's a juvenile in the marula on the left as well, but I'm not actually sure what it's doing to be fair. It looks like it's just hunkered down there. Maybe it's going to call Joey. So, yeah, often times that is the case. And um not only with birds, but animals that do calls, even um with lions, for example, dawn and dusk is a fantastic time to be calling because you really get more um sort of out for your effort. There's a lot of times, especially on a morning like this, misty air sound travels really well with the moisture in the air, so the sound goes further.
And so birds love to call in the early morning and then sometimes in the evening as well. But I do think sort of the dawn chorus is really the peak time for bird calls generally. Well, we have some giraffe. There were at least five or six of them that moved off into the thickets here. Stephanie, it is bliss, isn't it? It's so great to have some giraffes here at Sandringham. I do love spending time with them and um especially here, I must say. And the early morning, too, is just such a wonderful time to have animals.
Sometimes they do stick away a little bit from us cuz it's chilly and they don't move too much, but sometimes your timing is just perfect. And um they are hanging around some of the roads in the early morning and we get moments like this. And this one here that's just got its head out is um busy ruminating. So, it's chewing, chewing, chewing. And you can see it's got this little sort of like almost like a jaw breaker in the side of its mouth. And then it'll swallow and then it'll regurgitate back up again. I could listen and watch them feed all day. It's interesting how they put it in their mouths and sort of the one side collects all the roots and dusty bits that then simply fall off.
Now, there were quite a few other elephants around. I can hear them, but it is quite thick here, so I can't see any at the moment. We'll just see what this boy does. I agree, Naomi. I love the sounds. We have uh stopped for a beautiful juvenile marshall eagle that's perched here in this Anna tree. And um fortunately, it hasn't flown away and the lighting is perfect. So, we thought we would take the opportunity to uh share this beautiful bird with you. And we say juvenile because the adult marshall eagle does look different to um the one that you're seeing here now.
They also have um some speckles on the chest and a much darker sort of plumage. um around the head and the back. But I actually quite like the look of the juvenile because of that white look. It's not something that you see very often in birds of prey generally, especially in the area we are. So that very sort of very plain white chest and face is quite unique for the juvenile marshall eagle. Timber. No, I don't think in the world. I think even in Africa the verose or the black eagle and the marshall stand neck and neck in terms of I think the one is a little bit heavier but the one is taller. Um so they're very you know similar to one another.
We have found another elephant here in the drainage line and um it's a young boy that's been feeding away. My goodness. Can't get enough grass in there fast enough. Last few birds calling rattling secular heard green back camaropter doing their bleeding call just now. I think eventually he is going to have to make his way this way just because of um the area and the way that the paths usually go. And while wildlife is always the heart of every safari, sometimes the most memorable moments happen when things don't quite go according to plan. So, we are now scanning the area. We did find ourselves some lion tracks. Uh,
these unfortunately don't look like they are too fresh. You can see they've bit crusted over. So, the sand has fallen into the tracks a little bit. Little bit crusted over from the dew. So, probably last night at least maybe 5 to 6 hours old. But no vehicle tracks have crossed here. So, I think we're heading in the right direction. So, I just want to give this track a bit of a measure so we can see if it's possibly a female or a male. So, we're going to take the edge back of the track there. Let's just do this. Here we go. So, we're going to dissect the track here. So, that's where the three loes end. And then the top of the track is here. Obviously, in lines, you don't always see those claws present.
Now, we're going to give it a bit of a measure and see here. Right. So, we're looking Yeah. Depending on the size, we're looking at a female and it looks like there's two lionesses that were walking down the road together. Uh, judging on the pace and the distance of the tracks, they were just casually strolling down the road. I wouldn't say they were running or anything. They were just very calmly walking down the road, maybe on a late night patrol. So, we're going to do the exact same thing. Follow them. See maybe if we can catch up with where these lions are. We've managed to see Guapo. So, he came out of the thickets, pretty much followed these two lionesses, and he Wow, check at this big boy. I'm so
impressed. He is such a handsome specimen. So, he kind of walked across to the lionesses and popped himself in front of that bush. One of the lionesses came over and gave him a bit of a greeting. Shame. It seems like he's still got a thorn stuck in his paw. So, poor Kitty. He's got a nasty little thorn stuck in there. He seems to still be he's not limping, but every now and then he kind of turns his paw upside down and has a bit of a scratch. Maybe a little thorn lodged in there. They're enjoying the early morning sunrise. All the sun on his belly. So Demi, yes, it is so incredible to be able to be sitting here with these lions, uh, Guapo and these two lionesses. They've been very far, I'd
say, very far northern part of the reserve, way across the other side of the basin. So it's just, yeah, we haven't, he has not quite been in our area. It's been a few days we've heard of sightings of him. It's just so far away that we haven't been able to get there in time and then of course they disappear. But this morning, I just got such a weird airy feeling. It just felt too quiet. The antelope were unsettled. I thought, "Ah, these lions must be here somewhere." Morgan and I are currently out and about exploring the Amakala landscape and learning that there's a lot of artfark holes. I won't say we're stuck, we're just temporarily immob. So,
let's try and get ourselves out of the sticky situation, shall we? From Kenya to South Africa, it's been an action-packed few days from wildlife encounters to plenty of amazing stories. And that is exactly what makes being on safari so special. Thank you for joining us and we'll see you next time.
