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A bit of vitamin D. Very majestic. Look at this guy. Jamujamo and welcome to Safari Plus. There are no two safaris that are ever the same. From incredible encounters with wildlife and so many stories that happen in between. Welcome to this week's best highlights. We begin in the Eastern Cape. where winter mornings and a beautiful sceneries and I did two South African spirit made for memorable days. We are about to have one heck of a walk by and we're just allowing it to unfold. How are you? So friendly. Okay. Oh, you want to say hello again?
Yeah, it's a bit silhouetted. Sorry about that everybody. We are shooting into the sun, but I'm sure you're all enjoying this. Hello. What are you up to? What you want? Got to love it. E, look at that. Is that a cow? Seriously, you walk. That's a big cow. Nice tasks. Okay, we have a very curious elephant coming now. Y look at that. You are beautiful. Wow. The youngsters are always full of beans.
Always looking to make a little bit of trouble. Full of naughty. Yeah, it's it's quite early this morning now. What's the time now? It must be about half past 6:00 in the morning. It's freezing cold. Um the sun is starting to rise, so temperature is beginning to drop again. Um but it's freezing. It's really cold. Yeah, we're watching the elephants at the moment. We're just waiting for them to come out, but I think more so we're trying to warm up in the sun, right? So, it'll be quite a nice thing just to touch base with all of you on how much information you are able to gather just by looking at the tracks on
the ground, especially here with these elephant tracks. So, if I come and find a nice example, firstly, we can see that these tracks were from early hours of the morning. Okay. So, now we can determine freshness. That's one of the bits of information that we can gather here. Okay, so this is early hours of this morning. The way we tell this is if we come and look here. If I use my pinky, that's all you need is just your pinky. And I just feel these cracks in the track. Okay, they're starting to harden. Okay, so that means the elephant walked here. Okay, and then slowly in the sun, the surface of the track has started to harden. So it's got a little bit of age, but not much. Okay, number
two. We know that this is not a single elephant that made these tracks. I'm seeing different sizes, smaller ones, bigger ones. So, here we have a breeding herd of elephants that were milling around over here. Okay, that is point number two. Point number three, direction of travel. Where do we think they went? Let me just have a look. Patty, yeah, the dungs are all steaming this morning. We've seen lots and lots of dungs. Not the dung here at the moment, but the fresher dung that they've just dropped on the road is absolutely steaming at the moment. Okay, so these elephants went this direction. Have a look here,
everybody. They went down the road over there. Okay, and the reason I know this is, have a look here where my finger is. Okay, this is a back foot of an elephant. And then over here, we've got remnants of a toenail. Uh, persistence always pays off. We've managed to catch up to these elephants again. And it seems like they are walking our direction. They must be warming themselves up very nicely on top there. Yeah. So, as you can see, elephants, they got very minimal hair on their body or fur on their body, if you will.
Um, yeah, you find some of it around the trunk and the lips and things like that. Um, a little bit on the back and so on, but overall their skin is very exposed. So they can lose heat quite quickly and they can heat up quite quickly as well. So when they get cold, they get very cold. When they get hot, they get very hot. There's only one way to watch the spring box play while out here in the African bushes and that is around a bri or a barbecue. Andrew and Morgan show us Hawaii safari and rugby make a perfect combination. Look how beautiful those clouds are. Nice.
Eh, do you want to see what we get up to between drives sometimes? Yeah. Typical South African. Morgan and I. We busy brying. Hello. Ba. They're going to be playing today. Two bits of bora horse. Nice ba horse from a nice farm store. Not too far from here. Yeah, it's actually it's famous in the Eastern Cape and uh yeah, nice little setup we got. From the Eastern Cape, we headed to North in Mamula where a new young upcoming guide continued stealing the show. Now, what I think I'm looking at here is a species of scale insect. And uh these would be the ladies, the females, and they've lost their antenna.
They've lost their leggies, and they are now just clusters that are sucking on the sap of this tree. And I don't know much more about them than that. I it's a really fascinating thing. But what you can see is a waxy mesh, I guess, over the top of them. And that's supposed to be a protective layer. Probably protect them from desiccating and also from uh mechanical harm, should we say. Isn't that interesting? You know, it's always nice to come out of camp. Don't have to drive too far. Sun's shining Saturday afternoon. And uh well, over there's some cheetahs.
We are starting our sunset safari with three cheetahs here at Mabula Private Game Reserve. This is Queen the Cheetah and her two babies, Johnny and Andrew. No, don't worry. That's not really their name. And they have murdered something during the course of the day and they are very happily snacking on it. Mama has moved away now. She's just moved to the left and is having a well- earned rest in the shade. Still can't figure out what that was that has uh met its rather gory end in this woodland. I mean, this is not typical kind of cheetah hunting habitat, is it? The cheetah's usual hunting strategy is to get to within uh
around about 30 to 40 m of something and in the open and then chase it until it they can until they catch it because of obviously their speed and that's their major advantage. So, they wouldn't really be hunting in woodland like this. This is unusual habitat for cheetah to hunt in. I suspect she was just kind of wandering down the mountain with the cubs and then took the opportunity to whack whatever it is that is uh lying there. Well, we've got a little rhinoceros here. Now, what you won't be able to hear is that this little rhino is calling its mum and it's making little squeaking sounds. And mom, like all good mothers who are a little bit tired of constant trials of
parenthood or motherhood specifically, is ignoring the child, telling it to get on with life. Lewis, a little while ago, I would have just said, "No, the fathers play no role in the baby's life." And I mean, with rhino, they really don't. The father's role really is to stop other males from murdering his offspring. And he does that by maintaining a territory. But infanticide with rhino is very uncommon as far as I'm aware. So, no, not really at all. I mean, his job is basically just to uh be the deliverer of genetic material. Much warmer start to the day today. It was 4° instead of zero. And you can see my colleague is looking much more smiley than he was at this time yesterday. I don't blame him. Yesterday
was a trial. Today has been a delight. We have got a uh a rhinoceros. um Rhino's car and her baby enjoying the warmth of the sun and she has quite a horn on her as you can see. You can see it's might not be able to. No, you can. It's got a bracelet. She's got a bracelet on her right front foot and that bracelet is a tracking device so they know where she is. All of the rhiners came here have them. I think and as I was saying the other day, it does speak volumes for the amazing work that's been done here at Mabula from a conservation perspective.
They've managed to really protect the place, set up a an area that is safe for rhino, and that means that they've got a massively effective anti- poaching unit, and it is not to be trifled with. Mabula is on fire this afternoon. We left the cheetahs because there was lots of interest in for other people coming to see them and it was a bit of a um a thick spot. So, we moved on from them and now we've got these magnificent wild dogs. This pack of dogs or certainly its progenitors came just arrived on this reserve. They just pitched up one day. They were not originally here and in fact they seem to have come if I'm not mistaken I think they've come all the way from Botswana.
Uh which is really quite something and they the trouble with dogs is that they don't see fences. They managed to get through them somehow and that's how they got here. They got through the fence and they thankfully decided to stay. There they go. Trottting off down the road into the setting sun. Now, they did this a little earlier and I'm not sure why they did. So, I'm just going to let them go. Something is uh making them a little upset, I think. Lovely to see them like that. Some sightings are truly memorable simply because they do not happen often. Seeing an adwolf during the day was quite remarkable.
We have got an arwolf spotted by Luanda. I was just casting apersions on him because he couldn't remember where their den was and he said there's an art wolf and there it is. That is a fantastic animal to see. Looks like it's looking for some anel termites to eat. This is the best sighting of one I've ever had. I've only ever seen noses sticking out of burrows before. Land, you are forgiven for not knowing where the den is. And look how it walks just like a spotted hyena with both left and then both right legs. That's so cool.
I think it's foraging as well as marking territory. There we go. There's that wasn't definitely an anal paste. There's your answer. The anal paste. There you go. At a governor's camp, every safari drive revealed a new chapter, as it's always the case here in the ever changing story of the Mara. I have had a very beautiful shots for Jojo, but I think this might be one of my best. This is the one male I have said many times when you look at him he tells you I am going to eat you now for breakfast. A few minutes earlier we saw some three hyenas walking towards Jojo. Jojo left this particular mound he was he is on went to the grass and was croching hiding and stalking them. The three hyenas saw them or rather saw him and
the three hyenas ran fast away from Jojo and I think those hyenas were faster than even the Kenyan marathoners of the 70 boys size-wise menwise and even his physicality he doesn't compare to anybody. We got Jojo here and what Jojo is doing he's looking at a hyena which is another 100 m away and he had a little bit altercation with another hyena before and either today he is determined to murder a hyena because any hyena that he sees he wants to go for it. I think he's laying ambush to the hyena but also under there's some water not sure Jojo may choose to go there for a drink I do not know what will happen but what Jojo is doing he is so fixated on that hyena we know lions don't eat
hyenas but he'll only do one thing just go and murder look at Jojo and he's still not very happy with that particular hyena. I think basically he wants the hyena away from him. We had quite a number of exciting moments and for the very first time we saw new members come in here in the Masimara National Reserve. Shiv and I for the first time saw Lola's three cabbies. I think finally I've been able to see Lola with her cabbies. She's one of the mar girls. And these cups, I would want to believe they're over two weeks old. Now that makes two of the three that I've
been talking about. I mean, so far since we've been here, we have been seeing two, but I'm trying to imagine possibly the third one is still somewhere in the thicket here. Now, it's getting pretty warm and sunny where they are. And I'm sure as is typical with lions, Lola is enjoying partly the sun from her hind quarters and making sure the head and most of the eyes are fixated on her babies. What a moment. And this is what you know most of us will say. Oh my word. out here. Are you thinking of suckling possibly?
Lola, are you ready to offer breakfast, Lola? Leg up. Come on, Lola. Not sure where the third cab is, but my guess is she is definitely somewhere napping. As you can see, this one is in some sort of dreamland. The sun has risen already and we're enjoying some beautiful uh southern ground horn bells here. I think we've got a family here of a male and a female and a youngster. It's not the normal pair I have been showing you. I mean duckman lover you know the challenges these birds are facing I would say the whole of Africa and the biggest culprit in that particular concern is us man we won't learn to we're encroaching uh in their habitat and there's a lot of
logging going on and they're losing their breeding grounds because they tend to breed on big trees uh like the jcoleberry trees or the east African green heart trees where will always you know use the crevices or holes in those trees but we got people now who have started to artificially uh maybe maintain or bring back uh their numbers. So that is the youngster I'm talking about. You can see the WS haven't developed very much. They're not as red. Five, six years before the parents can celebrate and see one off when they have fully fledged and hopefully uh they get mates to start their own families.
I think I've been feeding the whole day and I was telling Shiv it is very iconic for us to see cuts on T mount but this is my very first time to see a southern ground horn bill on a t mount either to do a bit of pruning after walking for the better part of the day because that's what they keep doing and maybe as the day is coming to an end or is getting uh little bit dark they'll be choosing ing what tree to go and roost for the night. And I'm guessing the one on the ground now could be the female. Sometimes slight bit larger than the male, but mainly we always look on the water. You'll see the blue or the purple violet colored little speck on the water for the females.
Any tortoise, not tortoise, any I would say snails they get out here, it will always have no chance. They'll grab it, toss it up in the air, then they swallow it. Frogs, fish, snakes. Big dietary for them. First time I've ever seen buffalo swimming. I think they're actually walking. Let's give them a moment. Some old boys there. All three of them missing. Lots of fur, lots of skin patches evident on the body. They're probably about to retire.
Oh, we have seen a buffalo. We didn't get a very good view of it. It wasn't notable. Wasn't a notable sighting. Craig, a buffalo pool party. Yeah, I've never seen buffaloos swim across water body like that before because the grass is obviously greener on the other side. Indeed. I got a crossing before David. Here we go. Open the show with a buffalo crossing. Fantastic. It's obviously not very deep, everybody. So, the buffalo could just walk across the bottom there. I don't think they were swimming, but I do believe most animals have the ability to swim. Lately, if there's one thing Steve has been known for is finding elephants, and this week was no exception.
It's choosing to come closer towards us. That's perfectly fine, Kendrick. They're always growing. Um, and genetically, elephants have different size tusks. They're really big tuskers. So, you can't age an elephant by the size of its tusks. Although, an elephant with really big tusks is invariably quite old. It's not a uh small tusks doesn't mean it's a young elephant necessarily. Bulls invariably have much larger Are you going to come right here? Okay. Hello. We see you. Yes. Now, I didn't say your tusks were small.
Just I have seen bigger. Seen a lot Yeah. I bet your dad didn't have big tusks. That's why yours aren't so big. And that's okay. Maybe yours are bigger than your dad's. Now, at this point, we are wondering whether Steve has a particular secret agreements with elephants because they just tend to find him. We are with elephants. This mama looks like she wants to come out and say hello. Come introduce your little youngster to us.
She's thinking. She's thinking, see, when an elephant does that with their foot, that little swinging, never do anything. Allow the animal to make up their own mind. Here we go. Some more elephants are coming. It's an elephant party. The light is behind them, everybody. Sorry about that. This is a wild game drive, a live game drive. Animals do whatever they want to do. There's another mama. another two babies or another baby very similar in size and they've decided they're going to walk behind us of course
our final stop takes us to Sabisand where one familiar leopard reminds us why he is such a river. He has a beautiful big male leopard known as a tortoise pan. And uh he is just lying here. So fully grown and he hasn't really pushed too far east further cuz the other male M whitey that disappeared from this side in November he used to hang around here quite a bit and look yes tortoise pan has pushed further I can say east from his original territory um but he hasn't taken everything up so it's going to be very interesting to see if Kachava comes in this area now cuz this is part of her
territory as well. If she comes in this area and she's going to be calling, I wonder what will play out. We've got a beautiful strawated heron. Used to be known as a greenback heron, but this is a juvenile, a juvenile. And now this uh stated heron, what it's doing, it's just standing on the side of this little pan. And there's a lot of little like little fishies that's swimming about here. I will see a lot of ripples now and again. Oh, he's got it. Look at that. Wow. Well done, Heron. And it's got a little catfish.
How quick was that? Is it a frog? It's a frog. Now, it's a frog. Leopards are famous for bringing down prey even bigger than themselves. When an easier opportunity shows up, they always take it. Mako shows us every meal counts. We had the most amazing moment here with him as he was chasing a squirrel around and he caught that squirrel unfortunately. Oh, that squirrel still around. Still trying his best there to hold on to it. I think the squirrel's still got a little bit of life to it at the moment. Yeah, he's trying to work out how am I going to What was I doing? How do How does my mom kill these animals? almost using it as a toy now.
Shame. The little one. And he doesn't know what to do here at the moment. As you can see, he's trying to Oh. Oh, it's a squirrel. Yeah. Oh, it's got to get away to that dark spot. Does it Did it make it there? Oh, now he's got it. Oh, no. Upyay. He's still trying to I don't think that squirrel is going to survive now. I think it's done. I think it's already buckled trying to get back to the tree. That is a typical young boy. Yeah. Play around with your food. From memorable new arrivals to fascinating behavior and special moments behind the scenes, it has been a
great week. Very many thanks for joining us. Please be with us on the next Safari Plus Coheri.
