Wildlife Encounters in the Masai Mara: Lions, Leopards, and Behind-the-Scenes Moments

Welcome to today's catch-up. A look back at the last 24 hours in the bush. The Black Dam pride, a close elephant walk by, and leopards all feature, as well as some fantastic behind-the-scenes moments. While wet weather in the Masai Mara has brought its own challenges. Let's get started. Mickey's introduction to the Black Dam pride came in true Sandringham fashion. A walk by, and the cubs seemed just as curious of her as she was about them. What a way to start our morning. I can't even contain my excitement.

We've been looking for tracks of them well, for the past few days, and then suddenly here they've just popped up on the road. Here's one lioness walking right behind us or right next to us, and here comes Pasanowari. My seventh wild white lion. This little cub just to the right of the vehicle is very curious of us. A lot of the animals here are still slowly getting habituated to vehicles. So, he's just sitting here a little bit quiet.

Elijah. Oh. Yeah. And here comes Pasanowari giving Nick Newman a nice warm welcome. He really does. You can see the contrast of color, and he's actually looking really good at the moment. They're all looking nice and healthy here. What? And here we've got uh little Miss Rulani, and it's just a busy hunting here just south of Chitwa Dam wall. As you can see, she's been hopping and bouncing in the bushes right, left, and center for the last half an hour. We found her there on the airstrip. Uh followed her all the way here, but she's keeping an eye peeled for something. Uh looks like a bird, hey? Um?

Mm. So, it looks like maybe a Natal spurfowl. Oh. Oh, there's it again towards me. Almost thought that bird was going to come and fly onto my neck. Play Yeah, and then he's playing with the food here. It's typical a youngster like this now. But mm. Now, the weather conditions here have changed. It's warming up. The mist is gone. And I was telling Peter on camera, we can move on until they can get a little closer to this particular hippo who apparently doesn't look in very good condition. There could be an element of age. But if you look at him carefully, and I'm assuming that him is possibly a male, he's missing the tail. But also his skin is quite rugged.

He could be having a skin condition possibly. Hippos get affected by so many bacterial and parasitic diseases. And then the white stuff on the neck and on the eye, not sure exactly what that is. And it could be for me a medical condition. Look at all of them. The African llamas and their coats shining in the morning sun. This is very cool. Waterbuck are very animals. They're funny looking in some cases. Um but uh really cool really versatile animals as well. Granny uh yeah, I don't think so. Um it's yeah, it's not it's it's it's not something that smells very nice. So, waterbuck do have the kind of um uh almost pungent smell to them, and uh

it currently is it. I mean, maybe you want to put it in your hair if you can harvest it. You can put it in your hair and make your hair look super silky and waterproof, but uh I don't think there's there's much benefits to uh to utilizing it. The Masai Mara rains have really been putting our teams to the test, and David gives us a look at the impact of the recent downpours. Once in a while when we get rained off or when we get drenched, we have been sneaking back to the camp because of the heavy rains. And partly, if you look at this, this has been one good patch of road for a very, very long time.

And with the rains going on, this is what has happened to the infrastructure. So, we have these uh temporary rocks that have been put here just to help the vehicles go through. So, you would imagine five, 10, 20 vehicles in this same spot in one day. They do lots of damage uh to the roads. And that's why when it rains so much, uh you get the park management encouraging us to go stay back in the camp to reduce the damage that we'll have on the road. This part will have water coming from that direction, and maybe Peter will show you uh that area is the marsh area, and the marsh will always have water all around the year. Of course, when it rains, the water levels will rise and will start flooding

and flowing in this particular direction. And we are just hoping once the rains will settle, and I'm talking about the long rains we're having now. We think no right they will end in the month this month actually, maybe towards the end. Once uh the end, we'll have the park management going to every spot and looking and seeing what they uh going to do. Well, well, well, there's another two leopards here in the tree. And looks like we have got a beautiful female on the right-hand side known as Xibuye. And then you got Xibuye's little male cub that is just playing up here with her. Look at this. Isn't this amazing?

Wow, wow, wow. Oh, oh, wow, look at that. That is absolutely amazing. I mean, jumping onto a thin little branch like that now, that is phenomenal. So, she's just a coming to 11 12 years old, 12? I think 12. I think 11. So, she still has to look after her young male cub. As I said, he's in a year. So, she is We shouldn't going to heat stress for the next year, year and a half. Uh she needs to first bring up the little boy. Making sure that he knows the area, making sure that he's safe, making sure that he is well fed.

Now, the big ones uh training the young ones how to be playful, hide and seek, how to bond. Brook the baboons, and especially this particular species here, are some of the most sociable baboons uh we know in the wild. I haven't seen I don't see the baboons want their food. For example, where they are, there's enough food for everybody. I mean, baboons are omnivores. So, just get your space, get what you should get, and eat. But when it would come to them being carnivorous, and they would hunt say, for example, scrub hares, or they would hunt any protein, any meat they would catch. I have always seen them you catch your food, you catch your prey, it is yours.

Very rarely I've seen them sharing, but we have seen once in a whole brook the males will hunt a prey as probably a small real rabbit or even a bird. And uh they will take them to the females. And this is when the females are in estrus or when uh the males uh will want to mate. Ladies and gentlemen, here we have a very small bird of prey, and it's managed to catch something and it's now feasting on it. This is the black-winged kite. Looks like it's a mouse. Um it's just below where it's standing. I did see what looked like a little tail. But also uh a mouse is exactly where what they kind of they go for. Um they can go for other birds. Have seen it before where I've never seen one

catch it, but I've seen a bird a small in the talons of a uh a black-winged kite. Um but majority of the time they their prey species will be mice. I've got a drongo showing a bit of interest here. Oh, what on earth? I'm assuming that's all like intestine that this bird is feasting on. Well, it looks like patience pays off, guys. We spent time kind of following this lizard buzzard along the road, and he seems to have made a kill, just like we were hoping for.

We would maybe be assuming could be a lizard. Oh, it's a snake. Cheetahs, it's still going. Yeah, I thought I was seeing that tail going up between his legs. Then they the lizard buzzards nest in trees, a little stick platform. Um so, yeah. That's most um accipiters and buzzards. Whoa. Wow. He's he's certainly battling with it. And a snake, it's I mean, it's quite a small snake by the looks of it, but it's that would keep him fed for a while in my perspective looking at the size of the bird to on that, yeah. Spotted bush snake. Wow. Many of our guides have a natural eye for photography, and Ian takes us behind the scenes of his editing process. Look at what happens after the safari ends.

Hey everyone. So, uh just got back from the drive and catch-up live stuff. And uh just wanted to do some editing, show you uh yeah, maybe I can get some nice pictures uh out um on my camera. I've got uh everything plugged in. I'm just copying my files across. And uh hopefully I can share some of the pics that I took um in the last couple of days. Um I've got some nice ones of crested uh franklin this morning, I hope. Uh maybe I got one of the odd balls. I'm having a few issues with my camera, but uh let's see what comes out here. And um this is one of the cheetahs we

had on the fence, and uh you can see how powerful this tool is. Um I can do a before and after. And there you can see what it looked like in there. These are my crested buffalo. That one I think is pretty cool. I like that one a lot. Yeah, it's been quite fun, and uh yeah, quite a special last few days. And this is the grey crowned cranes. And I only came here for one reason, lose three chicks. I'm trying to think I'll be getting a name for these three chicks here. It's not today, it's not tomorrow, but I'll let you know. Now, look at one who I'm not sure whether it's the mother or the father, and see what she's doing with her feet.

And that's a very special, I would say, feeding habit to get food for the chicks, because she's stomping the grass. And I'm sure she's trying to drive or get some insects from the ground. She's not killing anything, but I'm guessing between her feet is, you know, or her toes, rather, when she presses down is what she's trying to do to get the insects come between the grass over the water. Rain rolled across the Masai Mara as the afternoon set in, but the teams kept going and continued to deliver alongside the rest.

Ooh, some either females or boys, because I think this are boys. Looks very serious. Wow. Look at that. That's a topi who's now in the background. Our impala is doing a number one, number two. Don't worry, we'll just look past you. Whoa. Oh, that's nice. Thank you, James. I didn't see that one. Look at that. These boys. Topis like to do that. You can even see I know the impala is looking, but they usually get down on their knees and hit each other like that. Maybe I will Oh, the impala is moving, at least. Thank you, impala. So, topis are very aggressive. Well, a lot of antelopes are in their own nature, but also females can be aggressive. So, usually you'll see male and female topis looking quite similar.

You have to take your time to kind of differentiate if it's a male or female, because they both can fight like each other. The males fight another male, obviously, for dominance and showing of territory and female mating. And the female, they will fight another female for a male that they think is like the it guy, the number one guy in the group. So, sometimes you will see them kind of coming across each other and having a nice head butt like that. You see how they get down on their knees? They are very athletic. It's a good way to remind ourselves to always keep active, be athletic like a topi. But I do love the side profile when they do it. It is it's always so fun to

watch. But this seems like a bit of a practice, not too serious. Out here, road maintenance is part of the job, and clearing branches along the way is necessary. You could say we're branch managers. Thankfully, Imara and Big James pushed through the rain and treated us to a magnificent male leopard who had a kill to top it off. This is Olomunyak. This is Loluka's son. He had a kill. I heard he killed a reedbuck. I don't know why he's going up the kill, I mean, the tree without the cuz he did have it up the tree, and then we tried to put a position. He dropped

the meat down to the ground, and it's as if he's like, I don't know, lost it. I don't know. He's just there. Look at that. Look at him. Look at that tail, how he's using it. So, tails are very important for leopards and cheetahs, especially. Lions, we've seen them missing a bit of their tail, but for leopards and cheetahs, balance is a very big thing for them. Look at him. You see how the tail also plays a very big role in that balance, how he's even sitting, not just the climbing part. But he is looking down a bit disappointed. Maybe he did get a few bites in. I didn't see how much of the kill he had eaten, but it looked like he's eaten a bit enough, but I know he would have wanted it up the tree. So, what I'm guessing is it fell it most likely fell into the river.

Or there's some hippos around that are not letting him get close to the river. I think what he's doing is he was looking to where the meat most likely fell, cuz he keeps on looking down like he wants it back. He has worked very hard to get the reedbuck, if it is a reedbuck that he caught. Cuz he is thinking a lot for him to climb the tree without anything, then go back down. We've now found ourselves a martial eagle along the river. Yeah. It's a juvenile. The adult is quite distinctive because it has a quite contrasting upper brown feathers and a nice clear head I mean a brown head and band. But the juvenile, and this is

moving towards subadult, but the juvenile can be very white washed. Moloitsi, no, they don't prey on monkeys. They That's the crowned eagle has a specialized taste and hunting ability and strategy for monkeys, but the martial eagle has a particular taste for monitor or water lizards. Um or legavaans. Um and it really They're They're in trouble when they're They're They're spotted by a martial eagle. So, yeah. Uh martial eagle has huge talents and, you know, a very uh very powerful raptor, and I've seen several of them on the back of a monitor lizard as the monitor lizard is trying to walk off into the bush with them on the top.

I would love to see that. That big male right there, he has some really big thick tusks. He's on the other side of the river. That's where he is a bit of a white short bit. Also nice for us to see the clouds in the background, him just standing still. More of the older boys, they take it easy. They are very chill, but they can be quite aggressive, especially when they're in their musk season. Molly, thank you for your question. Well, what usually happens is with elephants, they live up to the age of 60, and that's due to the teeth sets of teeth they have, six of them. So, every 10 years they'll lose a set of teeth

where the other teeth will push down the other one and come in. So, the old set comes out, the new set is coming in. So, when you see an old elephant, they usually like to stick around areas where it's very swampy, very marsh where there's a lot of soft vegetation because now the teeth, it's like the last one, it's getting to the end. Elephants I've seen elephants even chewing branches. They still have very strong teeth, but the older they get, you'll see them going after much softer vegetation and grass and in areas where it's a more swampy. But to the males, maybe they can loosely hang around females, but when

they go to the females in the matriarch the herd, it's usually for mating. They will go and look for the female, she's in heat, then mate. But usually you'll see them kind of staying in very swampy areas, very nice soft vegetation. Not much beats a baby rhino sighting. Not Bubala, you're spoiled by them often. Ian was able to see not one, but two babies. But that was so cute. She came running towards us, and we felt like Well, I felt paternal. Don't know about you, Cam. I'm very big. And I got some also shots of her running right at us, almost eye level cuz the road is a little bit lower than the plains. That was pretty neat.

Certainly wasn't being shy with us there. But yeah, I think she realized her misjudgment and has run back to Mom. Baby rhino do And this is now a little boy. And we haven't moved more than half a kilometer, maybe 4 500 m. And uh we came across these two, so we thought, "Okay, maybe this is the one that's a week old." Oh, lying in the shadow there. Also a little cape glossy starling, what seems to be foraging behind Mom as well. Yeah, but what I was saying about that is uh a question that I probably won't be able to answer. I had I saw the previous one had two. I don't think this one has two, so

But um on the other one, the one looked like it had a solar tracker as well as a battery tracker. Um this one I couldn't quite see any on this Mom. So, uh I think the it's just up to the you know, the researchers getting around. I mean, I think they're quite pricey. But uh yeah, I'm not too sure about how to answer that question. All right. So, I think we're learning is still oblivious about Kutlano being in this uh All right, Jane. So, yeah, this kind of lapping like that, she is making a noise now. Let's see. Maybe it'll grab the attention of Kutlano. Looks like she's more interested in quenching her thirst at the moment. And she knows Mommy there.

They've seen each other there now. So, she's just kind of confirming with Mom, like, "It's me." Mhm. Looks like she's like, like, "Thanks, Mom. Now you know that's me. I'm going to continue moving on." A close encounter with an elephant is always a yes from us. This time, Ian and Cam got their turn with the elusive Bubala elephants. It's okay.

Uh-uh. It was the It's always special when they walk past them, I must say. You really got to trust that they are gentle giants. But the body language was calm. And uh I was just talking to myself there, just trying to relax myself. These two are sort of moving forward. There's still quite a few to our right. And now we've got a very sleepy hyena, but not too long ago he gave us a proper call right next to the vehicle. But now he's like taking a little bit of time out. Oh, what a ending.

And that brings us to the end of today's catch-up. Another incredible stretch across our locations. We'll see you next time. For now, goodbye.