Episode 3 Big Cat Diary

Last week, Half Tail the leopard

killed an adult male impala.

But hiding such a feast

was a bit of an uphill struggle!

Our night crew found the remnant of the Marsh Lions.

The infrared cameras revealed

that they're still having a rough time,

but, on this occasion, with hyenas.

Hyenas caused Fundi the cheetah and her cubs

a lot of grief.

During this encounter we noticed the male cub

had an alarming limp.

We didn't know how his back leg had been hurt.

Maybe a thorn or a rough game with his sister.

Whatever the cause, a leg injury

is serious for a cheetah that depends on speed for survival.

The hassle got too much for the cheetahs.

They disappeared, leaving us with a search on our hands.

Getting up at 5.00 every morning sounds like hell, but you have to

to find the cats.

It's worth it to meet such beautiful creatures.

Every day last week we looked for Half Tail and her cub and found them along Fig Tree Ridge. Brilliant!

But each morning it's as if you've wiped the slate clean. You don't know what you'll see or who you'll find.

The weather has been kinder this week, with dry, bright mornings.

One of the reasons a dawn search is so important for our success

is that a lot of the animals, not just the cats,

are still active and out of cover.

As the day heats up they seek shade, and spotting them is a nightmare!

Kidogo and her cubs

are doing well.

Each morning we find them huddled against the chill. It can be nippy.

It's in this first hour of the day

that family things - grooming and, sometimes still, suckling - happen.

But milk is not a significant part of the cubs' diet any more.

With an increasing need for meat,

Kidogo is constantly on the lookout for a meal.

Over these three weeks we've seen a shift in Kidogo's hunting style.

At first, she gave the impression she wasn't taking it very seriously,

often attempting hunts in very difficult situations

and often missing as a result.

But now, her attitude seems to have changed.

On every hunt this week, including this, of some Thomson's gazelles, she seemed to weigh the odds

and only continued the stalk if they seemed in her favour.

Ideally, she's looking for a small group or single animals - fewer eyes to spot her approach.

Despite her blistering speed, she doesn't attack unless she's within 30 metres of her target.

But when the moment's right, she gives it everything.

Even after the chase, her thoughts are with her cubs.

She can't settle

till she knows they are safe.

Because Kidogo stands a good chance of losing her kills

to other predators and scavengers,

she's keen to hide them as quickly as possible.

Sometimes, the best hiding place is under one of our cars.

Frustrating for Alan Hayward,

but a graphic illustration

of how habituated these cats are to vehicles.

We try hard to keep a respectable distance from these animals,

but, more often than not, they seek us out.

Kidogo's cubs like a game of chase around a car.

They even use my bonnet as a climbing frame!

From our point of view, it's a privilege

to be treated with such indifference by a truly wild animal.

We've been lucky to find Half Tail and her cub

on an almost daily basis.

At times I've gone months without seeing a leopard.

The young female is getting bigger and bolder by the day.

Gone is the wariness and uncertainty of earlier months.

Just how Half Tail lost part of her tail is something of a mystery.

It happened when she was four years old.

My guess is a fight with baboons or a lucky escape from a lion attack.

But the stump still provides her cub with a tantalising plaything.

GROWLING

Despite twenty years watching leopards, I've only seen them hunt successfully half a dozen times.

Impala are prime targets, particularly the males.

They often feed among the acacia thickets where leopards seek cover.

Leopards like to creep incredibly close -

two or three metres from their quarry.

Just when you feel sure Half Tail is bound to strike,

she tries to edge even closer.

But so often, that one extra step is one too many...

..forcing Half Tail to give up.

The two big male lions have been busy.

The decision to cross the river and stay on the escarpment plain worked

when they caught up with a female in heat.

We don't know if she's part of the resident pride or passing through.

But the big males obviously didn't care.

Goldenmane made the first approach

and, as is typical in the early stages of lion courtship,

the lioness instantly played hard to get.

It's not surprising that the female's wary.

She has to hold back a natural feeling of discomfort

at having a 200-kilo killing machine in VERY close contact.

But it was Goldenmane who should have been worried!

It may look as though the lioness over-reacted,

but male lions often get a smack in the face after dismounting!

And no sooner had she given him a beating,

than she starts to flirt again!

Lion courtship is a pretty intense activity.

For the first 24 hours of her coming into heat,

a female mates every 15 minutes!

She may remain receptive for over four days,

so the total number of couplings may be several hundred!

This may seem like an inordinate amount of mating for one litter.

It's been estimated that lions mate 3,000 times

for every one cub that survives to be a year old.

On day two of the lion courtship,

Martyn Colbeck was there at dawn to record the happy couple,

to find that Blackmane, Goldenmane's brother, had taken over duties!

This is normal behaviour, especially when the males are related.

The bloodline of any resulting cubs

is more or less the same -

regardless of which male is the true father.

Morning to you. We've found these lions...

On day three, the lion crew was back, fully expecting to find Blackmane and Goldenman

in close attendance with the lioness.

It appeared that Goldenmane had taken over again from his brother.

After a closer look, it became obvious that this wasn't Goldenmane,

but a new male none of us had seen before.

We have absolutely no idea what he was doing here -

other than taking advantage of the situation!

We can only assume that our two big males

were lying exhausted in the bushes and didn't notice the interloper!

Not that the female seemed to mind!

By day four, the boys were back!

Goldenmane had, once again, taken his place by the female.

albeit in a somewhat lethargic mood.

It's because lion courtship can be so chaotic

that this female may not be pregnant, even now.

Only when she's certain of full support

from faithful pride males, will she conceive.

Meanwhile,

she'll continue to convince them that she's worth hanging around for.

We've pitched our Big Cat Diary camp as close as we can

to the action.

For the six weeks of our transmission, 40 people are living under canvas or African skies.

All the trappings of TV production are in the Masai Mara

so programmes can be transmitted within the week.

Last Friday, we had a stroke of luck.

A Marsh lioness had produced three cubs in a dense thicket.

I've rarely seen cubs this small.

They're usually hidden until they're at least a month and a half old.

These are about three weeks old. Their eyes have only recently opened.

There ARE times when she'll have to leave the cubs to go and hunt.

Left alone, they're incredibly vulnerable.

It's unlikely they'll ALL survive.

Over the next three weeks, we'll keep a close eye on them.

I've spent a lot of time with Kidogo's family,

thoroughly enjoying being close to these bundles of high energy.

But, on Monday morning, a dreadful thing happened.

CUB MEWS

The female had caught her leg and was left hanging. I was in a panic.

I could do nothing - it would dreadfully upset Kidogo.

But my instinct was to dash over and try to help the youngster.

SHE MEWS PITIFULLY

He brother didn't understand and thought it was a game.

Fortunately, my immediate dilemma was answered by the cub herself.

Even though she'd managed to pull herself up into the tree

I felt sure her leg would have been permanently damaged by the fall.

The wait for her to pluck up the courage to come down was horribly tense.

Unbelievably, no sooner was she down than she was charging around

with her brother,

with no sign of damage to her leg!

Despite her accident, the cub is absolutely fine now.

Unlike me! Every time either cub goes near a tree, I have palpitations!

They're both in very good shape - getting fitter and faster.

Their future looks very bright.

At dawn on Sunday, we found Half Tail

about to stash an impala carcass in a Balinites tree.

They've got to be careful with it revealed like that,

as birds of prey - eagles, vultures - might spot it and try and feed on it.

Now that Half Tail's got her kill safely up the tree, they can feed at leisure.

It's safe from hyenas

and even a lion might have difficulty getting up there.

The problem is, she's got the cub

who now, nice and full, is very active and just wants to play.

The cub's taking the safe way down.

No sooner had they climbed down,

than an unwelcome visitor moved in.

Half Tail was there in a flash.

Even though the cub and Half Tail have eaten plenty of meat,

they haven't finished with that kill yet!

I've never seen something like that!

By the look of it, that cub's got a few lessons to learn yet

before it's a really competent climber!

We decided to stay with Half Tail throughout the night.

By using our infrared lights and cameras,

we were able to watch our leopards without disturbing them.

Early in the night, Half Tail catnapped in the tree with her kill.

But her cub was far less relaxed, stranded up an acacia

where she had fled from hyenas.

Hyenas have a remarkable sense of smell,

immediately moving in on the kill.

But Half Tail could afford to ignore her powerful competitors.

The hyenas scoured the ground for scraps from the leopard's larder.

Eventually, the last hyena wandered off

allowing Half Tail and her cub to leave the safety of the trees.

It was pitch black outside.

But our infrared cameras let us share the leopards' reunion.

At dawn next morning, I thought things couldn't be better for our leopards.

It's wonderful to see this side of leopards

because we so often think of them as solitary and anti-social.

But you see a mother and cub playing

and you realise that they've got a huge range of behaviour.

Half Tail likes playing just as much as her cub!

Leopards always remind me of an overgrown house cat.

They're the most "cattyish" of our three big cats.

Both our leopards are full of meat

and they're just enjoying themselves. There are no hyenas around

and so they can relax.

By storing their kills in trees,

leopards have the leisure of being able to eat it over a number of days,

something a cheetah can't do.

Now that Half Tail's finished eating,

the little cub's obviously decided it can have the chance to feed.

Leopards tend to feed separately. One feeds then rests,

then the other one.

It's very important that they gorge themselves as best they can

because they never know when they'll hunt and feed again.

This week, we've conducted a massive search to find Fundi and her cubs,

our other cheetah family that went missing last week.

On Friday, we followed up a tip that some cheetah cubs had been spotted.

To our surprise, they'd been seen 25km away.

-TANIA:

-I believe they're to the left of where we are now.

If we headed a bit more south, it looks empty...

Even though we'd been told roughly where to look,

we still had to apply our usual fieldcraft to track the cheetahs.

-But not all the clues were useful.

-That wildebeest's old.

I don't think it means much.

We're coming right over now.

There they are!

We've got to be really sure these are Fundi's cubs.

Simon to Keith or anybody else, I can see the cheetahs.

Simon, reading you loud and clear.

We've found these cubs and it would be great if you could identify them.

If you've got the drawings, we'd be able to tie it down.

They're gonna be heading down into this riverine forest

so we'd probably better get in soon.

If you could keep them in view till I get there, that would help.

OK, hold it there.

IN SWAHILI

Well, they're the same age.

This could be them.

This could be them.

The difficulty is that I haven't seen Fundi's young for quite a few days.

I did make some sketches back at base camp

of some of the more distinctive features of Fundi's cubs' faces.

I'm just going to try and match those against the marks on these.

No, no, no.

No, the markings aren't matching.

The male cub of Fundi's had very distinctive marks above his eyes.

The female had a very distinctive little V mark next to her right eye.

So we've got these two male cubs without an adult who will have a hard time of it

and we still don't have Fundi's cubs. The search goes on.

Subtitles by BBC Subtitling - 1996