Episode 5 Big Cat Diary

Last week we met Fundi the cheetah and her cubs after a two-week absence.

The male cub's leg has healed, but they are increasingly hard to find.

Half Tail the leopard and her cub had a rude awakening

when some lions muscled into their territory.

Though growing, the cub is still at risk from these and other dangers.

The annual migration is behind schedule,

but last week a few zebra arrived, to the relief of the crocodiles.

Not enough for the Marsh lions. Their territory remained empty of prey,

and the outlook for the new cubs was gloomy.

The Marsh Pride are still having a hard time finding food,

but the weather is better, so more animals should be moving here soon.

Meanwhile, the lions must make do with whatever they find.

That's not a lot! Pickings are lean at the moment.

Of the animals which remain all year in the Mara, it is warthogs the lions target most.

Though short in the leg with a limited view,

they are anything but easy to catch.

Warthogs have a superb sense of smell, and lions strangely ignore wind direction.

In this hunt, more by luck than judgment,

the wind was in the lions' favour.

Two lionesses working together set an ambush.

Despite brushing within a metre of the waiting cat,

the warthog's remarkable speed is enough to ensure its escape.

Indeed, of all the hunts we've watched

over the past week, the outcome has become worryingly predictable.

Even against such adversity, the heat is often too much for lions.

But their choice of shade

has been anything but peaceful.

PLANE'S ENGINE GETS LOUDER

It is a testament to their complete acceptance of human activity

that they see little difference between a shady tree and a plane.

But the arrival of the midday flight from Nairobi

is too much even for these laid-back cats.

Another of the animals which maintains a presence here throughout the year is the giraffe.

As the tallest and one of the heaviest animals here,

trying to catch one is, to say the least, ambitious.

With a new-born youngster in the herd,

the lions' interest gets an extra boost...

..ending once again in failure.

With such difficulties,

the pride has started to break up into groups of twos and threes.

Hunting strategies have changed accordingly.

Prides often split up when times are hard.

Despite the theory that lions are social cats

because it makes hunting easier,

two lionesses like these sisters are probably the most efficient hunters.

They can still catch prey, but don't have to spread it too thin.

However, sometimes two just isn't enough -

these two Marsh sisters tried to bite off a lot more than they could chew.

A bull eland can weigh nearly a ton and is too much for the lions,

despite a gallant attempt.

In the end, they must turn their attention back to the warthogs.

This time they set their sights a little lower.

The young hog is little more than a snack, but a very welcome one.

Often when searching for leopards,

it's best to simply stop, look and listen.

Occasionally, as on this morning, Half Tail's cub found us!

-WHISPERING:

-She might be very small,

but the last thing you want is to get a leopard through your window!

She's grown so much in the last few weeks.

Strangely, when you see her at a distance, she looks quite big,

then, as she gets closer, she looks smaller -

but just then she looked pretty big to me!

Half Tail's cub is growing cheekier and more aggressive by the day.

Mother-cub play sessions are much rougher,

and sometimes threaten to get out of hand.

THEY GROWL

The cub's growing independence

is more and more obvious, but Half Tail still keeps a watchful eye.

Next day, the cub was playing with a hare Half Tail had delivered to her.

But a hyena had smelt the food.

Half Tail moved in, ready to snatch the kill to safety.

The cub held her ground.

The hyena moved closer,

but the cub seemed more concerned with keeping her mother at bay.

There was no doubt as to whose meal it was.

As more hyenas gathered, attracted by the commotion,

I feared for the cub's safety.

But I needn't have worried.

The cub really is growing up fast.

She knew exactly what to do.

Guided by its extraordinary sense of smell,

the first hyena rushed to where the cub had played with the hare.

HALF TAIL SNARLS

Half Tail confronted the hyena.

With no food to fight over, she could afford to stand her ground.

But when two more hyenas raced in,

Half Tail was forced to retreat.

HALF TAIL WHINES

-BIRD'S WINGS FLAP

-With nothing to scavenge,

the hyenas must have wished THEY could climb trees.

Although the cub was assured of a meal,

Half Tail was still hungry.

As soon as the hyenas had left,

she was off again.

She must have travelled over a kilometre

before we eventually lost sight of her on a rocky hillside.

All we could do was sit and wait

as a variety of animals passed by,

totally unaware of Half Tail.

She was there somewhere, but where?

She was waiting for something small to ambush.

HALF TAIL GROWLS

AN ANIMAL GROWLS IN THE DISTANCE

The kongoni calf was lucky.

Its mother's roars intimidated Half Tail.

They also attracted another hyena,

salivating at the thought of an easy meal.

But they were both out of luck.

During the series, we've been able to watch our cats day and night.

Using infrared lights, cameras and viewing equipment,

we could watch in complete darkness.

And it's not just cats we've seen.

A huge range of creatures are out and about in the hours of darkness,

providing us with rarely-seen moments.

It's far from a simple task.

Driving by infrared light makes spotting deep mud holes a challenge!

But the unique view this approach provides makes it worthwhile.

Such an event recently occurred

with a cat normally assumed to be active only in daylight hours.

The night crew followed Kidogo the cheetah

and found that, far from being inactive, she began to hunt.

A miss,

but an explanation as to why she is sometimes full at dawn.

THEY GRUNT AND PURR

The Big Pride must have killed this zebra, I think, just before dawn.

HE SNARLS

A zebra like this probably weighs, I would think,

250 kilos, maybe a bit more than that.

So, for a pride like this, it's a very good kill, it's a big kill,

and it will provide plenty of meat for the pride members.

THEY GROWL AND SNARL

Despite the tension between the lionesses,

they're quite happy to let the cubs feed alongside them.

The cubs can hold their own, often grabbing some of the choicest cuts.

We've been here now for just over two hours -

that's all it's taken for the lions to finish this zebra carcass.

The lionesses seem quite happy

to let the cubs finish off the scraps.

But not everyone is welcome at the kill.

The lioness we saw being shunned by her relatives is still sidelined.

None of the females is willing to share with her. She must wait.

Having eaten their fill,

the lionesses led the cubs to the big wood

where they could safely sleep off the effects of their enormous meal.

With only the male left picking over the remains of the kill,

the outcast crept in

to feed on the leftovers.

The lionesses may have rejected her as one too many in the pride,

but not the male.

One day, he might mate with her.

Having scoured the grass for what little was left,

the outcast trails after the others, giving the vultures their cue.

THEY SQUAWK AND CHATTER

Times may be hard for the outcast,

but for the Big Pride, especially the cubs, things couldn't be better.

Fundi the cheetah has been giving us problems.

The reason we lost her has been explained

by her new passion for hunting in dense undergrowth.

This is classic Fundi behaviour,

that every time she goes off hunting,

she catches things in very thick cover,

and the chances of getting that on film are incredibly remote, as I just proved.

"Try again" time.

Kapen, I think she's gonna go right into this acacia thicket.

That's the other thing, you know, that Fundi does all the time...

is that most cheetahs, most cheetahs work on open ground.

They hunt their prey on the open plains, chasing Thompson's gazelle, impala, and the like.

Fundi is an artist when it comes to hunting in thick cover -

very similar behaviour to a leopard,

only a cheetah behaves the same way in cover as in open plains,

so if it sees a gazelle, boof! It chases it at 60, 70 miles an hour.

From a camera's viewpoint, it disappears within five yards.

I love her, really.

She's doing it again!

There's a small group of impala to the left of us.

Another one -

directly ahead.

And the cheetah, I know, are about 50 or 60 metres behind us.

I can't... Yes, I can! I can see one of them.

Yes, I can just see one head poking up through the long grass.

There she goes.

She's definitely spotted the impala.

The change in posture is extraordinary.

When a cheetah goes into stalking mode,

it lifts its head so that it's the highest feature in the body.

Then it locks its eyes into the target.

She's checking the group of impala out now.

She's looking for a young animal or pregnant female -

any one of the group that's at a disadvantage when being chased.

Fundi's managed to do it again -

where she does it best - in the heart of very thick acacia forest.

They've managed to kill a young impala.

It was very confused from the camera point of view,

with impalas dashing behind bushes.

I DID see one of the young cheetahs chasing a young impala.

Then Fundi, right behind cover, managed to grab the one they're now feeding on.

I'm not worried from the film point of view.

It's more important that these cats get a good meal at the end of so much hard work hunting.

Though it's quite a small meal, I think it'll be sufficient to tide them over until tomorrow.

Kidogo, by contrast, is a textbook cheetah.

She hunts on the open plain, she targets Thompson's gazelle

and she tends to keep to quite a small territory.

Her cubs are one reason she stays in the open so much of the time.

If they walked through thick cover, they'd be at risk from leopards

and other predators that use the woods as shade during the day.

The open plains are home to this cheetah's favourite prey species.

The ideal target for a cheetah is a single, unobservant, weary gazelle.

Male Tommies spend a lot of time marking and defending a territory...

..They are more likely to be caught

as they have their minds on things other than stalking cheetah.

In the past week or so, though,

the gazelle have been giving birth.

They synchronise their breeding season

so that most of the young are born at the same time.

Despite the inevitable losses they suffer to predators,

there are so many young

that some are bound to survive.

The unlucky ones make an easy target.

Kidogo now has a choice -

to search for the fawns she can almost guarantee catching

or to make the effort to secure a much bigger meal.

Her choice is made.

The supreme effort of the chase pays off

with a meal that will last her and her cubs at least two days.

Life in the marsh is as difficult as ever.

The marsh lions haven't found any zebra

and the consequences for the cubs

grow ever more life-threatening.

As it is, the new litter

is having to compete with hungry cousins.

The older cubs should be concentrating on meat.

But there's no solid food, so they feed on the meagre milk reserves.

And the youngsters just aren't getting a look in.

Hunting during the day has continued all week.

But the focus of the marsh lion's attention here was not a meal.

I assumed the lioness was part of the pride.

Lions often approach each other with caution - even hostility -

until they're certain of each other's identity.

SHE GROWLS

That was anything BUT a friendly welcome!

I've no idea who this female is. She may be related to the marsh lions,

but with the present food shortage, she's being asked to leave in no uncertain terms.

This may seem like savage behaviour on the part of the marsh lions,

but with a young family to think of they can do nothing less.

It always strikes me as ironic that this magnificent, powerful predator

has its fortunes dictated absolutely by the animals it eats.

Without the zebra or the wildebeest, these lions begin to die.

This poor female is really going to be struggling in the next few weeks.

Subtitles by BBC Subtitling BBC - 1996