Safari

When I was a child I got chased by a warthog. This was no Pumba, you know, the cuddly, if smelly, singing Warthog from the Lion King. This creature was fast, relentless, and almost as tall as I was. I was on holiday in Botswana and we were staying in the famous Chobe National Park. As I walked outside the hotel in the afternoon sun, my family was waiting by the car to go on a game drive.

I was met by a mama warthog and all her babies in tow grazing right in front of the car park. Surprised by my sudden presence, they started chasing me. She was quick. Even her babies were quick. I didn't think to stop at all. I just ran and I kept running, but so did the warthog and so did her piglets. My family was nowhere to be seen. I was all alone. It seemed to last forever. But eventually I reached the closest door I could find. The hotel reception.

I was back enjoying the wildlife and the landscape. Being chased by a warthog didn't stop me, but it did make me more aware of my place in the natural world. I'm Rutendo Shackleton. And I'm Sebastiana Acheveri. And this is the BBC Earth Podcast. Hey, this is Elise Hugh from TED Talks Daily, and I'd love to tell you about Whole Foods Market.

You know what I love about January? It's that fresh start energy we all feel. And this year I'm actually gonna try and keep my goals realistic, which means I need places that make healthy choices easy and affordable. That's why I've been spending more time at my local Whole Foods Market. The thing is, Whole Foods Market makes it possible to stick with those New Year intentions without meal prepping for hours or breaking the bank. Shop all things wellness at Whole Foods Market.

In this episode, we're talking about safari. Nature Instagrammer Lucy Lapwing explores a temperate rainforest. Scotland, Rutendo and I go searching for spiders using a surprising household device, and we track down elusive wolf howls in Portugal. Okay, Tendo, be real with me here. You've worked with and encountered a lot of famously fearsome animals.

But you're telling me the one that stands out from all of those is this warthog? I was just a kid, so it was quite fearsome at the time. Do your parents? How did they react? They were nowhere to be seen. And then when I found them, they were like, Where have you been? Like, we've been waiting for you and I was like, Oh my goodness, you have no idea what just happened to me But yeah, we spent so much of my childhood getting out and exploring the natural world and

So it never really deterred us. It was almost like a oh s you know, what will happen next time we're out. Though I mean, like I'm listening to this and me and maybe other people are thinking, these are awesome stories, right? You're out in the wilderness all the time. But, you know, I grew up in New York City and a lot of people around the world are living in like apartment blocks, you know, major cities.

and feel like, oh I can't go out to Safari. What would you say to them? Yeah, so maybe we should talk about what we mean by when we say Safari. Yeah. For me I hear Safari and I think rich tourists Land Rovers, driving out to like photograph a rhino or something that may or may not have been like set up for them to come see. That's actually not what we're talking about in this episode. We are talking about creating your own adventure outside.

Seeing what you can find and enjoying that and appreciating that. I mean, Sebastian, didn't you recently find something interesting on the rooftop of the BBC building? Yeah, that is true. We we had a little break, so I wandered up. And there were some potted plants and the little like rooftop

greenery and I found a jumping spider. The zebra jumping spider. Cute tiny little spider like maybe like a centimeter long its whole body. He's got these like short, stocky legs and the big puppy dog eyes of jumping spiders. I love that you say puppy dog eyes. I don't know how else to describe them. That's their trademark. They've got these big

Adorable eyes that take up almost their whole head that you just could get lost staring into. And then I brought it back to the studio and everyone kinda had a blast looking at it. It was a prime example that nature's everywhere and it's Just there for us to appreciate and to enjoy.

Someone else who loves to explore the nature on their doorstep is friend of the podcast Lucy Lapwing, who some listeners might know from her beautiful Instagram post. Last spring, we sent Lucy out to record in the temperate rainforest near her home on the Isle of Butte in Scotland. And the bit of woodland I've come for a little bumble around today is Atlantic temperate rainforest. Mostly oak trees here and every single wooded surface I can see is absolutely dripping.

Yeah, I'm coming for a a wander around today and basically following my recipe for a nature nerd day out. Pick somewhere nice to walk, walk around and see what I find. Be it tiny things, be it big things, feathered things, green things, scuttling things, whatever I can clap my eyes on. I don't know if you can hear away in the background there, there's Gorgeous song for singing.

They like to pick a phrase and then they'll repeat it three, four, maybe five times, get bored of it and then they'll move on to the next. Sounds like loads of different birds mashed into one doing some kind of remix. I love it. You might be able to hear how squidgy it is underfoot. And that is because that is a key feature of this special type of rainforest. It's gotta be wet.

Mae'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio This isn't the type of woodland you see often. It's very much mostly isolated to the west coast in the UK where we get this really really wet weather. ac yn ymwneud â phobl sy'n ymwneud â phobl sy'n ymwneud â phobl sy'n ymwneud â phobl sy'n ymwneud â phobl.

Kind of turquoise, kind of pale green. And a lot of those are what we call uznir lichens, various different species of uznea, which is a really nice word to say. All different types of structures and shapes and they're adorning the trees around me. The air is so fresh and clean. It's absolutely delicious on the nostrils.

So I'm gonna have a bit of a a gander round and and see what I can find. I'm gonna be prodding in various damp places and uh having a look amongst the treetops, seeing what feathered creatures I can find. and hopefully taking you on a little bit of an adventure round this really quite special bit of woodland. This is absolute bl

A common car to be feeding from bluebells and the scent is wafting up my nose. It's just the most gorgeous, sweet smell. I wish I could transmit it through the microphone. And behind me I'm being serenaded by a cuckoo. And it's quite a cloudy morning but it's beautiful. So moody, atmospheric. Absolutely gorgeous, moist, wet spring morning where you can just feel everything come into life.

Now in this particularly damp patch next to um a very rotten log. Ooh in fact touching it now it's so rotten that the wood's like soft, it's beautiful. But next to that is this amazing patch of swagnum moss.

I think this is sphagnum I'm gonna say phylax which is quite a common one really really bright green sphagnum rock Rydyn ni'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd Now we've got about 32 different types of Sphragnum moss in the UK and they come in all different shapes and sizes and particularly colours.

The ones in front of me are bright, bright green, like lime green. And they're just so satisfying. The way they grow in clumps there's like these Ooh hello. We have a raven. So they grow in these satisfying clumps all together. It's kind of like an intricate repeated pattern, all these little bobbles and bumps. They've got these tiny little branches threading off them. You can pick one up and they're they're not properly rooted, they kind of grow semi-suspended.

And sphagnum mosses build their own environment, they're ecosystem engineers of a sort, in that they need that moisture and they act like giant sponges. So they've actually been used in the past for things like nappy fillings and wound dressings. They hold so much water. It's several times their own weight in water that they can hold. If you pick up a handful of particularly wet sphagnum and squeeze it, loads of water will drip out.

And so itself perpetuates, over time it gathers more and more moisture, which means more and more sphagnum can grow.

So I've just spotted one of my absolute favourite woodland birds scooting up a tree. They're just joyful and hilarious to watch. The tree creeper. I mean it does what it says on the tints. They live in the UK year round, they don't migrate. Gorgeous tiny little things. They look kind of like a little mouse with like a banana-shaped black beak. They're just really quite ridiculous looking, these gorgeous little brown birds. And they creep up trees.

Rydyn ni'n ei wneud yn ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r And it's amazing they use their little long tail trailed up behind them like um like a wedge. It's kind of something to lean back on as they hoik their way up the tree trunk. If you think about it, it's kind of like us climbing a massive cliff face, trying to find our lunch as we go.

And they have this absolutely gorgeous little song as they go along. It's really quite funny and I think it suits them because it's almost comedic. Doo doo doo doo did. Which is a gorgeous noise to listen to. It's a really really high pitched one, so it's one of the first birds.

You actually really sadly lose as you get older and you stop being able to pick up those higher frequencies. So I'm gonna try and spend as much time as possible just clinging onto that sound because it's just utterly joyful. I've come to a place just for a while. I'm fine, see? Who I get to meet, whether it's a bug or a wildflower or a bird. You never know what you're gonna find on a nature walk. I felt like I was right there with Lucy in the temperate rainforest.

It reminded me a lot of like when I go hiking. Mm-hmm. I might have plans of like, oh I'm gonna go on this trail that's like a mile or two long but I never make it that far because every few steps I'm finding a cool bug to look at. Or like, oh, there's a bunch of logs to flip over, like I'll be there all day. and move ten meters or something in an hour. I absolutely love doing the same thing, especially when I'm on my dog walks. Um because we go to the forest near our house and

There's always something new to look at. And I noticed that Chilo started like licking the plants. Mm-hmm. And I also noticed that he likes licking these big bubbles that are on the plants as well, just taking all the moisture in. Is it like a big ball of white? Bubbly foam. I think. that might actually be an animal making that.

Are you serious? So there are these really cool insects called leafhoppers and treehoppers. And one of the ways that they survive is that they make these big bubble houses. to sleep inside of so that they're safe. No way. Uh so they literally it's just like bubbles of spit until it makes like a giant ball. And then in the center of that there will be a a leafhopper or a tree hopper.

Just napping. Are you telling me that my dog is licking bubbles of spit off of plants? Yes. Yeah, yeah, I'm sorry. He might also be eating some tree hoppers that were less well defended than they thought they were. Oh my goodness. I don't know whether to be grossed out or feel bad.

Well now I know something else. So I'm gonna have to take my magnifying glass and see if I can see any sleeping treehoppers in the middle of those bubbles. Some of them are really colorful. There's one around here that's neon blue and like maroon. It's incredible.

A while back, Sebastian and I went on our own mini safari in Bristol, home of the BBC Natural History Unit, and where they make all the wonderful David Attenborough documentaries. We went looking for bats in a cemetery, more on that in a future episode, and we tried to find a pair of nesting peregrines, though sadly they were away from their nest. But we did have more luck later on when we went searching for spiders.

Hey, this is Elise Hugh from TED Talks Daily, and I'd love to tell you about Whole Foods Market. You know what I love about January? It's that fresh start energy we all feel. And this year I'm actually gonna try and keep my goals realistic, which means I need places that make healthy choices easy and affordable.

That's why I've been spending more time at my local Whole Foods Market. The thing is, Whole Foods Market makes it possible to stick with those New Year intentions without meal prepping for hours or breaking the bank. Shop all things wellness at Whole Foods.com. Hey. It's Raj. And Noah. And we're back with a new season of Am I Doing It Wrong?

Or it's the all-too human anxieties we have about trying to get our lives right. Because we're still doing a lot of stuff wrong. But who isn't? That's why each week we're talking about the topics that we could all use a little helping hit with. Whether it's making new friends as an adult, managing our emotions, or even

Talking to experts in their fields who are definitely doing things right. So the rest of us can be a bit wiser and a lot better equipped to handle whatever life throws at us. Subscribe now and listen to new episodes of MI. Wrong, dropping every Thursday starting January 1st, wherever you get your podcasts. And for the first time ever, we're gonna have full video episodes on YouTube. Because as long as there are things to get wrong, we're gonna be right here to help you.

So we're at the center of Brandon Hill Park in Bristol. We're hunting for spiders. This is my first time spidering. It's like bird watching, but for spiders. And we're by this the tower wall, which is got lots of plants growing up and down and around it and through it. So am I correct in saying that this is a really good place to go spidering? So the secret about spidering is that almost everywhere is a good place to go spidering spiders live all across the world.

But this is a really good place for the spider that we're looking for. So today we're trying to find a tube web spider. This is a non-native spider, so it's not originally from the UK, but the Mediterranean. Oh right. Um, and they're called tubeweb spiders because they like to build these long tunnels where they live. in gaps in walls and rocky debris.

And so the this the crumbling stone here is an excellent habitat for them and I'm really hoping we get to see them because I've never met this spider before. And it's always a really special moment for you when I get to meet a a new arachnid. Great, so what are we gonna look for? We're at this wall, what are we looking for? Yeah, so there's

Kind of two general groups of spiders, ones that build webs and ones that don't. Today we're looking for a spider that does build a web. They they build this radiating spiral on the outside surface. Which is what they use to feel things walking by and catch their food. And when you say tube

You mean like a tunnel? Like a tunnel, yes. Right, okay. A tunnel in the wall. Yeah, it goes into the wall. So we're just gonna see the opening and then the kind of outer web which is what they're using to sense things that are walking by. And so that's what we're looking for. We're looking for these webs that are giving us hints that there's a spider living there. Oh Sebastian, I think I found one. Oh, okay. It's the tiniest of tunnels.

Whoa. Can you see it? Yeah, it's at the base of this like itty itty bitty little plant that's like just barely got its roots inside the wall. And I think I spotted legs. Oh, that means that this is inhabited. Yeah. I'm peering in. Just trying to s look as far as I can into this wall and I think I just saw some legs scurry away when they felt

the breath from me talking. And you're right, it is it looks like a tunnel. It's yeah. Not that I didn't believe you, but their web is perfectly shaped like a tunnel. Yeah, it's like really round. Yeah on the outside. And then they're r tucked in. Really far in there. Really far in. It really feels like a cave out of like a fantasy story or something, but just very tiny.

Actually here, this okay. Alright, so here's some sign. You see this web out here? Yeah. There's a bunch of little little bits of junk in there. If you look a little closer These are actually little bits of insect exoskeleton. Like the shell of Yeah, the shells. It's leftovers basically. Yeah, the stuff that they don't want to eat, all the hard bits. And I think Based on the size of theirs.

There might be an adult nearby because I see some little beetle. Is that the big adult? I just noticed another like a ladybug. Oh yeah. Yeah, there's a ladybug wing there. And you see how the there's web kind of spread outside the opening here. Mm-hmm. That's a as they grow they'll develop more and more web on the outside instead of just at the entrance. Okay.

I'm gonna try to deploy my secret spider ring super weapon. Your what? What's the super weapon? Any guesses? Oom, I don't know. It is an everyday tool that I think everyone listening to this podcast has at home. An everyday tool? Yeah. Oh, I can't think of an everyday tool that you can. I'm gonna eat it like at least once or twice a day. Your toothbrush? Toothbrush. Oh, wow. How are you gonna use a toothbrush to get a spider out? So

Whenever you're working with an animal, you gotta figure out what senses it uses to understand the world. Mm-hmm. For most spiders, that's vibration. And so they use vibration to feel what's going on around them. And the webs just help them extend that sense from just next to their body to further away. And what they're looking for is the feel of something stuck or walking on that web. Right. And it turns out that a lot of electric toothbrushes vibrate at a similar enough rate as

bugs flap their wings. No way. That you can sometimes trick a spider to come out and think that there's food. Yeah, the electric toothbrush is the is the more accessible option. But I do know many scientists that have had to get very specific patterns of vibration to get their spiders to react. Right. Um which has led them to go to very specific adult entertainment stores. Because

Very specific vibrators that have a certain pulsing pattern that the spiders are like, yes, that is it. Stop. That is what gets me interested. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna tape a little leaf. or a feather if I can find it to the end of my toothbrush. And then we're gonna see if we can get the spider to come out.

Yeah, so I'm just getting some tape off here. And that's gonna help me stick something to the end of it'cause maybe I don't wanna put the bristles that I use to brush my teeth right on the web. That is fair enough. Let's try the stick. So you've you've taped the twig to the back of the toothbrush, not to the bristles for all the people that are like gritting their teeth at the moment. That are clenching their teeth. Alright, and now.

I'm gonna try. If this works out, the spider's gonna come out and maybe try to uh nibble at the twigs it's gonna think it's food. So here goes nothing. Sebastian is gently just rubbing the twig in different Yeah, this it's possible that this web is not uh currently inhabited, even though it once was. Oh, oh, no. Oh, it's coming out! Oh my goodness! Oh my gosh Oh yeah. A that is a very big spider. A spider's about maybe an inch in total body length.

And it is very confused because it did try to nibble this twig and then realized it wasn't food. It was a toothbrush that it came across. And is now going back in. So is this the tube spider that we were looking for? I think it might be, although the coloration of it was a little different. So it could be younger individual because some spiders change their colors as they grow or a different species that makes a similar web.

But what the cool thing is I've managed to get a photo. Means that we can try to identify them using tools like iNaturalist. It had a really beautiful coloration, a nice really dark head. And then this kind of like yellow brown markings on the abdomen. Yes. And you could see the the callissera, the fangs were this shiny black with like actually some bristly hairs. Oh and we I even managed to get a picture of the eye pattern, which is really useful because

When you talk about eye pattern what does that mean? Yeah, so the cool thing about spiders is that Most of them have eight eyes, but the size, shape, and position of those eyes changes a lot in different families of spiders. Wow. So you can actually tell what kind of spider you're looking at by taking a deep long look into its eyes. And comparing it.

To all of the ones that we know about. I think that we're going to need to post the picture of the spider on your electric toothbrush for everyone to see because that was amazing. I've got proof.

Okay, Sebastian, you know what I'm gonna ask you now. Did you look up the spider we found and was it the one that we were looking for? I have good news and I have bad news. The bad news is that it wasn't the tube web spider that we were looking for. I'm a little disappointed because I really, really looked hard. But okay, what's the good news? The spider that we did meet is a really, really cool one.

So it's a member of the lace weaver spiders. And the species that we met is native to the UK and they do some really, really cool things. It's this behavior called matrophage, which is where the offspring eat their own mother. And I know that sounds really gruesome, but really it's the mother choosing to let herself be her children's first meal.

So lace weaver mothers they do everything they can to keep their babies safe and give them the best chance at life. They watch over their egg sacs until they hatch. And when the babies do hatch, they stay in the mom's home for a while. In order to give her kids enough energy to grow really quickly, she lays kind of a a buffet of unfertilized eggs for the kids to eat.

And after they have that, she communicates to her offspring that it's okay to approach her and to eat her, and she just sits calmly and lets them feed off of her. She passes away, but her babies can grow up a lot faster than they would have if they had to go out and immediately catch all their food? And that means more of them will have a chance to survive. She's making this like ultimate sacrifice for her family.

that kind of made me well love. I wasn't expecting this from spiders. It's really impressive. And you wouldn't ever know'cause it's all happening behind the scenes. inside of their homes. But I mean that wasn't the only cool thing that we saw. We saw the spider, but we also saw a bunch of other animals. We saw beetles, we saw snails, we saw some really cool bumblebees.

flying around. Right. And we also saw really cool creeping plants growing in the walls and flowers coming out of like cracks and crevices. Yeah. We didn't put in a ton of effort going out to somewhere exotic. It only took a small amount of effort and we found amazing things. A small amount of effort and an electric toothbrush.

Okay, now I'm gonna introduce someone on my side of the Atlantic, right here in the US. who loves to get out there and have his own safari experiences close to home. Eric Stone Street is probably best known for his role as Cameron Tucker in the TV sitcom Modern Family.

But what you might not know about Eric is that he's also the voice of a number of popular animated animals, including the oversized mutt Duke in The Secret Life of Pets, and the nervous flying horse Minimus in Sophia I. He told us a bit about why he enjoys playing the part of an animal and shared the story of a very special animal encounter of his own. The reason I was so excited to do

In The Secret Life of Pets was because I'm such a dog lover and have loved dogs my whole life and always had dogs in my life. So I thought it was a great opportunity for. You know, and with Sophia the First, the horse the timidness of my character Minimus on that is uh sweet by nature and I love horses. I they're like big dogs actually. hard to learn is incredible. I definitely brought my love and experience for animals to those characters.

They're pretty creepy, they have yellow eyes and fangs, but again, I love there's an empathetic Quality that they bring out in me, which is here you look at this animal and think, ew, but yet they have a heart. uh performance possibility playing a babarusa. I remember as a man. I always think that's a good one. Here comes this. White tailed deer. And you know, Deer's vision their overall sense right they know there's something there but they don't know something's there so

Trick you. Well, this deer was probably I would say 30 yards away, and she kept putting her head down, and then she'd look up real fast. my general direction. And just trying to trick me in that moment. that close and so personal, you realize the world and life is not just about us. things going on outside of where we live. Where we drink, where we drive our car and traffic. All around us is nature. That's what I love going into the woods.

that if I wouldn't have been here, this deer still would have walked by, those squirrels still would have been playing on that sapling like a roller coaster. You know, they still would have been doing that. And I'm just privileged enough to witness it. Yeah.

Wow, I absolutely love Eric's story about his encounter with the deer. It just reminds me of the power of immersing ourselves in nature just sitting and watching and it reminds me when I was at university and I was an undergrad vet student and one of our lecturers would always say, If you wanna get to know a cow, just sit in a field and see what they do.

I mean obviously you mustn't trespass on anyone's land and you should stay at a safe distance at all times because getting close to cows can be really dangerous. But if you find a safe spot and do sit still, cows are really curious and they're like, Why are you sitting there? What is your deal, human? Yeah. If you sit still and you start watching, you're gonna be noticing all these cool behaviors. You're gonna be immersed in that.

Move slowly and you'll start finding amazing stuff on your very own. My name is Melissa Pons. I am a nature field recordist. Uh when searching uh for wolves in uh sanctuary in Mafra in Portugal. Well I track the wolves mostly by hearing them, not only the howling, but they are so strong that when they run like you really hear like the pouncing on the ground.

Uh patience is is key and uh you know if you don't have patience I don't think I can do anything. Uh you really have to be there, sit on the ground and uh just wait and uh hope for for the best. I think it's a only a very humbling experience because it's not about me, it's not about the recordist at all.

with uh how these animals or how you know the wilderness around you moves. It's a magnificent animal in my opinion. It has uh such noble qualities that I think I wish we also could learn from them. I was in awe with the way that they communicate. It's so immense that it's really impossible to, you know, to remain indifferent to it. Goosebumps experience really?

The BBC Earth Podcast was hosted by Rutendo Shackleton and me, Sebastian Echeveri. Our special reporter was Lucy Lapwing. The Wolves Soundscape was provided by Melissa Ponds, and our interview guest was Eric Stone Street. Our producers are Jeff Marsh and Rachel Byrne. Our researcher is Seb Masters,

The podcast theme music was written by Axel Cacutier, and mixing and additional sound design was by Peregrine Andrews. The production manager is Catherine Stringer and the production coordinator is Gemma Wooten. Executive producer is Deborah Dudgeon. The BBC Earth Podcast is a BBC Studios production for BBC.

Hey, it's Raj. And Noah. And we're back with a new season of Am I Doing It Wrong? The show that explores the all-too human anxieties we have about trying to get our lives right. Because we're still doing a lot of stuff wrong. But who isn't? That's why each week we're talking about the topic. We could all use a little helping handwig.

New friends as an adult, managing our emotions, or even dreaming. We'll be talking to experts in their fields who are definitely doing things right. So the rest of us can be a bit wiser and a lot better equipped to handle whatever life throws at us. Subscribe now and listen to new episodes of Am I Doing It?

1st, wherever you get your podcasts. And for the first time ever, we're gonna have full video episodes on YouTube. Because as long as there are things to get wrong, we're gonna be right here to help.