Nature » flamingoes

Kalahari: Introduction

admin — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 14:08:15 +0000

The Kalahari Desert in Southern Africa is a world of extremes, its apparent emptiness punctuated by explosions of life. Relentless cycles of dry and wet, scarcity and plenty, dictate which creatures can live here, and which will die.

Shot in stunning high definition and 35mm film, and told through the eyes of renowned naturalist, filmmaker and longtime resident, Tim Liversedge, two remarkable films provide a masterful account of the inner workings of one of the last truly wild places on earth.

Kalahari: The Great Thirstland

Long spells of sparse rains leave riverbeds dry, and little to eat. Then, as if by magic, swarms and multitudes of birds and insects come to life, great herds of wildebeest and zebra gather, flamingoes coming home to breed fill the skies, and bullfrogs arise from years of sleep, when the great rains come to the Kalahari.

Kalahari: The Flooded Desert

The Okavango River flows inland through Botswana from mountains in the north, creating a spectacular delta – a permanent wetland in the heart of the desert. It supports a vibrant community of wildlife which would otherwise never call the desert home. But this world of water is no ’safe’ oasis. All life here is at the mercy of the delicate balance between the desert and the flood.

Watch a preview of Kalahari: The Flooded Desert:

To order a copy of Kalahari, please visit the NATURE Shop.

Online content for Kalahari was originally posted November 2003.

Kalahari Explorations: Lesson

admin — Sun, 02 Nov 2003 19:19:14 +0000

Subject: Language Arts, Science, Geography

Grade Level: Upper Elementary 3-5

Overview:

In this lesson students will learn about the rich and vibrant environment of the Kalahari Desert. They will learn about the diversity of life and land in the desert, create artistic responses to the film, and explore interactive Web site features to learn about the geography, wildlife, flora, topography, and people of this area. The students will work in collaborative research groups, create graphic organizers, and share what they have learned with their classmates.

Learning Objectives

Students will conduct research on varied aspects of the Kalahari Desert.
Students will synthesize and evaluate a variety of information sources.
Students will summarize content knowledge from varied resources and apply this knowledge by creating an artistic and informative presentation.

Bookmark the following sites:

Standards

Language Arts Grades 3-5

Writing, Standard 1, Level II
http://www.mcrel.org/compendium/Benchmark.asp?SubjectID=7&StandardID=1
Uses the general skills and strategies of the writing process.

Prewriting: Uses prewriting strategies to plan written work (e.g., uses graphic organizers, story maps, and webs; groups related ideas; takes notes; brainstorms ideas; organizes information according to type and purpose of writing).
Uses strategies (e.g., adapts focus, point of view, organization, form) to write for a variety of purposes (e.g., to inform, entertain, explain, describe, record ideas).

Reading, Standard 7, Level II
http://www.mcrel.org/compendium/Benchmark.asp?SubjectID=7&StandardID=7
Uses reading skills and strategies to understand and interpret a variety of informational texts.
Summarizes and paraphrases information in texts (e.g., includes the main idea and significant supporting details of a reading selection).

Viewing, Standard 9
http://www.mcrel.org/compendium/Benchmark.asp?SubjectID=7&StandardID=9

Uses viewing skills and strategies to understand and interpret visual media.
Understands different messages conveyed through visual media (e.g., main ideas and supporting details; facts and opinions; main characters, setting, and sequence of events in visual narratives).

Science Grades 3-5

Standard 6, Level II
http://www.mcrel.org/compendium/Benchmark.asp?SubjectID=2&StandardID=6
Understands relationships among organisms and their physical environment.

Knows that an organism’s patterns of behavior are related to the nature of that organism’s environment (e.g., kinds and numbers of other organisms present, availability of food and resources, physical characteristics of the environment).

Knows that changes in the environment can have different effects on different organisms (e.g., some organisms move in, others move out; some organisms survive and reproduce, others die).

Knows that all organisms (including humans) cause changes in their environments, and these changes can be beneficial or detrimental.

Geography Grades 3-5

Standard 4, Level II
http://www.mcrel.org/compendium/Benchmark.asp?SubjectID=2&StandardID=6
Understands the physical and human characteristics of place.

Knows how the characteristics of places are shaped by physical and human processes (e.g., effects of agriculture on changing land use and vegetation; effects of settlement on the building of roads; relationship of population distribution to land forms, climate, vegetation, or resources).

Background Activities

Activity One

The purpose of this activity is to introduce background vocabulary that will facilitate students’ understanding of the lesson activities.

1. Divide the students into small research groups and provide them with the list of words below. Ask each group to use varied information sources to define the terms. Tell the students to list the source or sources they used to find information about each term.

Desert
Delta
Plain
Silt
Predator
Arid
Climate Zone

2. Ask each group to present its definition and the sources it used. Compare each group’s definition and the sources used. Students may use dictionaries, encyclopedias, trade books, and the Internet to find information.

The following is a list of Internet sources that may be helpful:

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/kalahari/

http://www.zoomschool.com/biomes/desert/desert.shtml

http://www.wordcentral.com/

http://www.m-w.com/netdict.htm

http://www.natureserve.org/

3. Lead a class discussion about how one is able to learn different kinds of information depending on the source materials used.

Activity Two

The purpose of this activity is to encourage students to aesthetically respond to the film through drawing.

1. After watching the film, tell the students to draw a scene that captures the beauty and power of nature in the Kalahari Desert. Encourage students to use color to capture the richness of the land and wildlife.

Steps
Activity One

The purpose of this activity is to encourage students to explore the diverse elements of the Kalahari Desert.

1. As a class, visit the “Introduction to the Eco-Explorer” at http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/kalahari/eco_explorer.html. Ask the students to predict what information will be described in each section of the Eco-Explorer.

2. Divide the students into groups of three or four. Assign each group one section of the Eco-Explorer to investigate.

Group One: Map It
Group Two: Terra Zone
Group Three: Wildlife
Group Four: Florascope
Group Five: People
Group Six: Eco-Alert

3. Give each group a copy of the graphic organizer provided on the Organizers page to collect, record, and categorize information from the Web site section it has been assigned. A graphic organizer is a visual/spatial representation of information. It helps students explore new information and show interrelationships among concepts. Tell the students to use the Kalahari Desert Graphic Organizer as a model, modifying it by adding additional shapes and text to show connections between the facts they collect.

Activity Two

The purpose of this activity is for students to learn about the animals of the Kalahari Desert.

1. Tell the students to choose one of the following animals:

African bullfrog
Crocodile
Eagle
Elephant
Flamingo
Pangolin
Sandgrouse
Termite
Wildebeest
Zebra

After each student has selected his or her animal, send them to the site.

2. Provide each student with a 4×6 index card. Ask each student to draw a picture of the animal he or she has chosen on the front of the card, and to write a minimum of six facts on the back of the card.

3. After the students have created their animal cards, provide time for them to exchange cards with their classmates.

4. Create a classroom display of the students’ cards. Encourage the students to create more cards to add to the display if possible.

Extension Activities

Activity One

Have the students send a NATURE postcard to a friend by visiting the following section of the NATURE Web site.

Activity Two

Have the students visit the Puzzles & Games section of the NATURE Web site and explore the varied interactive activities.

Activity Three

Ask the students to browse the Wild Net Africa Web site at http://wildnetafrica.com/wildlife/wildlife.html and find a topic that is of interest to them. Have the students write a script for a television commercial that will interest readers in finding out more about the selected topic.

Kalahari: Production Credits: The Flooded Desert

admin — Sun, 02 Nov 2003 16:03:33 +0000

Kalahari: The Great Thirstland

Television Credits

Narrated by
CHRISTOPHER PLUMMER

Director
TIM LIVERSEDGE

Producer
KATYA SHIROKOW

Director of Cinematography
TIM LIVERSEDGE

Additional Cinematography
RICHARD JONES
ANDRE SLADE
MIKE HOLDING
DAVE HAMMON
DAVID PRYCE

Original Music
HAL LINDES

Editor
DAVID DICKIE

Assistant Editor
MICHAEL BANGS

Writer
KATE YOUNGDAHL

Production Manager
JUNE LIVERSEDGE

Production Crew
CRAIG BIGGS
GREG THOMPSON
DAVID PRYCE
TSHIMOLOGO MATITHITHI
OBAKWE KELESITSE
OTHUSITSWE MOLATHIWA
MIRIAM SIMON
ALEXANDER LOUDEN

High Definition Post-Production Manager
KATYA SHIROKOW

Map Animation
Livewire Productions

Digital Effects Supervisor
SCOTT SIMMONS

Digital Effects Producer
KRISTEN SIMMONS

Compositing Artist
KEVIN TUXFORD

Background Painting Artist
LUKE JONGBLOED

Satellite Maps
WorldSat International, Inc.

Title Graphics
Tim Sassoon Film Design
CHIE YOSHII
JASON JUE

Sound Recordist
JUNE LIVERSEDGE

Sound Studio
Wounded Buffalo Studios

Dubbing Mixer
NEIL HIPKISS

Dubbing Editors
TIM OWENS
MAX BYGROVE

On line Editor
JASON FRANK,
Riot

Colorist
TONY OSBOURNE,
Films at 59

Still Photography
JUNE LIVERSEDGE

Helicopter Pilots
MULLER MAAS
PETER PERLSTEIN

Special Thanks to:
The Government of Botswana
Botswana Department of Wildlife & National Parks Air Botswana
Elaine and Barry Pryce, Shakawe Lodge
Namaseri Lodge
Suzie Lumsden
Peter Lamberti

Executive Producers
TIM LIVERSEDGE
KATYA SHIROKOW

For NATURE

Series Editor
JANET HESS

Supervising Producer
JANICE YOUNG

Producers
JILL CLARKE
PATTY JACOBSON

Associate Producers
GIANNA SAVOIE
IRENE TEJARATCHI

Production Secretary
KELLY LAFFERTY

Manager
EILEEN FRAHER

Production Manager
JULIE SCHAPIRO THORMAN

Offline Editor
PATRICK GAMBUTI, JR.

Online Editor
BRIAN LONGENECKER

Sound Mixer
ED CAMPBELL

Series Producer
BILL MURPHY

Executive In Charge
WILLIAM GRANT

Executive Producer
FRED KAUFMAN

A Co-Production of Wild Logic, Thirteen/WNET New York and NHK

This program was produced by Thirteen/WNET New York, which is solely responsible for its content.

Web Credits

PRODUCER
DANIEL B. GREENBERG

DESIGNER
MICHAEL DIMAURO

PAGEBUILDING
BRIAN SANTALONE

WRITER
ELIZABETH OWEN

TECHNICAL DIRECTOR
BRIAN LEE

Thirteen Online is a production of Thirteen/WNET New York’s Kravis Multimedia Education Center in New York City. Anthony Chapman, Director of Interactive & Broadband. Bob Adleman, Business Manager. Tamara E. Robinson, Vice President & Director, Programming

Kalahari: Production Credits: The Great Thirstland

admin — Sun, 02 Nov 2003 15:46:52 +0000

Kalahari: The Great Thirstland

Television Credits

Narrated by
CHRISTOPHER PLUMMER

Director
TIM LIVERSEDGE

Producer
KATYA SHIROKOW

Cinematography
TIM LIVERSEDGE
RICHARD JONES

Additional Cinematography
JUNE LIVERSEDGE
GAVIN McCRARY

Original Music
HAL LINDES

Editor
DAVID DICKIE

Assistant Editor
MICHAEL BANGS

Writer
KATE YOUNGDAHL

Production Manager
JUNE LIVERSEDGE

Location Manager
CRAIG BIGGS

Field Assistants
TSHIMOLOGO MATITHITHI
OBAKAWE KELESITSE
OTHUSITSWE MOLATHIWA
MIRIAM SIMON

Sound Recordist
DAVID BENADE

High Definition Post-Production Manager
KATYA SHIROKOW

Map Graphics
SCOTT SIMMONS,
Livewire Productions

Title Graphics
TIM SASSOON,
Tim Sassoon Film Design

Sound Design and Mixing
Wounded Buffalo Studios

On line Editor
JASON FRANK, Riot

Still Photography
JUNE LIVERSEDGE

Helicopter Pilots
MULLER MAAS
PETER PERLSTEIN,
Okavango Helicopters

Special Thanks to:
The Government of Botswana
Botswana Department of Wildlife &
National Parks
Air Botswana
Le Roo Le Tau Lodge
Nata Lodge
Botswana Soda Ash Co.

Executive Producers
TIM LIVERSEDGE
KATYA SHIROKOW

For NATURE

Series Editor
JANET HESS

Supervising Producer
JANICE YOUNG

Producers
JILL CLARKE
PATTY JACOBSON

Associate Producers
GIANNA SAVOIE
IRENE TEJARATCHI

Production Secretary
KELLY LAFFERTY

Manager
EILEEN FRAHER

Production Manager
JULIE SCHAPIRO THORMAN

Offline Editor
PATRICK GAMBUTI, JR.

Online Editor
BARRY GLINER
BRIAN LONGENECKER

Sound Mixer
ED CAMPBELL

Series Producer
BILL MURPHY

Executive In Charge
WILLIAM GRANT

Executive Producer
FRED KAUFMAN

A Co-Production of Wild Logic,
Thirteen/WNET New York and NHK

This program was produced by Thirteen/WNET New York, which is solely responsible for its content.

Web Credits

PRODUCER
DANIEL B. GREENBERG

DESIGNER
MICHAEL DIMAURO

PAGEBUILDING
BRIAN SANTALONE

WRITER
ELIZABETH OWEN

TECHNICAL DIRECTOR
BRIAN LEE

Kalahari: Resources: The Flooded Desert

admin — Sun, 02 Nov 2003 15:39:18 +0000

The Water Page: The Okavango
http://www.africanwater.org/okavango.htm
Read articles on water issues in the Okavango Delta and find out about plans for its use in the future.

Okavango Delta Peoples of Botswana
http://www.mindspring.com/~okavango/
Discover the indigenous peoples of the Kalahari and the Okavango. An extensive collection of links on the region is included.

Discover Botswana: Okavango Delta in Africa
http://www.discover-botswana.com/articles/okavango.php
Learn more about the climate, wildlife, people, and attractions of the Okavango area.

Greatest Places: Okavango
http://www.greatestplaces.org/notes/okavango.htm
The history and geology of the Makgadikgadi Salt Pan and the Okavango are presented in this informative article.

Conservation International: Southern Africa
http://www.conservation.org/xp/CIWEB/regions/africa/safrica.xml
Find out what’s threatening Southern Africa’s environment and learn about current campaigns working to save endangered wildlife.

Okavango Delta: Okavango Swamp Wildlife
http://www.wildlifesafari.info/okavango.htm
Learn which animals thrive in the Kalahari and which prefer the cool waters of the Delta.

Books

Bailey, Adrian. OKAVANGO: AFRICA’S WETLAND WILDERNESS. London: New Holland Books, 1999.

Lanting, Frans and Eckstrom, Christine. OKAVANGO: AFRICA’S LAST EDEN. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1993.

Ross, Karen. OKAVANGO: JEWEL OF THE KALAHARI. Hampshire: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1990.

Scholz, Christopher. FIELDWORK: A GEOLOGIST’S MEMOIR OF THE KALAHARI. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997.

Kalahari: Resources: The Great Thirstland

admin — Sun, 02 Nov 2003 15:30:09 +0000

Web Resources

South African National Parks
http://www.SANParks.org/parks/kgalagadi/
Check out the Kalagadi Trans-frontier Park’s page for more information on the region’s wildlife.

Kalahari Peoples Fund
http://www.kalaharipeoples.org/
Read articles on the status of San groups, their culture, and the difficulties they face in modern Southern Africa.

Kalagadi Trans-frontier Park
http://www.wildlifesafari.info/kalagadi_park.htm
Learn more about the park that encloses the Kalahari.

Kalahari Xeric Savannah
http://www.worldwildlife.org/wildworld/
profiles/terrestrial/at/at1309_full.html
This profile on the Kalahari includes information on the region’s climate and biodiversity.

Destination Botswana
http://www.botswana.co.za/botswana-kalahari-overview.html
Destination Botswana provides a concise history of the area and a guide for those planning on traveling to the Kalahari or Botswana.

Kalahari-desert.com
http://www.kalahari-desert.com/destination_thepans.asp
Read detailed descriptions of the famous Makgadikgadi Salt Pan and the park surronding it. Be sure to check out the section on the delta as well.

Books

Dennis, Nigel. THE KALAHARI: SURVIVAL IN A THIRSTLAND WILDERNESS. Cape Town: Struik New Holland Publishers, 1997.

Isaacson, Rupert. THE HEALING LAND: THE BUSHMEN AND THE KALAHARI DESERT. New York: Grove Press, 2003.

Joubert, Dereck and Beverly. THE AFRICA DIARIES: AN ILLUSTRATED MEMOIR OF LIFE IN THE BUSH. National Geographic Society, 2000.

Owens, Mark and Delia. CRY OF THE KALAHARI. Boston: Mariner Books, 1992.

Kalahari: Interview with the Filmmaker

admin — Sun, 02 Nov 2003 15:26:42 +0000

Tim Liversedge makes his home in Maun, Botswana, on the southern edge of the Okavango Delta. He has lived in Botswana for more than 30 years, as a game warden, a river boat captain, an airplane and helicopter pilot, an entrepreneur, a filmmaker, and, above all, a naturalist. Since the 1980s, he has channeled his love and expertise of this unique region’s diverse wildlife into the production of no less than 20 nature films. THE GREAT THIRSTLAND and THE FLOODED DESERT constitute his most recent work.

NATURE spoke to Mr. Liversedge in October 2003 about the making of the two films:

Could you tell us about how you moved to Botswana and began making nature films?

I was actually born in London. When I was a year old my parents settled in what is now Zimbabwe. Before I had left formal schooling, I became involved with helping to set up a museum and look after its natural history collections. Later, when I was 20 years old, I was very fortunate to be chosen by the Smithsonian to be a representative of a two-person team that conducted mammal research in Botswana. I soon became the leader of this team and it was the most wonderful opportunity. Botswana, or Bechuanaland at the time, was a British protectorate and had huge, huge expanses of wilderness and wild area. I was sent a four-wheel drive truck, masses of equipment they thought I might need, and told to go off and collect specimens of mice and rats and basically everything that might be interesting. We got huge amounts of data in what turned out to be a three-year survey. That collection of specimens, and data, and everything else is out in the Smithsonian today.

I then became one of Botswana’s first game wardens. That was in the late 1960s. Three years of amazingly interesting work, everything from anti-poaching to helping decide boundaries of new national parks and trying to raise money for wildlife in the country. The country is mainly cattle country, desperately poor, and we were trying to find ways to make wildlife pay.

Were you at that time doing any film work or photography?

I did a lot of still photography at that time, and in the very early 1970s I did something that I intended to be the beginning of a filming career. I built a big riverboat; about a 25-ton boat. The idea was to do wildlife research and make films and take guests on cruises — a lot of the Okavango Delta was uncharted territory then. We ended up having to do so much work looking after guests that I only managed to get some research projects done and never got into the filming. At the end of that I’d done the first scientific work on Pell fishing owls, as well as conduct specialized trips — we were one of only two safari operations in the country at that point.

But after five years or so I’d started some businesses in Botswana and shortly thereafter I was able to buy my first professional camera and started doing some photography. During this time my wife, June, and I set up several businesses in order to make the money to fund the kinds of things we wanted to do. The main one was to make wildlife films. In 1984 I came up with the idea of doing a three-part series on Botswana, which was later aired on PBS, called OKAVANGO: JEWEL OF THE KALAHARI. Since then I’ve made about a dozen films.

In THE GREAT THIRSTLAND you featured flamingos and their migration. Where do the flamingos migrate from and how do you follow them?

In 1987 I’d just started to make a little film on flamingos, because I had been asked by some ornithologists in Namibia to see whether there were any flamingos in Botswana. They had noticed a sudden decline in all the flamingos that normally live up and down the Namibian coast, also called the Skeleton Coast. At that time I had a small plane — I’d been flying since the early 1970s — and I did an aerial survey and amazingly found a huge breeding colony of flamingos on the Makgadikgadi Salt Pan. So I got really excited and decided to make a film of them. And, of course, that led to questions of whether they all came from Namibia. It seemed that there were more birds on the Makgadikgadi than they normally see in Namibia. So it’s all speculation, although the very first tagging of flamingos has just taken place … I think so far it’s just proven they come from Namibia, but we’re pretty certain they probably come from the East African Rift Valley and also from the south. There are a few in the southern part of South Africa and some even near Cape Town. So I’ve been going every year with my plane counting flamingos — when they’re there. We thought, when we made that first film, they might only be there every 10 years or so because nobody had ever seen them there before. We’ve found that they come there much more often. They don’t always breed successfully, but, when conditions are good, they breed rapidly. One set of adults lays eggs, rears chicks, the eggs take 30 days to hatch, and within a few days of them hatching they toddle off and then another load of adults get onto those nests, do some temporary repairs, and lay eggs, and 30 days later another wave of little chicks comes out. In the end, if the rains have been really good, you can get 3, 4, or 5 waves.

What was it like to film the flamingos?

Flamingos are generally extremely difficult to film. You’ve got to be extremely careful not to disturb them. One can never get very, very close. I’ve used a variety of ways to get out there. I used a four-wheel drive, what we call a quad bike, an ATV with big fat tires. From high in my plane I would mark down where they were with a GPS and then go out on this ATV with cameras packed in waterproof pillow boxes. You can only go across any distance when the salt pan starts to dry out. It becomes a lake for part of the year after the heavy rains, and then gradually dries out. And the chicks are stranded when it dries out.

So I made some really, really risky trips about 15 miles out from shore to get the shots of them on their march. One occasion, when I went to visit the abandoned nest mounds, I had a really scary experience as I drove up to the edge of the mound. It actually looked as though it was all completely dry. It was really bizarre because the temperatures are soaring, probably 140 degrees on the surface, but it looks like you’re on snow or ice. Everything’s white around you and as one gets near those mounds, the ground, the crust that forms when it dries out, gets thinner and thinner, possibly because the flamingos have damaged the actual surface by making the mounds. I noticed at one particular time the whole surface started to give like a thin piece of ice, when I suddenly realized that this quad bike was actually causing a whole area around me to slightly subside. I got really scared because in many places there’s 300 feet of deadly ooze beneath the thin crust.

I got off the bike very carefully and, as I put both feet on the ground, one of my legs just went straight through this crust and I was up to my thigh. I hung onto the bike, thinking that the whole thing was about to collapse. And I was so far out, my radio wouldn’t work to the mainland where my wife was waiting with the vehicles and other equipment. It was a horrifying moment. I pulled my leg out, pulling myself on the bike, started the bike, put it in reverse, and slowly, slowly tried to put half my weight on my bike and half my weight on my feet and backed out several hundred yards before I felt safe enough to get back on the bike. And it’s very easy to get stuck anywhere out there. The other problem is, even though it was a white surface, it was still moist and scalding hot mud would fly up and land all over. And it was highly salty too. Very corrosive stuff. Not just salt, different salts dissolved, it was very alkaline. So that was very dangerous for the equipment. And it’s very difficult to handle the equipment when you’re completely covered in mud yourself.

In the second film, THE FLOODED DESERT, we see that fire plays an important role in the Okavango Delta. Where do the fires come from?

Some of them are started by people, unfortunately. Usually either just before the flood has arrived or just after it’s been there, and long after the rains, which is when you would normally get lightning. A combination of rains and lightning and fires is not a bad one because some patches get completely doused and put out. So you get a more patchy burn. But nowadays it’s often set alight at the height of the dry season when there’s no chance of it being stopped and it burns for miles. Fires also burn in the peat. During dry periods they burn for years deep underground. I’ve heard stories of people falling through the surface, sometimes 6 to 8 feet down into burning embers. That’s not a very usual thing, but it certainly does happen because there’s a thick layer of peat and under very dry conditions it gets dried out and exposed.

You see islands in the film, circular with a circle of heavy forest trees and palms around the edge of a big open white space. We’d seen a massive one of these islands with the fire advancing on it. The thick trees on the fringe, a lot of them were palm trees that go off like bombs when the fire gets there. So we settled down in the center with a helicopter, thinking we were far away from any fire. We waited for the fire to get to the fringe of these big trees to get some spectacular images, some of which are in the film. I was there with another cameraman and so we shut down the helicopter, it was a jet-helicopter, and got the two cameras out, tripod, batteries, and the whole thing. Eventually they started exploding, big palms going up. Massive flames. And it generated, suddenly, such a wind and what we hadn’t thought about was the very sparse grass cover between us and these trees. With that wind and the heat, the flames just came roaring towards us. When we suddenly realized what was going on we just grabbed the cameras off the tripods and dove for the helicopter. To start a jet-helicopter you have to wait while the blades slowly turn and you have to build up the right settings on various gauges before you can even begin to lift off. And all the time I was thinking of something I’d been warned about by my instructor when I learned to fly helicopters. He told me of a helicopter that crashed in California. It was hovering over the top of a chimney and a bubble of carbon dioxide had come out of the chimney and put the engine out, because you need oxygen for a jet engine. So, as we pull out of these flames, there were obviously big pockets of carbon dioxide floating around and I just thought, “Boy, any minute this thing is gonna cough and we’re gonna go straight back into the fire.” But we didn’t. So we did run some risks, but I’ve been living in Africa in the wild for a very, very long time and I’ve been very careful to stay in one piece. And I don’t have any serious scars on my body, thankfully. So far. And it’s not as dangerous as people think. Sure, there are some risks, but I would be one to play them down whenever I can.

How long did you spend making these films?

I think it would be fair to say they were made over the last four to five years.

Is there anything in particular that you’ll remember from making these films?

Well, getting back to the first film, THE GREAT THIRSTLAND, some of the most hilarious things were the bullfrogs. They’re absolutely amazing. And it’s a huge frog. I think we say it’s the size of a dinner plate and it really is. Weighs about 5 pounds, a big male. They do attack anything, the male frog or the tadpoles and the little frogs continuously attacked me. They got more and more used to me, but they’ve got very sharp teeth and I certainly got bitten several times when I couldn’t get my hand out of the way in time. So they’re incredible and the fact that they will construct these canals to get their tadpoles to new feeding areas or to get them to new water when their water is about to dry up is remarkable behavior. But the most interesting thing was the antics of the little frogs. They’re like little bullies and they really attack anything that they think they can overpower and of course they eat each other and it is absolutely hysterical. I was actually filming most of that in 35mm film before I had use of a high-definition camera, where we had 40 minutes of tape to run if needed. But with 35mm film, you have 4 minutes and, of course, the little things sat there doing nothing very often for 4 minutes or more. Very, very expensive and nerve-wracking. But, in compensation, what they did, when they did do something, was hysterical.