♪ Narrator: Sure enough... at first light, Xudum is found nearby.

♪ Woodward: Hey, girl.

How are you doing?

Narrator: With the birth of her cubs imminent, Brad and Tristen are following her every move.

♪ Woodward: Come say hello to us.

♪ She's definitely very relaxed with us.

I mean, it's of her own free will in her own domain.

And, you know, it's a very, very beautiful thing to happen.

♪ Random one.

There's a leopard in the middle of the floodplain moving through the water.

Narrator: But only 500 yards from Xudum...

So weird.

Narrator: Greg spots something unusual.

♪ Broad daylight, and there's a leopard just--ha!--walking through the water.

♪ Man on radio: [Indistinct], Greg, you're gonna go for it.

Yeah, I'm on it.

♪ Dimitriadis: If you need any backup with that leopard, just let me know.

I'm not far from you.

Narrator: Anna's joining Greg with the drone.

♪ Hartman: If you ask anyone, oh, yeah, leopards moving through water at noon, why would a leopard be moving around now?

♪ Not something you see very often.

♪ This is Metsi, the young male leopard we've seen around a few times of late, actually.

I wonder what he's up to.

He's been paying so much attention to the smell of something underneath where he's been walking.

♪ He could be sniffing around and smelling Xudum, actually.

That's a possibility.

Narrator: Metsi's nose is leading him closer to Xudum.

♪ Dimitriadis: Oh, there he is.

Wow.

So camouflaged.

♪ Hartman: What he might be smelling is her scent.

Considering that she's in a sausage tree only about 200 meters, 300 meters south of us.

Really unlucky for Xudum then at the moment, because we've got a flood coming in.

It's pushing males onto these islands in higher densities.

♪ Which is a challenge.

♪ Especially, you know, with potential cubs on the way.

♪ Any male leopard who finds cubs that are not his is very likely to kill them.

Yeah, we don't want him sniffing around after Xudum.

♪ He looks beautiful, but he is also sinister.

♪ Narrator: Luckily for Xudum, Metsi is picking up the scent of something else.

♪ Dimitriadis: Those lechwe cottoned on that something's not quite right.

♪ He's hunting.

♪ Trying to pick up on lechwe lambs.

♪ A young lechwe lamb would be perfect for him.

♪ The big leopard wouldn't want to be so obvious.

And Metsi is, I don't even think a leopard could get more obvious.

♪ Amazing, amazing.

I've never seen a leopard hunting like this before.

♪ Whoa.

♪ Here's a female lechwe that has just followed this leopard onto an island, so I can't think of another reason why she would be following him other than to protect her baby.

Narrator: Female lechwe hide their young after birth.

She's not happy with him going in there.

♪ Just the fact that the lechwe is reacting like this tells me that her baby is in there.

Narrator: The lamb is stashed in deep vegetation to keep it safe.

♪ Hopefully for the baby, it's by the elephants, because I don't think Metsi is going to want to get too close to the elephants.

♪ Narrator: It's too well hidden and Metsi gives up.

♪ Hartman: Oh.

That's a surprise.

You've climbed the tree.

♪