In Photos: Africa - Kalahari: Episode 1

Exploring Africa's ancient south west corner, two extraordinary deserts sit side by side; the Kalahari and Namib.

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Namib Desert Dunes

An aerial view of Namib desert dunes. The dunes receive very little by way of rain, sometimes years pass between showers, but an almost daily cloak of vaporous fog provides just enough moisture to allow life to cling on in this, the oldest desert in the world.
Giraffe Necking

Rival male giraffes fight in the Hoanib, a river of sand in Namibia. Combat is usually avoided by giraffes but, just occasionally, when the stakes are high enough, males will violently swing their heads to deliver ‘sledgehammer’ blows. The Africa team followed one male for over a month to capture behaviour unlike anything seen before.
Leopard

A rare glimpse of a Kalahari leopard – the most adaptable of the big cats. But the Kalahari isn’t an easy place to live, even for a leopard. The Africa crew immersed themselves in the world of this ‘teenage’ male as he learned how to survive on his own.
Fairy Circles

Mysterious Fairy Circles dimple the Giribes Plains in the Namib desert. These strange formations, up to 10 metres across, are the subject of many theories but are, as yet, unexplained by modern science. The fairy circles epitomise the Namib - the oldest, and perhaps the weirdest desert in the World.
Black Rhino

A black rhino at a secret location in the Kalahari. These highly endangered symbols of the African bush have a reputation for being solitary and grumpy but using specially built, highly sensitive cameras the Africa crew was able to reveal the character of the rhino literally in a new light.
Black Rhino Sunset

A black rhino arrives early at a secret waterhole to join a night time gathering of sometimes 15 or so other rhinos. The Africa crew captured this unique behaviour for the first, but possibly the last time – as poaching of black rhino has risen to a shocking level in the last five years.
Craning Giraffes

Three desert giraffes stretch for a better view. These giraffes live in the dry ‘ephemeral river’ valleys – the so called rivers of sand - of the Namib desert. They survive on the scantest of resources and will fight to defend their territories if challenged.
Waterhole

Springbok, oryx and Finch-larks - just a few of the hundreds of animals gathering at a single waterhole in Etosha, Namibia. At the height of the dry season, even a trickle of water is enough to attract huge numbers of usually solitary animals to drink.
Ground Cricket

An armoured ground cricket prepares to defend itself by squirting its own blood through joints in its armour. These massive insects emerge in huge numbers on the rare occasion that rain falls, and begin their quest for meat.
Meerkat

Meerkats are unique to the Kalahari, in south west Africa, where they live in tight knit family groups each looking out for the other. But these famously intelligent animals must also keep an eye out for trickery in their midst - the Africa crew filmed, for the first time, meerkats falling victim to the Kalahari’s greatest con-artist.
Cave Catfish

Cave catfish (Clarias cavernicola) have been isolated from their nearest relatives for a long period of time and are now separated by hundreds of kilometres. Filmed in HD for the first time, these golden, blind fish feed on wind-blown debris and bat guano. Living in ‘fossil water’ deep beneath arid Namibia, the blind cave catfish are thought to be the rarest and most isolated fish in the world.
Drongo and Meerkat

A fork-tailed drongo (Dicrurus adsimilis) and a meerkat (Suricata suricatta) have an angry exchange in Africa’s Kalahari. Drongos are short on flying prey in the winter months and resort to stealing food dug out of the sand by meerkats. But the meerkats do not give up their hard earned meals easily.
Towering African Elephant

An African elephant towers above herds of antelope and zebra as they congregate at a precious waterhole on the Etosha salt pan in Namibia.
Golden Wheel Spider

A very close up portrait of a golden wheel spider in Namibia. Unearthed by a Pompilid wasp, this golden wheel spider was filmed in super slow motion escaping as only this species can; by rolling into a ‘wheel’ and away down the dune slope.
Spraying Cricket

An armoured ground cricket (Acanthoplus discoidalis) sprays a jet of its own foul-tasting blood towards a red-billed quelea (Quelea quelea) on the attack. This mother quelea is defending her nest but the cricket will do just about anything to ensure its escape. The gruesome ‘auto-hemorrhaging’ behaviour was captured for the first time in slow motion by the Africa team.