Notes From the Hide

Wildlife field stories from a working ecologist

Sipho Mthembu2 episodes2 min of audio218 playsEpisodic

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S1 · E2Jun 18, 20260:48157 plays Preview

Collaring a Leopard Before the Heat

A darting operation in the Kruger has a two-hour window before the sun makes it dangerous for the animal. Sipho follows the vet, the tracker and the data from the first alarm call to the release.

S1 · E1May 19, 20260:5161 plays Members

Three Nights Waiting for a Pangolin

Sipho joins a research team in the Kalahari trying to fit a tag to one of the most trafficked and least understood mammals on Earth, and explains what the tag will tell them.

About the show

Notes From the Hide is a fortnightly narrated field diary from Sipho Mthembu, a wildlife ecologist who has spent fifteen years tracking animals in the Kruger, the Drakensberg and the Kalahari. Each 40 to 50 minute episode follows one piece of fieldwork from the first cold morning to the last data sheet: collaring a leopard, counting vultures from a hide, waiting three nights for a pangolin, or following a wild dog pack across a border fence. Sipho records on location, so you hear the dawn chorus, the radio chatter and the long silences, then explains the science behind the work and what the numbers eventually said. There are conversations with trackers, rangers and the researchers whose names never make the headlines. It is for listeners who like nature documentaries but want the parts that get cut, the waiting, the mistakes, and the quiet thrill when the animal finally shows.

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