Road Media is currently involved in a number of new projects. First up is a film for PBS’s Nature series, on a little known zebra migration in Botswana’s Makgadikgadi Pans, which is due for delivery in late 2012. Read more about the migration in a feature story Robyn and Adrian produced for Smithsonian magazine.

Road Media’s first film was delivered in 2009. Co-produced with National Geographic Channel, the film documents the life of a troop of chacma baboons in Botswana’s Okavango Delta.

To read more about the film click here: Swamp Troop

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Adrian Bailey and Robyn Keene-Young recently spent the best part of a year with a troop of Chacma baboons in Botswana’s wild and remote Okavango Delta. On a string of islands, inaccessible by vehicle for most of the year and miles upstream from the nearest outpost of civilization, the photographer and writer walked with the troop, sharing and documenting the daily adventures of baboon life. From dawn to dusk, alongside their fellow primates, the couple waded through flooded plains, avoided predators and dodged the ill-tempered elephants of this wetland paradise. By nightfall, they poled their dugout canoe to their island home: a rustic tented camp under a sprawling fig tree.

The feature bears witness to a year of tragedy and triumph, friendship and parenthood in this extraordinary troop. We meet individuals like the crotchety, quick-tempered old female, who becomes vulnerable to attack by lions and leopards as she struggles to keep up with the troop. We share the excitement of a new birth with a first-time mother; and the sorrow of a grieving mother, who continues to carry and groom her dead infant’s body. We are entertained by the antics of boisterous juveniles as they play and bully in trees and on termite mounds. We explore the challenges faced by the alpha male, a fearless ruler occupying a coveted position; and the threat embodied in a dangerous immigrant, intent on the throne. In a land where immigrant males kill infants to hasten the onset of the mother’s estrus cycle, strong social bonds become crucial to survival.

If you are interested in the story, please contact us for a link to a private portfolio.

Missionary and explorer David Livingstone once referred to the Zambezi River as a “magnificent stream”. Clearly, he never paddled himself down Africa’s fourth largest river in a Canadian-style canoe, sharing the water with a few thousand fiercely territorial hippos and man-eating crocodiles, camping on its banks in the company of lions, hyenas, elephants and buffaloes. Had he done so, he might’ve been more inclined to the moniker of “Mighty Zambezi”.

The feature relates the nervous, yet happy, blur of a week’s paddling in the company of four Zimbabwean guides, who all shared a healthy regard for Mr Snaggly Tooth (the Zambezi’s Nile crocodiles they spoke of in whispers). It is a tale of hot, wind-crazed afternoons and moonlit campsites where lions roared and hyenas shrieked during dinner, all served up with chilled Zambezi Lagers. The story captures the thrill of drifting to within spitting distance of buffaloes and elephants on this illustrious waterway that forms a natural border between Zimbabwe and Zambia.

This feature documents a pack of African wild dogs (Lycaon pictus) during their annual denning season. In the austral winter from July to September, these typically hyperactive animals become semi-sedentary while they produce and raise their young at a den – commonly an abandoned warthog or aardvark burrow in a termite mound surrounded by impenetrable woodland.

Over several months, Adrian Bailey and Robyn Keene-Young staked out a den and watched 11 adults raise a litter of 12 pups (a significant contribution to the beleaguered wild population of around 3000 animals) from black helpless bundles into healthy, pack-minded “painted wolves”.

The story examines the behavior and natural history of wild dogs, and is available as a photo essay, or as a full-length feature. It documents the milestones in the pups’ development, their tentative discovery of other animals (including the resident hooded vultures), their interactions with the rest of the family and the extraordinary commitment of the pack to raising the young. The story illustrates the strong social bonds between pack members, as well as the myths that have led to the demise of one of Africa’s most endangered predators.

View more images at www.baileyphotos.com

As human development has closed the ancient migratory paths African wildlife used to follow to seek fresh grazing and water, the manual relocation of wildlife has replaced natural migration. A seasonal operation that takes place when animals are under least stress, predators, antelope and even elephant are captured and moved for commercial or scientific reasons.

Adrian Bailey & Robyn Keene-Young document one of the largest such operations in recent times – the relocation of over 5 000 head of game from South Africa’s famous Kruger National Park to neighbouring Mozambique’s newly promulgated Parque Nacional do Limpopo. The operation was one step in establishing a seed population for the newly formed Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park – one of the region’s so-called Peace Parks that straddle national boundaries.

View more images at www.baileyphotos.com

For the downstream wonder that is the Okavango Delta the journey begins in a place at the end of the earth. At least that’s how early Portuguese explorers described the south eastern highlands of Angola – as terras do fim do Mundo. Here, a dozen or so streams bubble to life and slowly join forces into a single narrow waterway, Angola’s Cubango River.

Destined for the ocean, the Cubango fights its way across Kalahari sands, advancing across the border into Namibia, and again at Botswana. But in the heat of the battle, there’s a mutiny. The Cubango, now the Okavango, is tripped by fault lines and abruptly dissolves into a fan of rebellious channels that wander off in all directions. This river was not intended for the sea after all. Instead it terminates in a massive sink, albeit a profoundly beautiful one – the 18 000 km² Okavango Delta.

Botswana is a flat, sunburned land, largely smothered under a mantle of Kalahari sand. Yet, in the northwest of this arid country the Okavango Delta provides a glinting wonderland of floodplains, meandering channels and forested islands. A giant waterhole surrounded by semi-desert on all sides cannot help but draw tens of thousands of creatures to its shores. Over 500 species of birds have been recorded while aerial surveys have estimated populations of up to 260 000 large mammals in the Okavango Delta. Today, many of these birds and animals enjoy the protection of the 4871 square kilometre Moremi Game Reserve.

Of the five species of baboon, only the chacma (Papio ursinus) occurs in southern Africa. They range from Namibia to Mozambique; from the floodplains of the Okavango Delta, to the mountains of the Drakensburg; from the bushveld of the interior, to the beaches of the Cape peninsula – wherever there’s water, and trees or cliffs for roosting.  Their catholic diet that includes insects, fruits, seeds, grasses, roots, flowers, shellfish and, opportunistically, small birds and mammals, allows them to live just about anywhere.

Baboons live in troops numbering anywhere between 8 and 200 members. A strict hierarchy, in which all males dominate all females, governs the troop. They typically roost in trees or cliffs at night, and these sleeping sites have a distinct smell on account of the dung and urine that builds up over time. Baboons descend these roosts well after dawn to begin their day.

Females form the core of a troop and rarely leave it, while their male offspring typically emigrate after reaching sexual maturity. Related females maintain close relationships, supporting each other during aggressive encounters with other females. A hierarchy of matrilines, which is typically stable, determines the female dominance ranks. Daughters inherit their rank from their mothers, with the youngest daughter ranking highest.

Most males leave their natal troop at around nine years of age to join another. Their position in the dominance ranks is based on their success in competitive displays and aggressive interactions. Hi-speed chases and displays like yawning (showing canines) and loud ‘wahoo’ barking, allow males to appraise each other’s strengths without risking injury from actual physical contact. High-ranking males monopolise matings with fertile females and also claim the best feeding and roosting sites.  Consequently the alpha position is highly coveted and few males are able to hold onto it for very long.

Infants are born with bright pink skin and black hair, which begins to change to adult colouration at three months. They are carried against their mother’s chests until they learn to ride jockey-style on her back – usually from about 6 weeks. Infants are weaned at around one year and the process is usually characterized by spectacular tantrums by the infant.